Theodor Ellwein

Theodor Ellwein (born May 18, 1897 in Madras , British India , † February 22, 1962 in Munich ) was a German Protestant theologian , religion teacher and university professor .

Life

Ellwein was born in 1897 as the son of an Evangelical Lutheran missionary in East India. In 1903 he moved to Augsburg to the house of his aunt and a pastor's widow. He attended high school near St. Anna in Augsburg and passed an emergency maturity test. He was a war volunteer in 1915 and served as a front soldier; he was awarded the Iron Cross (EK) 2nd class. In 1918 he was released as a lieutenant in the reserve. In 1918/19 he was a member of the Epp Freikorps in Munich.

From 1919 to 1922 he studied German and Protestant theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen . In 1921 he passed the first theological exam and the preacher's exam in Munich. In the 1920s he was a member of the Evangelical-Bund Christian German Youth. In 1922/23 he was accepted into the Evangelical Preacher Seminar in Munich. Ordination followed in 1922 and in 1923 he passed the second theological exam. In 1924 he became an extra- curricular religion teacher and later a teacher at the gymnasium in Hof , Upper Franconia . From 1930 to 1934 he was a teacher at St. Anna's high school in Augsburg. During this time he was also the co-editor of the magazine Evangelium und Gegenwart .

In 1933 he became a member of in opposition to the German Christians standing Young Reformation movement . In 1933/34 he was entrusted with the revitalization of the Lutheran people's mission by the Evangelical-Lutheran Bavarian regional bishop Hans Meiser , who was active in the Confessing Church . He was born in 1932 with Georg Bertram at the Ludwigs-Universität Gießen with the dissertation Evangelical teaching. A lay doctrine of Lic. Theol. e. H. PhD. In 1934 he was acting lecturer for Protestant religious teaching and religious education and in 1935 professor at the college for teacher training (HfL) in Weilburg , Hessen-Nassau ; In 1937 he was on an appointment list for the practical theological chair at the University of Rostock .

In 1936 he was given leave of absence from university to become a scheduled senior consistorial advisor and theological consultant at the church chancellery of the German Evangelical Church (DEK) in Berlin, which was brought into line. He was head of the “ People's Church Working Group of the DEK” set up by the Reich Church Committee , which was supposed to create a church center block, as well as chairman of the circle of friends and editor of the circulars ( Sunday in the people ). From 1938 to 1941 he was editor of the German Evangelical Church ( Protestant religious instruction ). In May 1939, Ellwein declared his collaboration with the Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life of German Christians, which was directed by his academic teacher Bertram. He was also one of the signatories of the Godesberg Declaration of March 26, 1939, in which it was u. a. called:

"By the National Socialism fought any political claim to power of the churches and the species-appropriate National Socialist ideology binding on all makes the German people, he leads the work of Martin Luther ."

- Godesberg Declaration 1939

Ellwein was a close advisor to Reich Church Minister Hanns Kerrl , whom he met at the end of 1936 and with whom he was friends until his death in 1941.

In 1932 he joined the NSDB and in 1933 the NSDAP . In addition, he was a member of the DAV , the NSV , the Reichsbund der Kinderreich , the Reichskulturkammer and the Reichsluftschutzbund . At the Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi party in 1935, he was a leader of chain bomber vehicles. In 1939 he became a Wehrmacht support officer at the General Staff of the Air Force in Berlin. Later he was supposed to be the clerk for the ideological education of the Wehrmacht in the staff of the Council of Ministers for the Reich Defense , Hermann Göring , which however u. a. was prevented by the SS. From 1940 to 1944 he was instead captain, first general staff officer (Ia) and squadron adjutant with Kampfgeschwader 2 . As a staff officer of the Air Force , awarded the EK 1st class, the repeat clasp for EK II. Class and the front flying clasp in bronze, Ellwein fell into Soviet captivity in April 1945 . There he was active again as a pastor by his own account.

After his release in December 1949, he was retired by the church in 1950. In 1951 he became a religion teacher at the Pasing grammar school and a lecturer at the teacher training institute in Munich-Pasing . From 1954 to 1961 he was the head of the pedagogical department of the Evangelical Academy Bad Boll near Göppingen. In 1955 he was a member of the study commission for teacher training ("Tutzinger Recommendations") at the Evangelical Academy in Tutzing . In 1961 he retired.

He published u. a. in the journal for Protestant religious instruction and in the educational manual .

His brother Eduard Ellwein (1898–1974) was also a Protestant theologian. The son Thomas Ellwein (1927-1998) was a political and administrative scientist in the Federal Republic.

Fonts (selection)

• Evangelical teaching. A lay dogmatics . Christian Kaiser Verlag , Munich 1932 (3rd edition 1934)
• Law and Gospel (Series Confessing Church , no.3). Kaiser, Munich 1933

• Abridged version: Little doctrine of the faith . Kaiser, Munich 1934

• Popular education and the church in Germany. A historical overview . Furche Verlag, Berlin 1937
• (Ed.): Heimat. The German land in pictures and classic testimonials . Reclam, Leipzig 1940
• (Ed.): The biblical message in the educational crisis of today's school. Lectures and reports (series of publications by the Pedagogical Study Commission of the Study Community of Protestant Academies, no. 4). Diesterweg Verlag , Frankfurt 1956
• (Ed.): Child and Original Sin . Evangelical Academy Bad Boll 1959
• What are the requirements for an interdenominational conversation? . Evangelical Academy Bad Boll 1962
• Christian Freedom and Bonding in Politics . From the estate, ed. by Thomas Ellwein . Olzog, Munich 1964

literature

• Hannelore Braun, Gertraud Grünzinger (Zsgest./Bearb.): Personal encyclopedia on German Protestantism 1919–1949 (= work on contemporary church history . Series A, sources. Vol. 12). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2006 ISBN 3-525-55761-2 p. 70
• Alexander Hesse: The professors and lecturers of the Prussian educational academies (1926-1933) and colleges for teacher training (1933-1941) . Deutscher Studienverlag, Weinheim 1995 ISBN 3-89271-588-2 pp. 255-257
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2nd act. Edition Frankfurt 2005 ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 pp. 133-134

See also

• Publication series Confessing Church

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hannelore Braun, Gertraud Grünzinger (Zsgest./Bearb.): Personal Lexicon on German Protestantism 1919–1949 (= work on contemporary church history . Series A, sources. Vol. 12). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-55761-2 , p. 70.
2. ^ Sabine Pauli: The Theological Institutes from 1933–1945 . In: Heinrich Holze (Hrsg.): The theological faculty Rostock under two dictatorships. History studies 1933–1989. Festschrift for Gert Haendler on his 80th birthday (= Rostock theological studies . Vol. 13). Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-6887-7 , p. 52.
3. ↑ Susannah Heschel : The Aryan Jesus. Christian theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-12531-2 , p. 175.
4. ↑ cit. according to Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, pp. 133-134. The whole explanation with Renate Meurer, Reinhard Meurer: Texts of National Socialism. Examples, analyzes, suggestions for work. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich 1982 ISBN 3486840614 pp. 41–45
5. ↑ Karl-Heinrich Melzer: The Spiritual Trust Council. Spiritual leadership for the German Evangelical Church in World War II? (Work on contemporary church history. Series B: Representations. Vol. 17). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 1991 ISBN 3-525-55717-5 p. 23.
6. ↑ Georg May : Interconfessionalism in the German military pastoral care from 1933 to 1945 (= canonical studies and texts . Vol. 30). Grüner, Amsterdam 1978, ISBN 90-603-2103-0 , p. 445.