Walter Braun (clergyman)

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Walter Max Emil Braun (born January 13, 1892 in Windenburg , East Prussia , parish Kinten ; † February 24, 1973 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant pastor, most recently general superintendent in Potsdam.

Life

Walter Braun studied Protestant theology at the Albertus University in Königsberg and at the Philipps University in Marburg . In 1914 he was drafted into military service and suffered a permanent hand injury in 1915, so that he was disabled and was allowed to return home. After attending the preachers' seminar in Wittenburg, then West Prussia, in 1915/1916, he became assistant preacher and then pastor of the Evangelical Church of the older provinces of Prussia in November 1917, from which the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union emerged after the end of the First World War .

Professional background

Braun worked in several East Prussian communities: 1917 in Laugszargen in the Tilsit district and from 1918 to 1922 in Königsberg i. Pr. And 1922/1923 in the Kaukehmen church and from 1923 to 1926 in the Lappienen church .

Braun won the executive committee of the Berlin Mission Society in 1925 as "home department head". From 1926 to 1947 he was a mission inspector for the Berlin Mission. In 1936/1937 he once visited East Africa to explain to Berlin missionaries who were not averse to National Socialism that it was harmful to Christian missions.

He was also a leading employee of the Working Group of People's Missionaries in Germany . In the 1940s, Braun had to take over the leadership of the people's mission in Greater Berlin . From 1947 he headed the working group for people's mission in East Germany from Potsdam , while the chairman of this working group for the west was Professor of Practical Theology and New Testament at the University of Kiel Heinrich Rendtorff .

In April 1947 Braun took over the office of general superintendent of the Kurmark (based in Potsdam ), which had previously been additionally exercised by Bishop Otto Dibelius . During his tenure, the Kurmärkische Kirchentage in Potsdam took place annually from 1948 onwards , about which the daily newspaper Neue Zeit reported for the first time in 1949 . Braun particularly promoted church work for men (from 1948). On March 24, 1950, in the presence of the General Superintendent Walter Braun, the Brandenburg Minister for National Education, Science and Art, Fritz Rücker presented the parish council of Potsdam's Nikolaikirchengemeinde with a dedicated donation of 18,000 marks for a new organ. In 1951, at the invitation of Braun , Church President Martin Niemöller spoke in Potsdam on current issues.

On December 14, 1952 , he ordained one of the first female theologians with a doctorate , the author of the pamphlet “The woman on the pulpit?”, Eva Hoffmann-Aleith (1910–2002), which enabled him to use the newly enacted Parish Vicar Act of the Evangelical Church of the Union . The general superintendent was now able to appoint the pastor's wife, who was single due to divorce, as parish vicar in Stüdenitz (Mark) in his district of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg .

Under Braun's direction, an ecumenical study conference took place in Potsdam in 1962, at which the two newly elected GDR members of the World Council of Churches, Bishop Noth and Mission Director Gerhard Brennecke (1916–1973) and, as a guest, the Westphalian regional church vice-president Hans Thimme discussed aspects of the third assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi in 1961 on the subject of "Jesus Christ - the light of the world".

Braun retired in 1963. After his retirement on January 1, 1963, the Kurmark district was split up into the general superintendent of Eberswalde and Potsdam .

Honors

Braun was a member of the Protestant church leadership of the church province Berlin-Brandenburg. He represented the church leadership and also the committee of the Berliner Missionsgesellschaft on June 14, 1949, when the previous mission inspector Gerhard Brennecke was introduced to his office as director of the Berliner Missionswerk and successor to Siegfried Knak .

In 1952 Braun received an honorary D. theol from the Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin . doctorate , together with President Kurt Scharf and the Jenenser Old Testament scholar Rudolf Meyer . In the daily press it was emphasized that after decades of working in the Berlin Mission Society in the office of general superintendent of the Kurmark, he had promoted community work and created new opportunities for the training of theological offspring in the church seminar in Hermannswerder . “On the occasion of his On his 60th birthday, Braun was appointed honorary canon of the Brandenburg an der Havel cathedral monastery by the Berlin-Brandenburg Evangelical Church Council.

Commitment to people

Braun did not allow himself to be politically captured by the GDR leaders. On his 70th birthday, the CDU newspaper Neue Zeit wrote on behalf of its publisher: “The man celebrating his anniversary has repeatedly made attempts to adopt a genuinely loyal attitude towards our state. On this very day of his honor it would be desirable that he could take the line expressed in such approaches with full consistency. "The former party functionary of the Eastern CDU Wirth assessed the perception of the inner-church visitor office of the Kurmark general superintendent as thorough and positive, that Brown in 1956 in the new time for "a certain loyalty uttered". Ten years after the establishment of Germany 's unity, he characterized Braun's style of thinking as a conservative one , to which " in toto, as it were, was alien to the increasingly developing social life in the GDR".

Already at the beginning of his term of office he advocated the pastor of his district with state authorities. When the state denazification commission of the state of Brandenburg wanted to suspend Pastor Joachim Teller (* 1911) from Illmersdorf , who was alleged to be Nazi-charged, without obtaining information from church authorities , Braun, in his capacity as general superintendent of the Kurmark at the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior, lifted the ban on activities and continued employment was allowed without restrictions.

He was able to hold a church service on Good Friday 1950 in the prison in Brandenburg-Görden as part of the pastoral care of the prisoners, at which the State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice of the GDR, Helmut Alfred Brandt , was present. The prison in Brandenburg-Görden was under the judiciary and was not considered a police detention center, where pastoral care was denied to the detainees.

When the church college in Potsdam-Hermannswerder, founded on the initiative of Braun, was to be dissolved by a decree of the Brandenburg state government of August 15, 1950, although a valid SMA license was available for its work as a preparatory training center for young pastors, the general superintendent from Kurmark promoted negotiations with the authorities for the continuation of the seminar by virtue of its ecclesiastical office. After the successful outcome of the negotiations, on which Otto Nuschke in particular, in his capacity as deputy of the GDR Prime Minister, had exercised great influence in favor of the church training facility in Potsdam-Hermannswerder, the seminarians from Berlin-Brandenburg, Upper Lusatia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Saxony, Anhalt and Thuringia continue their language training in Latin, Greek and Hebrew under the direction of the former rector of a Steglitz high school, Max Vanselow, in the autumn of the same year .

family

The church wedding of Braun with his wife Erna Braun, née Schikowsky, a native of Königsberg , took place in July 1918 in Königsberg Cathedral . The general superintendent of the Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia Paul Gennrich and the missiologist Julius Richter , the latter through his lectures, had a particular influence on the life of the pastor's family in the past 25 years .

Braun found his final resting place on March 2, 1973 in a cemetery where he last worked in Potsdam .

Publications

Writings, sermons and essays (selection)

  • Heidenmission and National Socialism. Berlin 1932, DNB 572508859
  • And to the end of the world. Written for the Bible Week on behalf of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Volksmissionar.
  • Of the future and the present. Sermon. Ed .: “People's Missionary Department at the Central Committee for Internal Mission”. Berlin 1947.
  • Of the peace of God. Sermon. Ed .: “People's Missionary Department at the Central Committee for Internal Mission”. Berlin 1948.
  • Call to faith. In: Heinrich Rendtorff , Walter Braun (ed.): Have faith in God.
  • Do that, this is how you will live! Sermon. In: Heinz Wagner (ed.): Word of God for you. Little messenger of faith.
  • The Bible is also in demand in Tanzania. Essay. 1967.

Editor (selection)

  • The missionary organ of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Volksmission. Together with Heinrich Rendtorff . 12th year, 1959.

Literature (selection)

  • Henning Bühmann : The hour of the people's mission. Göttingen 2020, ISBN 3-525-57075-9 , p. 471.
  • Karla Poewe : The Spell of National Socialism. The Berlin Mission's Opposition to, and Compromise with the Völkisch Movement and the National Socialism: Knak, Braun, Weichert. In: Ulrich van der Heyden , Jürgen Becher (ed.): Mission and violence. How Christian missions deal with violence and the spread of Christianity in Africa and Asia from 1792 to 1918/19. Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07624-7 , pp. 67-290 (here pp. 274-277: The case of Walter Brown (1892-1973)).
  • Christian Halbrock : Protestant pastor of the Berlin-Brandenburg Church 1945–1961. Official autonomy in the guardian state? Berlin 2010, ISBN 3-936872-18-X , pp. 139, 160, 253, 441, 442.
  • Michael Kühne (Ed.): The minutes of the Church Eastern Conference 1945-1949. Göttingen 2005, ISBN 978-3-525-55759-4 , p. 447 [register of persons / biographical information: Braun, Walter].

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memel steamboat. The home newspaper of all Memel countries, No. 5/1973; Deaths in 1973
  2. ↑ clergy at associations and institutions of the outer and inner mission and the same as far as they work full-time in the Mark Brandenburg. In: Parish manach for the ecclesiastical province of Mark Brandenburg. Published by the Evangelical Consistory of the Mark Brandenburg, Berlin 1927, DNB 014051877 , p. 437, section VII.
  3. ↑ Hellmut Lehmann: 150 Years of the Berlin Mission. Erlangen [1974], ISBN 3-87214-057-4 , p. 143.
  4. ^ Siegfried Hermle : The minutes of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-55769-3 . Volume 8: 1954/55, p. 288 i. V. m. P. 896 [Short biography of Walter Braun]
  5. ↑ Hellmut Lehmann: 150 Years of the Berlin Mission. Erlangen [1974], p. 160.
  6. ↑ parish almanac for the ecclesiastical province of Berlin-Brandenburg. Evangelical Consistory Berlin-Brandenburg. Berlin 1950, p. 281.
  7. ↑ Heinz Boberach, Carsten Nicolaisen, Ruth Pabst: Handbook of the German Protestant Churches, 1918 to 1949 , Vol. 1 Supra-regional institutions. Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-55784-6 , p. 416.
  8. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , May 13, 1948, p. 4.
  9. ↑ Neue Zeit , June 9, 1949, p. 6.
  10. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , March 26, 1950, p. 2
  11. ^ Neue Zeit, January 13, 1951, p. 2.
  12. ↑ Eva Hoffmann-Aleith : The woman in the pulpit? [Preface: Walter Braun], Berlin 1953; DNB 452068584
  13. ↑ parish almanac for the ecclesiastical province of Berlin-Brandenburg . Evangelisches Konsistorium Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.), Berlin 1956, p. 160
  14. ^ Rajah Scheepers (Ed.): Predecessors. The path of women into the ministry , Wichern-Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2019, p. 42; 75 years of ordination for women and 45 years of equality between women and men in the parish of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (commemorative publication for the anniversary)
  15. ^ Neue Zeit , February 3, 1962.
  16. ↑ Henning Bühmann: The hour of the people's mission. Göttingen 2020, ISBN 3-525-57075-9 , p. 471.
  17. ^ Neue Zeit , September 8, 1973, p. 6.
  18. ↑ parish almanac for the ecclesiastical province of Berlin-Brandenburg. Evangelical Consistory Berlin-Brandenburg. Berlin 1953, p. 8.
  19. ↑ Berliner Missionsberichte , Issue 2/4 1949, DNB 012725358 , p. 48.
  20. ^ Neue Zeit , February 19, 1952, p. 2.
  21. ^ Neue Zeit , January 13, 1952, p. 3.
  22. ^ Neue Zeit , January 13, 1962, p. 5.
  23. ↑ Wirth, Günter: The Other Spirit of Potsdam , Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 195; ISBN 3-518-39634-X
  24. ↑ Christian Halbrock: Evangelical Pastor of the Berlin-Brandenburg Church 1945–1961. Official autonomy in the guardian state? ISBN 3-936872-18-X , p. 160.
  25. ^ Neue Zeit , April 9, 1950, pp. 1 f. [with imprint of the sermon]
  26. ↑ Tobias Wunschik: Honecker's prison. Brandenburg-Görden and the political prison system in the GDR 1949–1989. Göttingen 2018, ISBN 3-647-35124-5 , p. 328.
  27. ^ Berlin address book, 1943 edition, part I, p. 3131, column 2 [Dr. phil. Max Vanselow, senior director of studies; Paulsenschule Berlin-Steglitz]
  28. ^ Hans-Joachim Lück: Hermannswerder - The difficult beginning (1950-1953) . In: Almanach , [Yearbook of the Friends' Association for the Evangelical High School Hermannswerder eV], annual booklet 2007. G&S Druck und Medien, Potsdam 2007, p. 5.
  29. ^ Sermon at the church celebration of the silver wedding anniversary, recorded by Braun's colleague Hildegard Neumann. Archivale of the Berliner Missionswerk; Signature: BMW 1/2938.
  30. ↑ Henning Bühmann: The hour of the people's mission. Göttingen 2020, ISBN 3-525-57075-9 , p. 471.
  31. ↑ Source: German Directory of Books. Twentieth volume 1936 to 1940. Academic printing and printing. Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1960, p. 367. [Braun, Walt.]
  32. ↑ Source: German Book Directory 1941–1950; 23rd volume of the complete works. Edited by the Deutsche Bücherei. Leipzig 1953.
  33. ↑ Source: German Directory of Books.
  34. ↑ Source: German Directory of Books 1956–1960. 37th volume of the complete works. Edited by the Deutsche Bücherei. Leipzig 1967.
  35. ^ Canstein letter. Communications from the von Canstein Bible Institute. , No. 3/1967, pp. 2-6 ( Canstein-Brief 3/1967 ).
  36. ↑ Source: German Directory of Books 1956–1960. 37th volume of the complete works. Edited by the Deutsche Bücherei. Leipzig 1967, p. 1405.
personal data
SURNAME Braun, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Braun, Walter Max Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Windenburg
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1973
Place of death Berlin