Walter Herrenbrück senior

Walter Herrenbrück (born April 3, 1910 in Stockport ; † July 31, 1978 in Oldenburg (Oldb) ) was a German Evangelical Reformed theologian and, as a regional superintendent, for many years the leading clergyman of the Evangelical Reformed Church in northwest Germany .

Herrenbrück, the son of the businessman and later authorized signatory of IG Farben Ernst Herrenbrück, grew up in Elberfeld, Opladen and Frankfurt am Main and studied at the Elberfeld Theological School (1928/29) and the Universities of Tübingen (1929/30), Zurich ( 1930/31) and Bonn (1931–33) were shaped primarily by Otto Weber , Emil Brunner and Karl Barth , with whom he corresponded throughout his life. In the Vicariate was Hermann Albert Hesse his teaching pastor; under his influence he joined the Confessing Church . In 1936 he was first assistant preacher and in 1937 pastor in Tergast (East Friesland), interrupted by service as a soldier in the Wehrmacht. In 1946 he became a part-time superintendent and member of the regional synod of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Northwest Germany, and in 1950 pastor in Leer (East Frisia) . Since he had made a name for himself in the church struggle as a representative of the Confessing Church, he led the opposition against the state superintendent Walter Hollweg , who was cooperating with the Nazi regime, and was elected his successor in 1951. After the end of his 12-year term in office, he took over the pastor's position at the Reformed Church in Hanover in 1963 . In 1975 he retired and moved to Oldenburg, where he died in 1978.

Herrenbrück had three sons from his marriage to the pastor's daughter Anna-Helene Buß in 1936. His son Walter Herrenbrück junior also became a Reformed pastor and served from 1987 to 2003 as state superintendent of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Northwest Germany and the Evangelical Reformed Church that emerged from it in 1989 .

The Georg-August-Universität Göttingen awarded Herrenbrück an honorary theological doctorate in 1956 .

Publications

• (as ed. with Udo Smidt :) Why are you called a Christian? Lectures and essays on the Heidelberg Catechism in the anniversary year 1963. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1965.
• (as ed. with Karl Halaski :) Church, Denomination, Ecumenism, Festschrift for Professor D. Dr. Wilhelm Niesel , moderator of the Reformed Covenant on his 70th birthday. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1973.

literature

• Siegfried Hermle , Karl-Heinz Fix: The minutes of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Volume 8: 1954/55 (= work on contemporary church history. Series A: Sources; Volume 19 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012 ISBN 978-3-525-55769-3 , p. 618.
• Hans-Georg Ulrichs : "Church leadership following ... Karl Barth". Walter Herrenbrück as a church politician in the early phase of the Federal Republic. In: Ders .: Reformed Protestantism in the 20th century. Denominational studies. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2018, pp. 586–603.