Walter Schilling (pastor)

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Walter Schilling 2005

Walter Schilling (born February 28, 1930 in Sonneberg ; † January 29, 2013 in Saalfeld ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran pastor and representative of the Church from below .

Life

Schilling was born the son of a pastor of the Confessing Church . As a teenager he became a member of the Flieger-HJ . After 1945 he was not admitted to study in the Soviet occupation zone , so from 1950 he completed a theology degree in Münster and Heidelberg , which he completed in 1955 with an exam in Jena . He then became vicar in Königsee and Braunsdorf and, since 1957, district youth pastor and parish pastor of the Thuringian Church in Braunsdorf - Dittrichshütte near Saalfeld . From 1959 he built a church youth home, which he took over from then on. From 1968 he took part in the practical development of the open social diaconal youth work in Thuringia and was the contact person and pastor for marginalized young people, giving them space and the opportunity to find themselves .

“For Schilling, the young people were troublemakers who turned against state and social tutelage and also questioned church structures and religious content. His youth work did not require any religious beliefs, but looked at the individual and his ability to act independently. "

- Henning Pietzsch: Review of Lars Eisert-Bagemihl, Ulfrid Kleinert (Hrsg.): Between social movement and church work. Approaching the Open Youth (-) work.

He was monitored by representatives of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and also came into conflict with church authorities. In 1974, at the instigation of the MfS, he was deposed as head of the youth home and the facility closed. He was still under surveillance, but found a confidante and protector in Regional Bishop Werner Leich in the 1980s .

Ehrhart Neubert attributes a "key function in the entire GDR" to Schilling. In a taz article it goes on to say: "The young oppositionists gathered under Schilling's protection from the Jena church roof were the nucleus of the GDR opposition."

Schilling is considered to be a decisive inspirer, organizer and representative of the Church from Below , which emerged from Open Work , and was called to be its theological companion in 1989 by the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg . When asked what he had experienced in October 1989 during the turning point in the Gethsemane Church in Berlin , he said:

“That was when Mr. Fink , Rector of the Humboldt University, got a threshing. All those in the know in Berlin said: 'He's finally got his stomach full, the pink guy!' Everyone knew that he was pink and that he was a compromise type, as it is in the book. "

After the attacks by the People's Police on participants in the peaceful demonstrations on 7/8 In October 1989 in Berlin an independent committee of inquiry was formed, in which Schilling participated.

In retrospect, Schilling described the opening of the Wall as a day of failure for the GDR opposition:

“November 9th [1989] was a disappointment for me. I stood on my balcony. The others had all disappeared from our contact office [the church from below], and I finished my phone service. And they all disappeared to West Berlin. I went home and thought: That's it. Now they will ALL run west. At first I thought I would insert a year of mourning and then it must be good, then I will adjust to the new time and so on. I didn't succeed. "

After the "Wende", Schilling left Berlin and took over the management of the home for open work in Braunsdorf. In the 1990s he took part in the reappraisal of the role of the Protestant church in the ruling system of the GDR. He exposed church workers who had worked with the MfS and reported them to the church authorities. The regional church council appointed him as an expert in various hearing and official discipline proceedings against affected church employees.

Schilling had been retired since 1994 and lived in Dittrichshütte. In 1995 he received the human rights award of the city of Weimar . "Walter Schilling was one of the personalities within the opposition movement in the former GDR who fearlessly campaigned for human rights," said the reasoning.

At the end of 2001 he appeared as a signatory to a statement by former GDR opposition members at the New Year's address in 2002 by Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder under the title We are fed up with it in the national public for the last time.

Others

In the Thuringian Archive for Contemporary History Matthias Domaschk (ThürAZ) in Jena, an independent special archive on the subject of opposition / resistance / moral courage in the GDR, Schilling's private holdings from the period from 1951 to 1998 are located. A core item of this collection “are the numerous handwritten notes and Manuscripts, concepts and presentations, letters, records and statistics from inspections in files of the MfS. "

In 2013 a song called " Antagonized " about Schilling was released by the metal band Heaven Shall Burn from Saalfeld on their album "Veto".

Fonts

  • The "processing" of the regional church of Thuringia by the MfS. In: Clemens Vollnhals: The church policy of the MfS and state security. Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-86153-122-4 , pp. 211-266 ( preview in Google book search).

literature

  • Heinz Voigt: Lived Christian charity and a call to social action. On the death of the Braunsdorf pastor Walter Schilling. In: Gerbergasse 18 . Issue 66, Jena 2013, pp. 3–9.
  • Uwe Koch: How open can it be? Memories of open work in the GDR - and of Walter Schilling. In: Gerbergasse 18. Issue 66, Jena 2013, pp. 11–13.
  • Ehrhart Neubert:  Schilling, Walter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Gerold Hildebrand: Walter Schilling. In: Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk , Tom Sello (ed.): For a free country with free people. Opposition and Resistance in Biographies and Photos. Robert Havemann Society, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-938857-02-1 ( slightly updated version ( Memento from April 13, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) ( Memento in the Internet Archive ) on the website of Horch und Guck . 2013) .
  • Lars Eisert-Bagemihl, Ulfrid Kleinert (eds.): Between social movement and church work. Approaching the Open Youth (-) work. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-374-01946-3 .
  • Ehrhart Neubert : History of the opposition in the GDR 1949–1989. 2., through and exp. Edition. Links, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-86153-163-1 (Zugl .: Berlin, Freie Univ., Modified diss., 1997).
  • Philipp Mosch: Going out and arriving - memory of JUNE 78th youth awakening in Rudolstadt, Thuringia. In: Gerbergasse 18. Issue 14. Jena 1999.
  • Philipp Mosch: Have confidence in yourself and in others. In the spotlight: Pastor Walter Schilling and the open work in Thuringia. In: Gerbergasse 18. Heft 4, Jena 1997. Reprinted in: Horch und Guck . Issue 25. Berlin 1999.
  • Clemens Vollnhals (ed.): The church policy of the MfS and state security. An interim report - analyzes and documents. Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-86153-122-4 .
  • Andreas Dornheim , Stephan Schnitzler (eds.): Thuringia 1989/90. Actors of the upheaval report (= Thuringia yesterday & today. Volume 1). State Center for Political Education , Erfurt 1995, ISBN 3-931426-00-9 ( limited preview in the Google book search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Schilling: The '68 island in the "Red Sea" - Braunsdorf (interview by Andreas Dornheim). In: Andreas Dornheim , Stephan Schnitzler (Ed.): Thuringia 1989/90. Actors of the upheaval report. State Center for Political Education, Erfurt 1995, pp. 193–210, here: p. 205.
  2. ↑ Henning Pietzsch: Only for use within the church? Review Bagemihl / Kleinert (=  Horch und Guck . Issue 41). 2003 ( Only for internal church use? Review Bagemihl / Kleinert ( Memento of March 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on January 16, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Walter Schilling. In: jugendopposition.de, accessed on January 15, 2018.
    Church and Opposition. In: Youth opposition in the GDR. April 8, 2006, accessed January 15, 2018 (last update: October 2017).
  4. ^ Kai Schlieter: A death in the GDR. In: the daily newspaper. April 8, 2006, accessed January 15, 2018.
  5. ^ A b Walter Schilling: The '68 island in the "Red Sea" - Braunsdorf (interview by Andreas Dornheim). In: Andreas Dornheim , Stephan Schnitzler (Ed.): Thuringia 1989/90. Actors of the upheaval report. State Center for Political Education, Erfurt 1995, pp. 193–210, here: p. 206.
  6. ↑ Nina Gühlstorff, Jens-Uwe Fischer: Ein Ge / Denkzeichen für / von Walter Schilling (February 28, 1930 to January 29, 2013). Memorial XXXI. In: volksbuehne.adk.de. Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz , February 14, 2013, accessed on November 6, 2019 .
  7. ↑ The City of Weimar's Commissioner for Foreigners: Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar. Prize winner 1995. Pastor a. D. Walter Schilling | Germany. (No longer available online.) In: Menschenrechtspreis.de. City of Weimar, May 12, 2016, archived from the original on May 12, 2016 ; accessed on January 15, 2018 (beginning of article).
  8. ↑ We're sick of it. The appropriate answer to the Chancellor's New Years address. In: netzwerk-regenbogen.de. January 1, 2002, accessed January 15, 2018 (first published December 13, 2001).
  9. ^ Thuringian Archive for Contemporary History: Pre and Estates: Schilling, Walter. (No longer available online.) In: thueraz.de. Artists for Others e. V., archived from the original on April 12, 2013 ; accessed on January 16, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Schilling, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Evangelical Lutheran pastor
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Sonneberg
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 2013
Place of death Saalfeld