Walter Thieme

Walter Hans Otto Thieme , actually Walter Johannes Otto Thieme (born November 18, 1878 in Munich , † April 27, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant theologian, city mission director and pastor.

education

Thieme enrolled after passing the matriculation examination at the Luitpold-Gymnasium (Munich) in June 1898 from the 2nd November of that year as a student of philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich one. After the winter semester, he moved to the University of Greifswald on April 28, 1899 , to study Protestant theology there. From October 1899 to the beginning of March 1901 he continued his studies at the theological faculty of Berlin University . In Berlin he heard a. a. Church history lectures with Adolf von Harnack . At the University of Erlangen , Thieme finished his studies in theology when he received the certificate of departure from July 15, 1902. He took his first theological examination in Ansbach . The Bavarian regional church granted him educational leave for half a year so that he could get to know the work of the Berlin city mission during an internship and fulfill his wish to travel to England to familiarize himself with the church there. Thieme completed his practical theological training in the vicariate (Protestant) in Freiburg im Breisgau. Thieme was blessed for parish service in a service in Bayreuth on October 16, 1903. After this ordination, Thieme stayed again in England until his appointment as a vicar in a suburb of Augsburg and used part of the four-month bridging period to stay at the Bodelschwingschen Anstalten Bethel to train as an auxiliary nurse. After this period of training, he became the second chaplain of the Augsburg deaconess institution in 1906 . On October 1, 1907, Thieme entered the full-time service of the Berlin City Mission as pastor and inspector. It was in 1933 Head of the City Mission after the death of William Philipps (1859-1933), after he had previously worked as a deputy club chairman. Thieme headed the Berlin City Mission until he was forced to resign from the Nazi regime . From 1942 until his retirement, Thieme worked as a clergyman of the Frauenmission Malche e. V. in Bad Freienwalde (Oder) .

Work in the Berlin city mission

His duties as pastor and inspector included looking after the female staff, providing pastoral care for women in prisons and evangelism trips . Thieme's purposeful work caught the attention of the Gestapo . In the autumn of 1939 she forbade him to “continue to exercise his priestly duties”. One of Wilhelm Löhe's words , which he gladly quoted to them, was remembered by his employees : "Anyone who leaves the misery sooner than God and his holy angels gives way too early and harms his soul ."

Thieme worked several times on a voluntary basis as chairman of the Association of German Evangelical City Missions, which was founded in 1920, most recently in 1937, and its managing director in that year was the pastor and inspector of the Berlin city mission Richard Kindler (* 1864; † 1964). Before that, in addition to his full-time work as pastor and inspector of the Berlin City Mission, Thieme was a part-time clergyman of the Berliner Frauenbund .

Chronicler of the Berlin City Mission up to its 50th anniversary

Thieme is editor and co-author of the anniversary publication of the Berlin City Mission on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, which was published 25 years after Pastor Evers presented the history of the Berlin City Mission . Thieme describes in detail the “history of the founding and development in olden times” and its condition in the Weimar Republic up to 1927, as well as “the relationship between city mission and church”. Thieme points to the statutory close relationship with the " church authority " and the required consent of the consistory based on this for the appointment of a leading pastor who works primarily in the field of mission ( preaching , pastoral care , community ) and until the end of the 20th century was referred to as an "inspector".

Pastor of the Confessing Church

Thieme was a participant in the confessional synods of the German Evangelical Church in Barmen in 1934, in Berlin-Dahlem in 1934, in Augsburg in 1935 in Bad Oeynhausen in 1936 and attended the German Lutheran Day 1935 in Hanover from July 2nd to 5th, 1935. Pastor represented the Barmen Synod Thieme took the position of the Inner Mission and pointed to the historically created tension between constituted church congregations on the Inner Mission and asked the Synod to recognize this tension.

As pastor of the Confessing Church, he is counted among the group of people who resisted the Nazi regime in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. Bishop Scharf praised the clear stance of Thiemes and the Berlin city mission during the "National Socialist rule" and emphasized that the work he directed had "clearly decided in favor of the Confessing Church".

Private

Walter Thieme comes from a large family in Munich. He was born the sixth child. A family photo shows the approximately 13-year-old with all his siblings and half-siblings outdoors - presumably in his parents' garden in Munich at Georgenstrasse 7. The Therese studio photographed the children and young adults in the early 1890s, together with their father Carl Thieme , a Munich insurance salesman, who was ennobled by the Bavarian king in 1914, and his second wife Else, née "von Witzleben" (1861–1946), whom he widowed two years after the death of Walter's mother, Marie, née Vondernahmer / von der Nahmer (1845–1883) had married. His father's long-term work colleagues included the then office manager and later insurance director in London, as well as insurance board member Carl Schreiner, with whose daughter Hertha Walter Thieme fell in love as a young theologian and married her on June 20, 1907. Several children resulted from the marriage.

In Berlin, in the city mission house and the associated church, which was not yet destroyed by the war, both celebrated their screen wedding in 1942 before tragically perishing just before the end of the war. They were buried in 1945 in the Waldfriedhof Heerstraße in Berlin. In 1952 it was still assumed that both were killed in fighting in Berlin. According to the personal dictionary on German Protestantism 1919–1949 , however, he died in their common house (An der Heerstraße 15) in Berlin-Charlottenburg, which they had lived in since 1938. He stood in front of his wife to protect her, but she was so badly injured that she died a few days after him on May 3, 1945.

Walter Thieme and his wife found their grave in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin under a simple wooden cross.

Works (selection)

• Singer of praise to the grace of God. The life picture of sister Eva von Tiele-Winckler . On behalf of the Diakonissenhaus “Friedenshort” in Miechowitz / Oberschlesien, Berlin 1932, with a foreword by Walter Thieme, written in the City Mission House in Berlin in September 1932; then Thiemes work appeared under the title Mother Eva, the praises singer of God's grace. Life and work of sister Eva von Tiele-Winckler ; Gütersloh 1938; 4th, supplemented edition, Bad Wildbad 2007, ISBN 978-3-939075-04-2 .
• 50 years of work in the service of faith and love. 1877-1927. Anniversary publication of the Berlin City Mission, Vaterländische Verlags- und Kunstanstalt , Berlin 1927.
• Holy victory. Religious lectures. Berlin 1916. DNB 361756313
• The dethroning of money. Patriotic Publishing and Art Institute , Berlin 1921.
• The mysterious powers of prayer. Patriotic Publishing and Art Institute , Berlin 1921.
• Under the diadem of humility. Berlin 1925.
• Following Jesus. Berlin 1930.
• Our daily bread. For Thanksgiving Day 1936 . Wichern-Verlag , Berlin 1936

Web links

• Thieme, chairman of the Association of German Protestant City Missions in 1937
• Church archive center Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to an extract from the main birth register of the registry office in Munich I of January 13, 1898; Original in: File 14/24512 ELAB (Evangelical Church Archive in Berlin)
2. ↑ File 14/24512 ELAB (Evangelisches Landeskirchenarchiv in Berlin) with original documents for the following statements.
3. ↑ parish almanac for the ecclesiastical province Mark Brandenburg. Published by the Evangelical Consistory of the Mark Brandenburg. As of April 1, 1939 (changes after going to press taken into account if possible). Trowitzsch & Sohn, Berlin 1939, p. 440.
4. ^ Max Dietrich: Seventy-five Years of the Berlin City Mission 1877. March 9, 1952. Published by the Berlin City Mission, Berlin 1952, p. 58.
5. ^ Max Dietrich: Seventy-five Years of the Berlin City Mission, 1877. March 9, 1952. Published by the Berlin City Mission, Berlin 1952, p. 59
6. ↑ Handbook of the German Protestant Churches 1918 to 1949. Organs, offices, associations, people. Volume 1: Supraregional institutions. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-55784-6 , p. 416.
7. ↑ parish almanac for Berlin and the province of Brandenburg , Berlin 1913, "Section VI. Clergy of the outer and inner mission ”, under“ Association for Berlin City Mission ”, p. 279
8. ↑ 50 years of work in the service of faith and love. Anniversary publication of the Berlin city mission; DNB 579103153
9. ↑ 50 years of work in the service of faith and love. Anniversary publication of the Berlin city mission. Vaterländische Verlags- und Kunstanstalt, Berlin (1927) [Ed .: Walter Thieme], (23–28) p. 27
10. ↑ Hans Meiser, Hannelore Braun: Responsibility for the Church. Summer 1933 to summer 1935. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-525-55751-5 , p. 565.
11. ↑ Klaus Keim, Oliver Reschke, Günter Wehner: Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Volume 8, 2nd edition, trafo, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-89626-908-9 , p. 56 f.
12. ^ Kurt Scharf: Berlin and the city mission. In: Siegfried Dehmel (Red.): God loves this city. 100 years of the Berlin City Mission. 1877-1977. Berliner Stadtmission, Berlin 1977, pp. 10–12.
13. ^ Curriculum vitae of Walter Thieme (typewritten) in: Akt 14/24512 ELAB (Evangelisches Landeskirchenarchiv in Berlin)
14. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Christopher Kopper: Munich Re. The history of Munich Re 1880–1980. CHBeck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68361-9 , p. 88, Fig. 12 (according to picture credits it is archived in the holdings of the Münchner Stadtmuseum under inventory number M-99/22).
15. ^ Address book of Munich for the year 1892 , p. 434 ( online ).
16. ↑ On the back of the photograph there is a "round sticker" from the photo studio Therese at the time, as the Münchner Stadtmuseum (Applied Art Collection) announced on November 13, 2015 on request from Schudi 45.
17. ^ Curriculum vitae of Walter Thieme (typewritten) in: Akt 14/24512 ELAB (Evangelisches Landeskirchenarchiv in Berlin)
18. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Christopher Kopper: Munich Re. The history of Munich Re 1880–1980. CH Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68361-9 , p. 86.
19. ^ Curriculum vitae of Walter Thieme (typewritten) in: Akt 14/24512 ELAB (Evangelisches Landeskirchenarchiv in Berlin)
20. ↑ Caption on the grave in: Max Dietrich: Seventy-five Years of the Berlin City Mission 1877. March 9, 1952. Published by the Berlin City Mission, Berlin 1952, p. 59.
21. ↑ Hannelore Braun, Gertraud Grünzinger: Personal Lexicon on German Protestantism 1919–1949. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-55761-7 , p. 256.
22. ↑ Paul Gerhardt Möller , in: Siegfried Dehmel (Red.): God loves this city. 100 years of the Berlin City Mission. 1877-1977. Berliner Stadtmission, Berlin 1977, p. 105.
23. ↑ Thieme, Walter, pastor . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1943, Part I, p. 3056. “An der Heerstrasse 15”.
24. ↑ Illustration of the former grave in: Max Dietrich: Seventy-five Years of the Berlin City Mission 1877. March 9, 1952. Published by the Berlin City Mission, Berlin 1952, p. 59.
25. ^ Diakonissenhaus Friedenshort, memorial path in Miechowice (Miechowitz), Poland