Werner Sanß

Werner Sanß (born April 27, 1913 in Münster ; † May 5, 2004 in Selm ) was a pastor , peace activist and the first recipient of the Aachen Peace Prize .

Life

Sanß studied during the time of National Socialism in his hometown of Münster, later in Tübingen and at the Theological Academy in Bethel theology . Due to the political circumstances, he had to take his exam “illegally” at the Confessing Church .

When the German troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938 , Werner Sanß, as vicar in Bad Oeynhausen , held a prayer liturgy for peace in front of around a thousand people . As a result, a state police procedure was initiated against him for " insidiousness and threat to the state ", which however remained ineffective. Senior bishops kept their distance and the church stopped paying salaries for some time. On January 6, 1939, the government finally tried to shut down the lateral thinker by calling him up unusually early as a medic in the Wehrmacht . During the Second World War , Sanß was taken prisoner by the Soviets , from which he was released in 1950. In the same year he passed his second exam.

After the war, from 1951 until his retirement in 1978 , Sanß worked as a parish priest in Selm, Westphalia . In addition, between 1960 and 1965 he was superintendent of the Lünen church district . For 12 years he also filled his offices as a regional synodal and 20 years in the public responsibility committee of the regional church .

Since the early 1960s, Sanß took part in the Easter marches and thus expressed his protest against the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany . The trigger for his first participation in an Easter march in 1959 was the introduction of general conscription in 1957.

Politically, Sanß was initially active in the All-German People's Party , later in the fight against atomic death initiative , which was supported by trade unions and the SPD . Later on, Sanß joined the Christian Peace Conference and the German Peace Union and was its NRW state chairman until 1987 . Not least traveled in this function Sanß many countries, lectured and conducted political prayers and engaged as international example, against the Vietnam War and the regime of apartheid in South Africa .

In the 1990s, Sanß's work was particularly focused on the integration and support of refugees, asylum seekers and groups on the fringes of society, such as B. Sinti and Roma families . Pastor Werner Sanß received the Aachen Peace Prize in 1988 for his selfless support for those in need well into old age . In 1990 the Bayerischer Rundfunk made a thirty-minute documentary about him.

Werner Sanß was buried on May 10, 2004 in his adopted home Selm .

memories

The history competition of the Federal President 2009 brought Stefan Weyring from the Peace School Münster, 12th grade (tutor Iris Determann) a prize for his work: "Werner Sanß / theologian, philanthropist, peace activist".

The Gymnasium in Selm created for the exhibition "Heroes" 2010 in the Henrichshütte Hattingen, Industrial Museum of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe , an artistic contribution and an essay in the booklet "Ten heroes of the Ruhr area - Among us".

Quotes

“For me as a Christian and a democrat there is no evasion and no retreat into political inwardness. One has to decide against injustice and violence in the questions of peace and justice. Above all, I think that the cause of peace should not be left to the politicians and the military alone. "

- Werner Sanß in a leaflet in the 1980s

Fonts (selection)

• Wolfgang Möller (Ed.): The Holy Peace - The "current contributions", very personal and combative poems, sermons and speeches on Easter marches. Verlag der Buchhandlung Möller: Selm
• Theologian, philanthropist, peace fighter . Sermons about Cain and Abel (Eds. Hans Steinkamp and Peter Strube, [1] )

Web links

• History of the Evangelical Church Community in Selm