Werner Schnoor

Werner Schnoor (born October 15, 1909 in Schwerin ; † March 24, 1991 ibid) was an Evangelical Lutheran theologian and church publicist in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mecklenburg . Schnoor shaped Protestant church journalism in the north of the GDR .

Career

Schnoor, the son of a Reichsbahn official, spent his youth in Parchim , where he graduated from the Friedrich-Franz-Gymnasium in 1928 . He began his studies at the Prussian University of Greifswald , but switched to the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen in the summer semester of 1929 , where he wore the colors of his Wingolfsbund . Schnoor finished his theology studies, as prescribed for Mecklenburgers, in October 1931 at the University of Rostock .

Schnoor began his church career in 1933 as a vicar. In 1934 he was appointed to his first pastor's position in Alt Jabel (today part of the community of Vielank in the Ludwigslust-Parchim district). In the summer of 1937 Schnoor took over the parish of the Bethlehem parish in Ludwigslust . During the Second World War , Schnoor was an infantryman on the Eastern Front, and in 1941 he was wounded.

After his release from captivity, Schnoor continued his pastoral service at the Paulskirche (Schwerin) . The entry into church journalism took place in 1953 with the part-time takeover of the editorial management of the Mecklenburgische Kirchenzeitung for a few months until Paul-Christian Paegelow was appointed . After his departure in 1958, the editorship of the Sonntagsblatt was again transferred to Schnoor - initially again on a part-time basis. In 1963 he was finally appointed to the pastoral position for the church press service, combined with the full-time takeover of the chief editor of the church newspaper.

Since 1968 Schnoor was a member of the church leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg in Schwerin as a church councilor and was sent to church bodies such as the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the GDR and the Lutheran World Federation . In 1977 he went into retirement. In 1988 Schnoor founded the study booklets on Mecklenburg church history , which initially appeared with six, later four booklets annually until 1995. He received the state printing license for this - unusual for GDR conditions - as a private individual.

After the political turning point in 1989, it emerged from the records that Schnoor had been in conspiratorial contact with officers of the Schwerin District Administration for State Security since the 1960s and that in October 1988, long after he left the church service, he was in contact with the MfS -Major Claus- Dieter Wulf was listed as an unofficial employee under the code name "Schütz". His IM file has not yet been found and may have been destroyed during the turnaround. Some of his orders and reports could be reconstructed from other files. There is an index card created for him in 1964 with the registration number II 498/64.

Plans by government agencies to award Schnoor an honorary doctorate in old age (in the subjects of theology, journalism or history) came to nothing with the end of the GDR in 1989/90. In the holdings of the State Main Archives Schwerin are justification letters from the council of the district and the SED district leadership for such an award of the cleric. It praises that Schnoor always "consistently and persistently represented realistic positions in relation to the socialist state and society" and is regarded as the "leading representative of the progressive forces within the regional church". The study booklets, so praising the SED paper, are published “independently of the influences of church governing bodies”.

Works (selection)

• The Guide. Biblical stories. Berlin 1972.
• The past goes with you. Some notes on the path of the church in Mecklenburg from Theodor Kliefoth to Heinrich Rathke . Schwerin 1984.
• Heinrich Rendtorff I. The years in Mecklenburg. II. Zeal for the People's Church. III. The conflict with power. In: Studienhefte zur Mecklenburgischen Kirchengeschichte, Schwerin, 1988, Issue 2, pp. 24–31, and Issue 4, pp. 22–33.
• The Mecklenburg village school in earlier times. In: "1000 Years of the Mecklenburg Church." Mössingen-Talheim: Talheimer 1995.

literature

• Werner Schnoor on his 80th birthday (= special edition of the study books on Mecklenburg church history). Schwerin 1989. 20 pp.
• Rahel Frank: "More real - more exact - more precise"? The GDR church policy towards the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg from 1971 to 1989 . Schwerin 2004. ISBN 393325518X .
• Hermann Beste : 60 years of the Mecklenburgische Kirchenzeitung - a "voice of the church". Lecture on the 60th anniversary of the church newspaper on April 20, 2006 ( full text , pdf)

Web links

• Literature about Werner Schnoor in the state bibliography MV
• Works by Werner Schnoor in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ IM “Schütz” - Werner Schnoor between Church and State . In: Rahel Frank: "More real - more exact - more precise"? Schwerin 2004, pp. 136-140.
3. ^ LHA Schwerin, RdB Schwerin, Z 10/90, 23, np, and SED BPA Schwerin, IV F - 2/14/774, p. 205.