Wilhelm Halfmann

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Wilhelm Halfmann (left) handing over the keys to the Stephanuskirche in Kiel to Theodor Pinn (2nd from right), 1962

Wilhelm Hermann Heinrich Leonhard Halfmann (born May 12, 1896 in Wittenberg ; † January 8, 1964 in Kiel ) was an Evangelical Lutheran theologian and from 1946 to 1964 Bishop of Holstein .

Life

Halfmann was the son of a headmaster in Itzehoe . His teacher training, which he began in Jena in 1914 , was interrupted by war and imprisonment. He then studied Protestant theology at the universities of Jena , Gießen and Kiel . After his ordination in 1923, he was study inspector at the Preachers' Seminar in Preetz and from 1926 pastor in Schönberg . In 1933 he became pastor at the St. Marien Church in Flensburg and during some war years in Mölln . After the Second World War , he became Bishop of Holstein in Kiel in 1946. In 1947 he received an honorary doctorate from Christian Albrechts University. Halfmann married late and died in Kiel in 1964. Hanns Lilje held the funeral speech .

Study inspector in Preetz

Halfmann was from 1923 to 1925 study inspector at the Predigerseminar in Preetz. Study director Amandus Weinreich gave him a very positive assessment:

“He has studied theology thoroughly and with success, and has towered over all candidates, including the gifted. The content of the gospel and the needs of the community were more important to him than the theological direction in which he probably followed his modern-critical teachers. His exercise sermons were based on an understanding, good exegesis and went in depth; Structure and train of thought were clear. They looked really edifying. "

Pastor in Schönberg

Half man in 1926 pastor in Schoenberg in the provost and remained there until his transfer to Flensburg in 1933. During this time he worked alongside his duties as parish priest on a dissertation on Christian Kortholt , which he completed 1930th

The future deacon Hugo Wietholz remembers an encounter with Halfmann in 1931, who at that time was a helper in the holiday colony of the YMCA- Hamburg on the Schäferhof in Appen near Pinneberg:

“We also had a young theologian in the camp who was good at explaining God's Word. I will never forget the passage from the letter to the Corinthians where Paul writes: 'You are a letter of Christ'. This vicar [sic!] Halfmann later became bishop in Schleswig-Holstein. "

Pastor of the Confessing Church

Halfmann was part of the leadership of the Confessing Church in Schleswig-Holstein . Soon after his appointment in 1933 as pastor at the St. Marien Church in Flensburg, he was the target of attacks by the National Socialists who demanded his dismissal in 1934. Halfmann demarcated himself sharply from Friedrich Andersen's German church and, together with other pastors, prevented German church official acts in Flensburg churches.

From 1933 to 1936 he was a supporting member of the SS and tried to find a mediating position in the church struggle , probably also because his brother-in-law, the Altona provost Peter Schütt (1894-1969), was a gauging officer for the German Christians (DC).

As early as 1933/34, the German Christians had held leading positions in the churches in Schleswig-Holstein, including the office of regional bishop and that of the president of the regional church office. Around a third of the clergy refused to trust the new regional bishop Adalbert Paulsen and gave themselves their own leadership at two confessional synods in the summer of 1935 and 1936 in the state brotherhood council of the Confessing Church, to which Halfmann belonged. Meanwhile, the German Christians fell apart as a church political association, but their former members reorganized themselves in a moderate way: as Lutheran comradeship and as the official church provost group . Nevertheless, they held on to the leadership positions they had acquired in 1933 - until 1945.

From autumn 1935, the Nazi state intervened against the threat of church splitting , thus initiating the second phase of the church struggle: the state church transition period limited to two years. A Reich Church Minister appointed by Hitler , Hanns Kerrl , was to form parity church committees made up of moderate representatives of both church political directions in the Reich and in the regional churches that had been "destroyed" by church warfare , including Schleswig-Holstein. With far-reaching concessions to the confessional community, the minister and his subordinates endeavored to achieve the given goal. The confessional community was allowed to nominate one of its pastors as a spiritual leader who would then be commissioned by the committee. This task fell to Halfmann; In March 1936 he was appointed provisional senior consistorial councilor in the Kiel regional church office. Two more BK representatives were appointed to the five-person regional church committee, which now functioned as the head of the regional church; as a result, the German-Christian leadership structure established in 1933 was not abolished, but it was subordinate to the new committee. By September 1937 the regional church committee was to work out a pacification and reorganization of the church. The state side was not satisfied with the performance of the committee because, in their opinion, the confessional community was not sufficiently involved in the committee.

The initial development work of the committee (declaration against the heresy , establishment of an examination commission for the BK vicars, ordination of the BK vicars by Halfmann) was overshadowed after a few months by the ministry's request to the committee that the incumbent Vice-President Christian Kinder as full president to appoint. Neither the BK members and Halfmann nor the State Brotherhood Council and the denominational community were willing to do this, as children were seen as burdened by church politics: as State Commissioner from July 1933, as Reichsleiter of the German Christians from 1934 to 1935 and as a sympathizer with the national church German Christians Thuringian direction. At that time, children could only be appointed acting president.

Shortly after Minister Kerrl dissolved the Schleswig-Holstein Committee in January 1937, Hitler announced general church elections in February. This, as well as the prohibition of Halfmann's Jewish pamphlet and finally his dismissal as a confidant of trust and as consistorial councilor, were signs of the renewed government policy against the Confessing Church.

The Jewish script

In 1936 Halfmann wrote a paper on the Jewish question on behalf of the State Brothers Council of the Confessing Church in Schleswig-Holstein : The Church and the Jew . In the anti-Judaist tradition , he viewed the Jews as enemies of Christianity and the Christian peoples and showed - with reference to Martin Luther - understanding of the anti-Jewish legislation of the time. While still working in the Federal Republic of Germany , he argued that he had viewed the Nuremberg Laws as protective laws for the Jews.

He argued in 1936: “It is not the task of the Church to intervene in the Jewish legislation of the Third Reich . Rather, we will have to say from the perspective of the Church, based on almost two thousand years of experience with the Jews: the state is right. He makes an attempt to protect the German people, as has been made by a hundred predecessors in all of Christianity, with the approval of the Christian Church. One only needs to read Luther's writings on the Jewish question to find that what is happening today is a mild trial of what Luther and many other good Christians have deemed necessary. "

Halfmann justified this attitude in 1958 to the editor-in-chief of the SPD's own "Flensburger Presse" Jochen Steffen : His writing "just did not want to endorse the National Socialist racial policy", but aimed at "the opposite". At that time, criticism of the “racial policy” could only be written publicly with “concealment of tendencies”. The Nazis were also aware of the attack on the “Nazi racial theory”, as the writing was quickly confiscated. At the end of the day he was convinced “that the 'Nuremberg Laws' of 1935 guaranteed the Jews at least legal status, albeit in the manner of a ghetto . At that time, almost three years before the ' Kristallnacht ' and everything that followed, I did not foresee that a solemnly proclaimed regulation under Reich law would only be a deception . "

He saw it as a “terrible fate” “that the justified fight against Judaism has turned into a fight against Christ . Because that means: A fight against the divine power that can really save us from the corrupting powers of Judaism! ”However, he opposed the excesses and pogroms carried out by the SA and SS . The church could never join in their aggressive racist anti-Semitism under the slogan "Beat the Jews to death". The Jewish question, because it was a religious one, could ultimately not be resolved by political means - certainly not by force, but also not by law. The church has to use the “intercessory prayer” for the Jews that God may end their rejection.

Halfmann argued in this writing that only Christians could understand the Old Testament correctly, namely based on the New Testament and Christ as the "center of the Scriptures". In this way, the Christians had stolen "the most sacred thing", the "story of God", from the Jews, which explains the "abysmal hatred" that the Jews harbored against Christians "to this day".

Halfmann interpreted the anti-Jewish persecutions and expulsions as a result of "Jewish usury". Furthermore, Jews were "active in the background as a decomposing substance" in all wars in Europe. The Jews expelled from Spain provided the Turks with the knowledge of making firearms when they broke into Europe; In the Thirty Years' War the Jews would have financed the (Catholic) warfare against the Protestants . They were active in the background in Napoleon's campaigns and during the World War .

At the same time, he criticized ethnic anti-Semitism, but without advocating for baptized people of Jewish origin . Rather, he referred to the eschatological salvation of Israel promised in Rom. 11.25  LUT , for the sake of which the people, despite the curse that lay upon them, had to stay alive.

According to Halfmann, the writing is influenced by Adolf Schlatter's 1935 text Will the Jew win over us? , Carl Friedrich Heman's story of the Jewish people since the destruction of Jerusalem (1927) and Hans Blüher's uprising of Israel [against Christian goods] (1931). There are also echoes of the Riederau theses on the Lutheran people's mission ( Confessing Church , Book 1) from 1933 and Volkmar Herntrich's writings on the Old Testament from 1933 to 1935, which Halfmann probably knew.

The writing was banned by the Reichsschrifttumskammer and confiscated by the Gestapo on the grounds that the content of the booklet was "directed against the worldview of National Socialism" and "not compatible with the views and principles prevailing in today's state".

Sönke Zankel sees this writing on the one hand as a document of the times, which reflects the anti-Jewish spirit of the time. On the other hand, Halfmann tried in the struggle for the Evangelical Church to secure its existence primarily against the generally anti-Christian Rosenberg wing and probably only secondarily against the efforts of the German Christians. “In November 1936 , the Prussian State Councilor Börger gave several lectures in Schleswig-Holstein in which he accused the churches, among other things, of being branches of the Jewish synagogues. He appealed to the audience to de-register their children from religious instruction at school, which resulted in numerous church resignations. At Halfmann's initiative, numerous pastors - but not only those of the confessional community - responded with a complaint to the regional church office and a pulpit declaration to their communities. At the same time, Halfmann drafted his lecture The Attack on the Bible for the planned denominational services at the beginning of December 1936, but decided on the title The Church and the Jew . "

Later insights

In 1941 - he was now a pastor in Mölln - Halfmann learned of the euthanasia murder of the disabled. After the attack on the Soviet Union , he became aware of the mass murders of Jews by the German military. In 1944 he began cautiously criticizing these murders in sermons. He turned against the murder of "terminally ill, unfit for life, disarmed enemies and hostages or people of foreign origins". And in a sermon on November 12, 1944, he complained. a. the deification of one's own race and the demonization of the Jewish as a revolt against God.

Bishop of Holstein

After the fall of the Nazi state , Halfmann first became chairman of the provisional church leadership of Schleswig-Holstein in 1945 and, after the abdication of Adalbert Paulsen , whom the Brown Synod of the Schleswig-Holstein regional church had appointed on September 12, 1933, as regional bishop for Schleswig-Holstein, in 1946 Bishop for the diocese Holstein. His colleague in the Schleswig district was Reinhard Wester from 1947 .

After the end of the war, Halfmann made several public statements about the German guilt: on May 28, 1945 in his circular to the Schleswig-Holstein clergy How should we preach today? , in October 1945 a few days after the Stuttgart confession of guilt as well as on Reformation Day and on the Day of Repentance and Prayer of the same year. Above all , Halfmann criticized the manner in which the Stuttgart confession of guilt was published in the Kieler Kurier , a newspaper of the British military government, and its interpretation as recognition of the German war guilt . He was under heavy pressure from pastors and church bases in the country, who refused to admit political guilt without reference to Allied war crimes .

On the question of guilt, Halfmann noted that the church did not have to confess “guilt in the political sense”. You are not allowed to make a political-historical judgment, but must speak of “guilt in the religious sense”. In the very concrete situation of the broken National Socialist rule, the search for a real new beginning had to take place in order to “withstand the truth of our guilt”. One has become guilty through the "spirit of secularism", through the disregard of the commandments and above all through the turning away from the first, second and third commandments . This is how they opened the way to National Socialism. "That was our fault," said Halfmann on Reformation Day 1945 in front of his audience in Flensburg, thereby answering his self-posed question:

“And when the tyranny became more and more powerful since 1933, what did you do, what did I do? Have we shouted, warned, protested enough? Oh my friends, we were scared. It was our fault. Guilt is piled up, mountains high, and the church is doing right, which calls to repentance, and precisely in this it shows itself as the church of Luther in the German collapse. Because the Reformation began as a testament to penance, no different, and a Reformation today can only begin again with penance , no different. "

As early as May 1945 Halfmann had called on his colleagues to be an advocate and advocate for the "unspeakably humiliated German people":

“We must be aware that the Church today has a very special responsibility for our people. What we were not allowed to admit to a drunken pagan nationalism, we will voluntarily give to the unspeakably humiliated people, namely: to be an advocate and advocate and voice for our people. When the world floods us with floods of hatred, when we are judged in the name of God and morality and humanity, we will only grant the authority of penance to those who profess a penitent mind. We refer to God's Word, in which the warning against arrogant judging about one another is a characteristic feature (cf., inter alia, Matt. 7: 1-5; John 8: 7; Rom. 3:23, etc.). "

Halfmann saw it as the task of the church to preserve German culture. The integration of refugees and displaced persons into the local parishes and the reconstruction and construction of new churches also serve this purpose . Numerous new churches were consecrated by him.

After the war, Halfmann stood up for the former president of the regional church office, Christian Kinder . He thanked children in writing for having used his influence on the party and the police to protect clergy of the regional church from stalking. In addition, on the question of the oath of the clergy in 1938, after previous negotiations with representatives of the Confessing Church, he had found a way by which the clergy of the Confessing Church was also able to take the oath of the leader.

In 1947, the Theological Faculty of the State University of Halfmann awarded an honorary doctorate, thereby recognizing his services in research and his commitment to the design and rebuilding of the church, which began soon after the Second World War .

In 1948 he acquired the Koppelsberg property for the church, which has been the center of youth work for the Schleswig-Holstein regional church since 1951.

In 1951 Halfmann criticized the election of the Catholic Friedrich Wilhelm Lübke as Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein.

On April 23, 1957, the State Church Treaty between the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the then regional churches in Schleswig-Holstein was concluded in Kiel. Halfmann was significantly involved in the creation.

For almost twenty years he played a key role in shaping the Protestant church in northern Germany, so that its importance for the recent church history of Schleswig-Holstein can hardly be overestimated. The historian Kurt Jürgensen called him a man of stature: “at exactly the right time in the right place”.

One of his closest collaborators in the Kiel regional church office, Oberlandeskirchenrat Johann Schmidt , judged him:

“What from 1946 to 1964, when Halfmann was bishop, in the Ev.-Luth. Landeskirche Schleswig-Holstein has been accomplished, has ecclesiastical significance. Examples are: the internal and external order of the church, the revitalization of worship, the construction of churches and meetinghouses, the equipping and further training of men and women in the service of the church and, last but not least, the contribution to the topic of diakonia and mission, which Halfmann headed as chairman in their Schleswig-Holstein central associations. As much as Halfmann was a man of his church that he not only knew how to lead in his own country, but that he could represent well beyond Schleswig-Holstein and far away (India trip in 1952), he was also a man who loved his homeland and his fatherland in Schleswig-Holstein and in the last years of his life has said many groundbreaking words about it. "

Looking back on the thirties

From the end of the 1950s, Halfmann was criticized for his anti-Judaistic statements when he spoke out against the Christian-Jewish dialogue . In 1958 , the SPD politician Joachim Steffen also addressed The Church and the Jew .

Halfmann then reread his 1936 writing and found it to be “a bit of a fleeting puzzle”. Nonetheless, he considers it to be “still not inapplicable today. Because the religious opposition between Jews and Christians is undeniable ”. Nevertheless, Bishop Halfmann was aware that his writing posed a problem, especially after the murder of the Jews . In retrospect, he claimed that he had regretted writing this pamphlet as early as 1938. On March 5, 1960, he wrote to the Hamburg regional bishop Karl Witte : “Such a writing would be impossible today.” His historical remarks on the history of the Jews were “unjust because they were chosen one-sidedly”, “although they are factually correct”. Halfmann saw no need to turn away from anti-Judaism: “Nevertheless, today I can't help but consider the theological approach to be correct. But to discuss the Jewish question in such a way that the theological no to Judaism, not just to 'anti-Semitism', is almost impossible. I cannot participate in the Christian-Jewish fraternization on a humanitarian basis, while eliminating theology. "

As a precautionary defense against further public attacks, he passed a five-page sheet of paper to Bishop Halfmann and the Jews to selected personalities . This writing from 1960 consists essentially of quotations from his work Die Kirche und der Jude from 1936, supplemented by contemporary public reactions and an introduction and an afterword by Halfmann. In a lecture given to Protestant teachers in 1960, he once again expressed himself about coping with our past and criticized anti-Semitism as "arrogance over fellow human beings".

Reactions

After Halfmann had been criticized for his anti-Judaism during his lifetime , the contribution of two young people to the Federal President's history competition in 2009 led the Itzehoe parish to renounce the name Bischof-Halfmann-Haus for its administration building. In 2012 the church historian Stephan Linck drew attention to the fact that Halfmann had campaigned for the early release of convicted war criminals in 1949.

The Flensburg historian Klauspeter Reumann emphasized in a lecture on March 24, 2014 in Rickling:

“When I think of the spiritual pioneers of National Socialism, many names come to mind, but not Halfmann. It wouldn't even cross my mind. "

As head of the Confessing Church in Schleswig-Holstein, Halfmann even raised the word “militantly and verbatim” against the German Church in lectures and sermons and regularly provided public, albeit theologically packaged, clarification. Incidentally, also in his work The Church and the Jew . “It had nothing to do with church politics. The title was invented, because only then could he appear in public and spread his writing, ”said Reumann. Nonetheless, Halfmann recognized the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which classified Jews as outclassed; but for purely religious, not racist reasons. The only reproach against the Jews was that the Jews did not see Jesus as the Son of God, but as one prophet among many. Halfmann has always distanced himself from anti-Semitism and everything racist.

Reumann also gave the following assessment:

“When he wrote and published his Jewish pamphlet at the end of 1936, he still had the good faith that he could separate the radical anti-Semitism of the NSDAP from the milder state. In the autumn of the following year, however, Halfmann had to admit at a meeting of the Lutheran Council of the Confessing Church that the state prohibition measures of 1937 against the church were due to the extensive and independent government influence of Himmler and his Gestapo. The prohibition of a counter-writ by Walther Künneth against Rosenberg's The Myth of the 20th Century , which was communicated there, made it clear to him that the decision in the state had finally been made in favor of the racist worldview developed by Rosenberg, that his myth was actually canonized. Halfmann's attempt to differentiate between state and party a year ago was outdated, and thus the unity of action put forward by Valentin between the two was evident. An essential basic assumption of Halfmann in his Judenschrift was refuted by political developments, which must have been a bitter disillusionment for him. ... Halfmann's writings on the Jews and the church development cast in their core statements, their motivation and above all in their effect a light typical of the time that church self-assertion in the National Socialist threat meant an intellectual and conscientious tightrope walk with various challenges, sometimes factually critical, such as by the Jewish judge Valentin, sometimes violent, as well as by the state authorities. However, these challenges also led to a progressive personal clarification with Halfmann; After the coercive measures and the prohibition of writing, he lacked any real possibility of a published correction. "

“… Wilhelm Halfmann, the much controversial, a clear head from the very beginning, who sees who he is dealing with with the Chancellor, who wants to throw the basis of the Christian religion on the garbage heap, says it, repeats it, carries it ahead - and then waves in a script in which he repeats this again, with anti-Jewish agitation, as if he were on the other side ... Did he want to take the muzzle, the prison key, the pistol out of the hand of the spying opponents, in order to explain his church political issues To be able to continue work? Was he scared? Did he think so? Was it commonplace? ... "

- Uwe Poerksen : Breklehem. Roman eines Dorfes , Husum 2016, p. 198 f.

See also

Publications

  • Christian Kortholt . A picture from theology and piety at the end of the orthodox age. Writings of the Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History, 1st series (larger publications), 17th issue , Kiel 1930.
  • Church and Confession. An examination of liberal theology. From a letter to privy councilor Professor D. Dr. Krüger, Gießen, on October 30, 1932 , in: Wilhelm Halfmann: Sermons, speeches, essays, letters. Compiled from the estate and edited by Wilhelm Otte, Karl Hauschildt and Eberhard Schwarz , ed. by Johann Schmidt , Kiel 1964, pp. 73-77 (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
  • Lutheran Church today. Lecture in the confessional service in the St. Nikolai Church in Kiel on June 3, 1934 , in: Halfmann: Sermons, speeches, essays, letters ... , ed. by Johann Schmidt, Kiel 1964, pp. 78–86 (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
  • The Church and the Jew , Breklum 1936.
  • The hour of the Protestant Church , Breklum 1937.
  • Church development in Schleswig-Holstein (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) , in: Das Niederdeutsche Luthertum , issue 11 of June 3, 1937, pp. 168-174 (LKAK, 98.031 No. 401).
  • How should we preach today? Circular letter to the Schleswig-Holstein clergy in May 1945 , in: Kurt Jürgensen : The hour of the church. The Ev.-Luth. State Church of Schleswig-Holstein in the first years after the Second World War , Neumünster 1976, pp. 261–263 (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
  • The present tasks of the Schleswig-Holstein Church. Lecture given at the first session of the preliminary general synod on August 14, 1945 in Rendsburg , in: Quasebarth (ed.): Reports on the 3 sessions of the preliminary general synod in the years 1945–1946 and the session of the 5th regular regional synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Schleswig-Holstein from October 13 to 17, 1947 in Rendsburg , Kiel: Landeskirchliches Archiv 1958, pp. 10-14; also in: Wilhelm Halfmann: Sermons, speeches, essays, letters. Compiled from the estate and edited by Wilhelm Otte, Karl Hauschildt and Eberhard Schwarz , ed. by Johann Schmidt, Kiel 1964, pp. 104–113 (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
  • The Schleswig question seen from a historical theological perspective , July 1946, in: Kurt Jürgensen: The hour of the church… , Neumünster 1976, pp. 312-317.
  • Lutheran Church and Evangelical Church in Germany. Propriest Conference February 12, 1947 , in: Journal for Schleswig-Holstein Church History , Volume 2, 2015, pages 201–244.
  • Barmer Declaration and Lutheran Confession. Flensburg Lutheran Conference, October 1 and 2, 1947 , in: Journal for Schleswig-Holstein Church History , Volume 2, 2015, pages 245–267.
  • Forget, atonement, confession , Hamburg 1948.
  • A bishop's visit to the mission field , Breklum 1953.
  • Theological questions on defense , Kiel 1958.
  • Bishop Halfmann and the Jews (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) , Kiel 1960 (LKAK 20.01 No. 660).
  • To come to terms with our past , in: Faith and Education. Ceremony for Gerhard Bohne on his 65th birthday , Neumünster: Ihloff & Co. 1960, pp. 9–19; also in: Halfmann: Sermons, speeches, essays, letters ... , Kiel 1964, pp. 135–142 (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
  • Director of studies of the preacher's seminary in Preetz and monastery preacher , in: Workers in God's harvest. Heinrich Rendtorff : Life and Work , ed. by Paul Toaspern, Berlin 1963, pp. 26–31.
  • The Christian and his fatherland , Munich 1964.
  • Sermons, speeches, essays, letters. Compiled from the estate and edited by Wilhelm Otte, Karl Hauschildt and Eberhard Schwarz , ed. by Johann Schmidt , Kiel 1964.

literature

  • Johann Bielfeldt : The Church Fight in Schleswig-Holstein 1933–1945 (dedicated to the memory of Bishop D. Wilhelm Halfmann) , Göttingen 1964.
  • Christian children: New contributions to the history of the Protestant Church in Schleswig-Holstein and in the Reich 1924–1945 , Flensburg, 2nd edition 1966.
  • Johann Schmidt : Art. Halfmann, Wilhelm Heinrich Leonhard , in: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Biographisches Lexikon , Volume 1, Neumünster 1970, p. 156 f.
  • Kurt Jürgensen : The hour of the church. The Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Schleswig-Holstein in the first years after the Second World War , Neumünster 1976.
  • Johann Schmidt: Spiritual fathers of our church. Claus Harms - Theodor Kaftan - Wilhelm Halfmann , in: Jens Motschmann (Hrsg.): Church between the seas. Contributions to the history and shape of the North Elbian Church , Heide in Holstein: Westholsteinische Verlagsanstalt Boyens & Co. 1981, pp. 101–107.
  • Johann Schmidt: What is right before God , Kiel-Holtenau 1981, in: Kurt Juergensen , Friedrich-Otto Scharbau , Werner H. Schmidt (ed.): Praise God that is our office. Contributions to a key word (memorial book by Johann Schmidt) , Kiel 1984, pp. 9-21 ( online at pkgodzik.de ).
  • Klauspeter Reumann: Church and National Socialism. The appointment of Wilhelm Halfmann to St. Marien-Flensburg in February / March 1933. Anticipated fronts of the church struggle , in: Erich Hoffmann , Peter Wulf (ed.): “We build the Reich”. Rise and first years of rule of National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein , Neumünster 1983, pp. 369–389.
  • Kurt Jürgensen: Church and society as understood by Bishop D. Wilhelm Halfmann , in: Kurt Jürgensen, Friedrich-Otto Scharbau, Werner H. Schmidt (eds.): Praise God that is our office. Contributions to a key word (memorial by Johann Schmidt) , Kiel 1984, pp. 171–189 (online at pkgodzik.de) .
  • Rudolf Halver: Wilhelm Halfmann - the bishop , in: Wolfgang Prehn (Hrsg.): Time to walk the narrow path. Witnesses report on the church fight in Schleswig-Holstein , Kiel 1985, pp. 163–167.
  • Wolfgang Gerlach: When the witnesses were silent. Confessing Church and the Jews (Writings on Church and Israel, Volume 10) , Berlin: Institute Church and Judaism 1987; 2nd, edited and supplemented edition 1993 (= Diss. Hamburg 1970). (on Halfmann: p. 167 f.)
  • Klauspeter Reumann: Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in Schleswig-Holstein , Neumünster 1988.
  • Kurt Jürgensen: The declaration of guilt by the Evangelical Church in Germany and its acceptance in Schleswig-Holstein , in: Klauspeter Reumann: Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in Schleswig-Holstein. Neumünster 1988, pp. 381-406 (excerpts from it online at pkgodzik.de) .
  • Gothart Magaard , Gerhard Ulrich (ed.): 100 years of Preetz seminary. A Festschrift , Kiel 1996.
  • Klauspeter Reumann: Halfmann's work "The Church and the Jude" from 1936 , first in: Association for Schleswig-Holstein History (Ed.): 100 Years Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History (Writings of the Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History, Series II, Volume 48) , Neumünster 1996; now in: Annette Göhres, Stephan Linck, Joachim Liß-Walther (eds.): When Jesus became “Aryan”. Churches, Christians, Jews in Northern Elbe 1933–1945. The exhibition in Kiel , Bremen: Edition Temmen 2003, pp. 147–161.
  • Klauspeter Reumann: The church struggle in Schleswig-Holstein from 1933 to 1945 , in: Schleswig-Holstein Church history. Vol. 6/1: Church between self-assertion and external determination , Neumünster 1998, pp. 111–451.
  • Sönke Zankel : The Confessing Church and the “Jewish Question”: Wilhelm Halfmann's radical anti-Judaism . In: Niklas Günther and Sönke Zankel (eds.): Theology between church, university and school. Festschrift for Klaus Kurzdörfer , Kiel 2002, pp. 52–66. A revised version is available online: here .
  • Klauspeter Reumann: "... branches of the Jewish synagogue". On the creation of Wilhelm Halfmann's “The Church and the Jew” , in: Grenzfriedenshefte , Heft 3, Flensburg 2004, pp. 121-134.
  • Hanna Lehming: Anti-Semitism in the Church - how did it come about? Schleswig-Holstein theologians during the Nazi era , in: Hansjörg Buss, Annette Göhres, Stephan Linck, Joachim Liß-Walther (eds.): “A chronicle of mixed feelings”. Review of the traveling exhibition 'Church of Christians, Jews in Northern Elbe 1933–1945' , Bremen: Edition Temmen 2005, pp. 271–280. An extended version is available online: here .
  • Christina Semper: The relationship of the Confessing Church to Judaism in Schleswig-Holstein using the example of Wilhelm Halfmann , in: Church - Jews - Christians in Northern Elbe 1933–1945 , in: Book accompanying the exhibition in the Landtag 2005 , pp. 103–113.
  • Klauspeter Reumann: Church struggle as a struggle for the "middle". The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein , in: Manfred Gailus / Wolfgang Krogel: From the Babylonian captivity of the church in the national. Regional studies on Protestantism, National Socialism and post-war history 1930 to 2000 , Berlin: Wichern 2006, pp. 29–58.
  • Sönke Zankel: “I cannot participate in the Christian-Jewish fraternization with the elimination of theology.” Bishop Halfmann and Christian anti-Judaism in the years 1958–1960. In: Democratic History. Yearbook for Schleswig-Holstein. 21 (2010), pp. 123-138. View online here .
  • Stephan Linck: New beginnings? How the Evangelical Church deals with the Nazi past and its relationship to Judaism. The regional churches in North Elbe , Kiel 2013, ISBN 978-3-87503-167-6 .
  • Friedrich-Otto Scharbau : On the reorganization of Protestantism in Germany according to the imperial church and the church struggle. Introduction to the edition of two articles by Wilhelm Halfmann on the discussion about the development of church-wide structures in Germany after 1945 (published posthumously by Rainer Hering ), in: Zeitschrift für Schleswig-Holsteinische Kirchengeschichte , Volume 2, 2015, pages 159–200 (therein pages 164– 167: Notes on Halfmann's biography ).
  • Karl Ludwig Kohlwage : The theological criticism of the Confessing Church of German Christians and National Socialism and the importance of the Confessing Church for the reorientation after 1945. Lecture in Breklum on February 3, 2015, printed in: Forum. Bulletin of the pastors' associations in the area of ​​the Northern Church , No. 76, May 2015, pp. 6–25.
  • Karl Ludwig Kohlwage, Manfred Kamper, Jens-Hinrich Pörksen (eds.): “What is right before God”. Church struggle and theological foundation for the new beginning of the church in Schleswig-Holstein after 1945. Documentation of a conference in Breklum 2015 . Compiled and edited by Rudolf Hinz and Simeon Schildt in collaboration with Peter Godzik , Johannes Jürgensen and Kurt Triebel, Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-7868-5306-0 ; in this:
    • Karl Ludwig Kohlwage: "The hour of the Protestant Church" - once again offensive theology (p. 31 f.)
    • Karl Ludwig Kohlwage: The silent BK (p. 32 f.)
    • Michael Bethke: Bishop Wilhelm Halfmann (1896–1964) (p. 121 ff.)
  • Karl Ludwig Kohlwage, Manfred Kamper, Jens-Hinrich Pörksen (eds.): “Do what he tells you!” The reconstruction of the Schleswig-Holstein regional church after the Second World War. Documentation of a conference in Breklum 2017. Compiled and edited by Peter Godzik, Rudolf Hinz and Simeon Schildt, Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-7868-5307-7 .
  • Karl Ludwig Kohlwage, Manfred Kamper, Jens-Hinrich Pörksen (eds.): “You will be my witnesses!” Voices for the preservation of a denominational church in urgent times. The Breklumer Hefte of the ev.-luth. Confessional community in Schleswig-Holstein from 1935 to 1941. Sources on the history of the church struggle in Schleswig-Holstein . Compiled and edited by Peter Godzik, Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-7868-5308-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Zankel: I can ... , p. 126.
  2. ↑ Quoted in: Wilhelm Halfmann: Sermons. Talk. Essays. Letters , ed. by Johann Schmidt, Kiel 1964, p. 11.
  3. ^ Hugo Wietholz: Autobiography of the deacon of the Rauhen Haus , Hamburg 2002, p. 36 f .; quoted by Jürgen Wehrs: Otto Stockhausen. A biography , Rosengarten b. Hamburg 2016, p. 95.
  4. ↑ Overview of the holdings of the State Church Archives in Kiel ( online ), 98.108.
  5. ↑ Johann Schmidt reports on the 1st Synod of Confessions on July 17, 1935 in Kiel: What is right before God ... , pp. 9–21; Excerpts from both synod reports can be found at http://www.geschichte-bk-sh.de/index.php?id=16 .
  6. ↑ Zankel: Christian Theologie ... , p. 124.
  7. ↑ Children themselves present the situation differently: “The national church circles in Thuringia tried to play their part in the succession of the original imperial movement DC. However, what I always tried to avoid, they became heavily dependent on the state, especially the minister of church, and represented theses that touched the faith of the church. "(Children: New contributions ... , p. 50)
  8. ↑ Reumann: Halfmanns Schrift ... , p. 148 f.
  9. ↑ For Halfmann's motivation and intention, see Klauspeter Reumann: Halfmann's work “Die Kirche und der Jude” from 1936 , in: Annette Göhres, Stephan Linck, Joachim Liß-Walther (ed.): When Jesus became “Aryan”. Churches, Christians, Jews in Northern Elbe 1933–1945. The exhibition in Kiel , Bremen: Edition Temmen 2003, pp. 156–158 (online at pkgodzik.de)
  10. ↑ Zankel: I can ... , p. 128.
  11. ↑ Martin Rade spoke in 1935 of Lex lata : Zur deutschen Judengesetzgebung , in: Die Christliche Welt No. 21 of November 2, 1935, column 994-997 ( online ).
  12. ↑ Halfmann: The Church and the Jew , Breklum 1936, p. 13 f.
  13. ^ Wilhelm Halfmann in: Flensburger Presse of May 29, 1958, copy in: NEK archive, January 20, No. 660.
  14. ↑ Halfmann: The Church and the Jew , p. 3.
  15. ^ Reumann: Halfmanns Schrift ... , p. 153.
  16. ↑ Semper, p. 107. Halfmann's remark: “Because the Old Testament is a sacred scripture of the church, only the church can correctly grasp and interpret its meaning. All other interpretations that do not come from the area of ​​the church are misleading, wrong, incomprehensible and malicious ”(p. 4), directed against the National Socialists. He mentions the Jewish interpretation of Scripture later: “That is why Jesus Christ is the key to understanding the Old Testament, who fits into the gap that has remained open in the Old Testament, like the key to the lock. … The Jews read the Old Testament without the key Jesus Christ, the Christians read it with the key Jesus Christ. ... Now the Church claims: we Christians have the only correct understanding of the Old Testament, but you Jews have a wrong understanding. ... "(p. 6 f.)
  17. ↑ Halfmann: The Church and the Jew, p. 12 f.
  18. ↑ Ursula Büttner: Fritz Valentin. Jewish persecuted, judge and Christian. A biography. Wallstein, Göttingen 2017, p. 48
  19. ↑ On the question of the ecclesiastical position of baptized Jewish origin, the radical German-Christian solution was avoided and a special regulation was made for Schleswig-Holstein, which was also approved by the Confessing Church in Schleswig-Holstein. See geschichte-bk-sh.de . At a lecture in Breklum on February 3, 2015, former Bishop Karl Ludwig Kohlwage described the allegations against Halfmann for having expelled Christians of Jewish origin from the church and for having canceled their baptism as an evil slander. (Printed in: Forum. Bulletin of the pastors' associations in the area of ​​the North Church , No. 76, May 2015, p. 23; now in: “What is right before God” ... Documentation of a conference in Breklum 2015 , p. 33 )
  20. ↑ Semper, p. 108.
  21. ^ Regional Church Press and Information Office: Bishop Halfmann and the Jews , printed in: Breklumer Hefte 2018, p. 447.
  22. ↑ a b Halfmann - Findings about an ex-bishop on shz.de (article from February 17, 2009)
  23. ↑ Semper, p. 106.
  24. ↑ http://www.geschichte-bk-sh.de/index.php?id=379
  25. ↑ The fact that a completely different position on the Jewish question was historically possible within the framework of the Confessing Church is shown by the memorandum on the situation of German non-Aryans submitted by Elisabeth Schmitz in 1935/36 , which was sent in confidence to leading figures of the Confessing Church (printed in: Manfred Gailus : But it tore my heart ... , pp. 223–252). It is not known whether Halfmann knew this memorandum and deliberately wrote it differently.
  26. ↑ Nordelbisches Kirchenarchiv, 98.04, NL Halfmann, B IX, No. 179, letter from the Reichsschrifttumskammer to the chairman of the Breklumer Volksmission dated April 12, 1937, and No. 180, letter from the DEK chancellery to Halfmann dated April 21, 1937 .
  27. ^ Zankel: Christian Theologie ..., p. 125
  28. ↑ Sermon of July 16, 1944 in Mölln, North Elbian Church Archives, Halfmann estate, 98.04, No. 12 [1]
  29. ↑ North Elbian Church Archives, 98.04, NL Halfmann, A l, Sermons, Vol. 1944–1945.
  30. ↑ Printed in: Kurt Jürgensen: The hour of the church. The Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Schleswig-Holstein in the first years after the Second World War , Neumünster 1976, pp. 261–263 (online at pkgodzik.de) .
  31. ↑ a b c Kurt Jürgensen: The declaration of guilt ... , p. 390 ff.
  32. ↑ Halfmann: Are we guilty? A word on the day of repentance in 1945 , in: sermons, speeches, essays, letters. Compiled from the estate and edited by Wilhelm Otte, Karl Hauschildt and Eberhard Schwarz , ed. by Johann Schmidt, Kiel 1964, pp. 97-99 (online at pkgodzik.de) . Commentary on this by Kurt Jürgensen : The “Word on the Day of Repentance” presented on behalf of the provisional church leadership was essentially drafted by Professor D. Rendtorff , who was a member of the provisional church leadership, shortly before the Stuttgart Declaration became known, i.e. independently of her. The word was wrongly published in the collection of sermons, speeches, essays and letters by Wilhelm Halfmann, since he is not the author; but President Halfmann unreservedly agreed with the word on the day of repentance in form and content. (Kurt Juergensen: The declaration of guilt ... , p. 396).
  33. ↑ Quoted from: Clemens Vollnhals : The Protestant Church between preservation of tradition and reorientation. In: Martin Broszat , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Hans Woller : From Stalingrad to currency reform: to the social history of upheaval in Germany ; Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990; Pp. 113-168; P. 113.
  34. ↑ Halfmann: How should we preach today? In: Jürgensen: The Hour of the Church… , Neumünster 1976, p. 263 (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
  35. ↑ Children: New Contributions ... , p. 76 ff.
  36. ↑ Der Spiegel of July 11, 1951
  37. ↑ Zankel: I can ... , p. 124. Cf. also: Johann Schmidt: Geistliche Fathers Our Church. Claus Harms - Theodor Kaftan - Wilhelm Halfmann , in: Jens Motschmann (Hrsg.): Church between the seas. Contributions to the history and shape of the North Elbian Church , Heide in Holstein 1981, pp. 101-107; Kurt Jürgensen: Church and society as understood by Bishop D. Wilhelm Halfmann , in: Kurt Jürgensen, Friedrich-Otto Scharbau, Werner H. Schmidt (eds.): Praise God that is our office. Contributions to a key word (memorial by Johann Schmidt) , Kiel 1984, pp. 171–189.
  38. ^ Johann Schmidt: Art. Halfmann, Wilhelm Heinrich Leonhard , in: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Biographisches Lexikon, Volume 1, Neumünster 1970, p. 157.
  39. ^ Zankel: I can ... , p. 129 f. There also the sources not reproduced here.
  40. ↑ The mere repetition of the fatal generalization of “ the Jews” in 1960 still hurts. Elisabeth Schmitz had already asked urgently in 1950: “Save people, that means above all: See people! Don't always say: the French, the Poles, the Jews, the workers, the capitalists. Get to know the person, the individual, also the stranger, honor him by being friendly to him, also to the weak and despised. "(Manfred Gailus: But my heart was torn ... , p. 261)
  41. ^ Zankel: I can ... , p. 133; Defense document reprinted in: Kohlwage, Kamper, Pörksen (ed.): “You will be my witnesses!” ..., Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2018, pp. 447–453.
  42. ↑ Halfmann: Sermons, speeches, essays, letters ... , p. 142.
  43. ^ Churches in the north covered Nazi careers
  44. ↑ Discussion about Halfmann: Important questions were not answered (online at shz.de)
  45. ↑ Reumann: Halfmanns Schrift ... , p. 158 ff.
  46. ↑ Reprinted in: Kohlwage, Kamper, Pörksen (ed.): “You will be my witnesses!” ... , Husum 2018, p. 280 ff.
  47. ↑ Reprinted in: Kohlwage, Kamper, Pörksen (ed.): “You will be my witnesses!” ... , Husum 2018, p. 296 ff.
  48. ↑ Reprinted again in: Kohlwage, Kamper, Pörksen (ed.): “You will be my witnesses!” ... , Husum 2018, p. 447 ff.
predecessor Office successor
Adalbert Paulsen as regional bishop for Schleswig-Holstein Bishop of the Holstein district of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Schleswig-Holstein
1946–1964 		Friedrich Huebner
personal data
SURNAME Halfmann, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Halfmann, Wilhelm Hermann Heinrich Leonhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Evangelical Lutheran theologian and Bishop of Holstein (1946–1964)
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Wittenberg
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1964
Place of death Kiel