Wilhelm Hoffmann (theologian)

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Preacher Hoffmann, by Alexander Calandrelli

Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann (born October 30, 1806 in Leonberg , Württemberg; † August 28, 1873 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant theologian.

origin

His parents were the politician Gottlieb Wilhelm Hoffmann (1771-1846) and his second wife Friederike Löffler (1779-1810). The theologian Christoph Hoffmann was a half-brother from his father's third marriage.

Live and act

Wilhelm Hoffmann's father was mayor in Leonberg and a pietist . In 1819 he founded the Wuerttemberg Brethren community of Korntal , of which he became head. Wilhelm only visited the boys' institute there briefly before entering the Evangelical Seminary in Schönthal in 1820 . There he made friends with the theologian Christoph Blumhardt . In 1824 he began studying theology at the University of Tübingen , where he lived in the monastery . In addition, he dealt with the natural sciences and medicine.

First he held various spiritual offices in Württemberg. During his first years as an assistant preacher, he published a geographic textbook Description of the Earth . From 1834 pastor in Winnenden he was at the same time pastor of the mental hospital Winnenthal . From 1839 to 1850 he led the inspection on the mission hospital to Basel and held since 1843 at the same time as a professor of theology lectures at the university. He was then appointed as professor for the Old Testament and Ephorus of the Theological Monastery in Tübingen , in 1852 as court and cathedral preacher in Berlin, where he was also appointed as a member of the Evangelical Higher Church Council of the Evangelical Church in Prussia , General Superintendent of the Kurmark (1853–1873). , Senior Consistorial Councilor and also Ephorus of the Cathedral Candidate Monastery founded by him (1854–1873), since 1855 as Brandenburg Canon , since 1871 at the Oberpfarr- und Domkirche zu Berlin as the first court preacher with the rank of privy councilor, first class.

He enjoyed the trust of Friedrich Wilhelm IV to a high degree and until his death he had perhaps the greatest influence on the internal affairs of the Protestant Church.

As a theologian he was of no decisive importance. A number of writings on missions and mission history ( mission hours and lectures , Stuttgart 1847–1851) and several collections of sermons come from him. On January 21, 1853, he and others founded the Jerusalem Association , which was supposed to support Samuel Gobat's work as bishop of the Anglo-Prussian diocese of Jerusalem , and which he presided over until his death.

Hoffmann's younger brother Christoph had founded the Temple Society with others , a Christian group that had renounced the Evangelical Church in Württemberg and then emigrated to the Holy Land . While Lutherans from Württemberg viewed the Templars as apostates , Wilhelm Hoffmann's attitude was milder and he supported their settlement activities.

Hoffmann fought against the solidification of religious life and the secularization of the state. His strengths were his sermons and his leadership, through which he promoted and admonished the Christian maxims.

His grave is in the cathedral cemetery in Berlin's Liesenstrasse . His son Carl (also Karl) Hoffmann (1836–1903) described his life. He had taken over the pastoral care of the Evangelical German Language Congregation in Jerusalem from 1866 to 1869 on behalf of the Jerusalem Association as Licenciat .

Hoffmann's grave

family

He married Wilhelmine Beck (1809–1847) in Winnenden in 1834, a daughter of the Tübingen master baker GW Beck. The couple had four children including:

  • Wilhelm (born June 17, 1835 - † June 8, 1900), grammar school professor in Berlin and classical philologist

After the death of his first wife, in 1849 he married Sofie von Stoffregen (1829–1850), a daughter of the Russian Council of State and member of the Russian legation in Stuttgart August von Stoffregen (1795–1884). She died shortly after the birth of the only child who also did not survive.

He then married in Podangen in 1852 Clara von Kanitz (1819-1862), a daughter of Lieutenant General and Minister of War, Count August von Kanitz (1783-1852) and Countess Luise von der Schulenburg. The couple had two children including:

  • Karl, superintendent in Frauendorf near Stettin

His fourth and last wife was Pauline von Görlitz (1829–1913) in Amsterdam in 1864; she was a step-sister of his second wife and daughter of the Württemberg court stable master Count Karl von Görlitz (1798-1832), from whom his father had bought the manor Kornthal in 1819, and his wife Countess Mathilde von Zeppelin, a daughter of the diplomat Ferdinand Ludwig von Zeppelin . He had three other children with her, including:

  • Konrad (1867–1959), prelate in Stuttgart

Works

  • Call to the Lord . Berlin 1854–58
  • The house board . Berlin 1859–63
  • A year of grace , Berlin 1864
  • Germany then and now in the light of the kingdom of God . Berlin 1868
  • Germany and Europe in the light of world history . Berlin 1869

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Foerster, Mission in the Holy Land: The Jerusalem Association of Berlin 1852-1945 . Missionary Research [NS], 25. Gütersloher Verlags-Haus Mohn, Gütersloh 1991, ISBN 3-579-00245-7 , pp. 45 and 96
  2. ↑ Alex Carmel ( אלכס כרמל): The settlements of the Württemberg Templars in Palestine (1868–1918) . [התיישבות הגרמנים בארץ ישראל בשלהי השלטון הטורקי: בעיותיה המדיניות, המקומיות והבינלאומיות, ירושלים: תשו"ל]. Publications of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg, Series B, Research; Volume 77, 3rd edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-17-016788-X , p. 102 (German); 1st edition 1973.
  3. ↑ August Strobel : Your walls stand before me at all times: Buildings and monuments of German settlement and research history in the Holy Land . Biblical Archeology and Contemporary History, Volume 7. Brunnen, Gießen 1998, ISBN 3-7655-9807-0 , p. 86


personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffmann, Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pulpit speaker and church politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH Leonberg
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1873
Place of death Berlin