Wilhelm Niesel

Wilhelm Niesel (born January 7, 1903 in Berlin , † March 13, 1988 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German Reformed theologian.

Life

Wilhelm Niesel, a son of foreman Paul Niesel and his wife Ida, born. Grauer, was baptized Catholic, but confirmed in 1918 , by Günther Dehn , who introduced him to the Neuwerk movement in the following years . After graduating from Friedrichswerder Gymnasium , Niesel began studying Protestant theology at the University of Berlin in 1922 . After a semester at the University of Tübingen , he moved to the University of Göttingen in October 1923 , where he closely followed Karl Barth . After the first theological exam, which he passed at the Berlin Consistory in 1926 , he worked on Barth's mediation with his brother Peter until the end of 1928 in the rectory of Madiswil ( Canton Bern ) on an edition of the Institutio Christianae Religionis by Johannes Calvin . After further training in the Wuppertal-Elberfeld seminary , he received his doctorate in February 1930 on the basis of an investigation into Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's Supper at the University of Münster (where Barth had since moved) . In the same year he was ordained and worked as an assistant preacher in Wittenberge . Before the end of the year he became pastor of the Reformed Congregation Wuppertal-Elberfeld and at the same time the study inspector of the local seminary there .

Niesel joined the Confessing Church together with his Elberfeld supervisor Hermann Albert Hesse as early as 1933 . In May 1934 he was involved in drafting the Barmen Theological Declaration and was elected to the Brotherhood of the Church of the Old Prussian Union in the same month . In the autumn of 1934, Karl Koch , the chairman of the Brotherhood Council and the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church , brought him to Bad Oeynhausen as its speaker . From there he moved to Berlin in 1935 as managing director of the Old Prussian Brother Council. There he established the church college for Reformation theology with departments in Berlin and Elberfeld and from autumn 1935 took over the lectureship for systematic theology in Berlin-Zehlendorf. In addition, he was responsible for theological training in the Confessing Church and worked closely with Dietrich Bonhoeffer , whom he already knew from school.

Since 1937 repeatedly in the sights of the Gestapo and briefly imprisoned several times, he was expelled from Berlin in 1940 and prohibited from speaking in the Reich. In December 1941 he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment by a special court in Berlin , which had already been compensated for by his pre-trial detention. In the face of an impending convocation, Niesel evaded the court church in Breslau and was given refuge as a pastor in Reelkirchen ( Lippe ) in 1943 .

Immediately after the end of the Second World War , Niesel was appointed as a representative of the Reformed denomination to the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany , which was being founded. In this capacity he signed the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt in October 1945 . In 1946 he was elected moderator (chairman) of the Reformed League , an office with which he remained entrusted until 1973.

Also in 1946, Niesel was appointed lecturer in systematic theology (from 1951 with the title of professor) at the Wuppertal Church University ; the position was connected with the parish in the small Reformed community of Schöller . He held both offices until 1968. He spent his retirement in Königstein im Taunus .

Wilhelm Niesel had been with Susanna, born in 1935. Pfannschmidt, married, whom he met around Martin Niemoeller in Berlin.

Act

As chairman of the Reformed Federation and a member of the EKD Council (he only gave up both offices in 1973), Niesel was one of the defining figures in Protestantism in the post-war period for decades. It was important to him to preserve the legacy of the Confessing Church and to make it fruitful. In the disputes over rearmament and the military chaplaincy contract , he stood on the side of Martin Niemöller and Gustav Heinemann . Despite his clear orientation towards the Reformed Confession, he advocated a close community within the EKD. He supported the Arnoldshain Last Supper Theses of 1957 and the Leuenberg Agreement of 1973.

Calvin's theology, to which he dedicated a monograph in 1938, remained at the center of Niesel's theological interest. It was translated into several languages ​​and revised and reissued in 1957. After the death of Peter Barth in 1940, he was solely responsible for Opera selecta . He also dedicated numerous essays to the reformer. Another focus was the Reformed confessional documents , which he made available in a German-language edition. In addition, he wrote a textbook on denominational studies (= "symbolism"). He was awarded honorary doctorates from five universities : the University of Göttingen (1948), the University of Aberdeen (1954), the University of Geneva (1958), the University of Strasbourg (1964) and the Reformed College in Debrecen (1967).

Beyond Germany, Niesel was involved in global ecumenism . From 1948 to 1963 he was a member of the central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC). From 1964 to 1970 he was President of the World Reformed Federation .

Fonts (selection)

• Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Kaiser, Munich 1930, ² 1935.
• What does reformed mean? Kaiser, Munich 1934. (Japanese translation: N. Watanabe, Tokyo 1956).
• (as ed.): Confessions and church ordinances of the church reformed according to God's word. Kaiser, Munich 1938.
• Calvin's theology. Kaiser, Munich 1938; 2. revised Edition 1957; ³ 1958.
  • The Theology of Calvin. Lutterworth Press, London 1956.
  • Karuban no shingaku. Biruherumu Nîzeru. Shinkyô Shuppan-sha, Tôkyô 1960.
  • Kálvin teológiája. Magyarországi Református Egyház, Budapest 1998, ISBN 963-300-737-2 .
• The contribution of the Reformed to the rebuilding of the Evangelical Church in Germany. North 1946.
• The Path of the Confessing Church. Gotthelf-Verlag, Zurich 1947.
• Church unity and confessional determination in the Evangelical Church in Germany. Quell, Stuttgart 1948.
• (as ed.): About proclamation and order of the church. The Confession Synods of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union 1934-1943. Bechauf, Bielefeld 1949.
• The gospel and the churches. A textbook of symbolism. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen 1953, ² 1960.
  • The Gospel and the Churches. Translated by David Lewis. Westminster Press, Philadelphia, Pa. 1953.
  • Reformed Symbolics. A Comparison of Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh 1962.
  • Az evangélium és az egyházak: a szimbolika tankönyve. Egyetemi Fokú Egységes Protestáns Teológiai Intézet, Kolozsvár 1979.
• Calvin Bibliography 1901-1959. Kaiser, Munich 1961.
• Fellowship with Jesus Christ. Lectures and votes on theology, the church and the ecumenical movement. Kaiser, Munich 1964.
• (as editors with Robert Kurtz and Fritz Blanke :) 400 years of the Second Helvetic Confession. History and ecumenical significance. Zwingli-Verlag, Zurich 1966.
• Church under the Word. The fight of the Confessing Church of the Old Prussian Union 1933–1945 (= work on the history of the church fight . Supplementary series; Vol. 11). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1978, ISBN 978-3-525-55556-9 .
• Praise God, the Lord of glory. Theology for God's glory. Christian publishing house, Constance 1983, ISBN 978-3-7673-6540-7 .

literature

• Karl Halaski , Walter Herrenbrück : Church, denomination, ecumenism - Festschrift for Wilhelm Niesel on his 70th birthday. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1973, ISBN 978-3-7887-0355-4 .
• Peter Noss:  Niesel, Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 765-774.
• Wilhelm H. Neuser : The origin of the Opera selecta Ioannis Calvini. In the S. (Ed.): Calvin's books. Festschrift dedicated to Peter De Klerk on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Groen, Heerenveen 1997, pp. 197-222.
• Hans-Georg Ulrichs : Wilhelm Niesel and Karl Barth. Two examples from their correspondence between 1924 and 1968. In: Matthias Freudenberg (ed.): Profiles of reformed Protestantism from four centuries (Emder contributions to reformed Protestantism. 1). Foedus, Wuppertal 1999, pp. 177-196.
• Martin Breidert, Hans-Georg Ulrichs (ed.): Wilhelm Niesel - theologian and church politician. A symposium on the occasion of his 100th birthday at the Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal (= Emden Contributions to Reformed Protestantism, Vol. 7). Foedus, Wuppertal 2003, ISBN 978-3-932735-81-3 .
• Hans-Georg Ulrichs: "The most pronounced Reformed in Germany". Reformed identity in the church struggle and in the Cold War: Wilhelm Niesel (1903–1988). In: Marco Hofheinz , Matthias Zeindler (ed.): Reformed theology worldwide. Twelve profiles from the 20th century. Theological Publishing House Zurich 2013, pp. 71–100.
• Matthias Freudenberg, Hans-Georg Ulrichs (eds.): Karl Barth and Wilhelm Niesel. Correspondence 1924–1968. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-647-56019-9 .
• Hans-Georg Ulrichs: Wilhelm Niesel (1946–1973): Confessing and persevering. In: Hans-Georg Ulrichs (Ed.): The moderator. Thanks for Peter Bukowski. Foedus, Wuppertal 2015, pp. 50–57.

Web links

• Wilhelm Niesel in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Directory of Niesel's estate in the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ place of death according to Munzinger and EZA; according to other information (e.g. BBKL and Ulrichs) in Königstein.
2. ^ Brief portrait of Niesels on the Dietrich Bonhoeffer portal.
3. ↑ Hans-Georg Ulrichs: A Brief History of the Reformed Covenant , accessed on May 21, 2018.