Wilhelm Staedel

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Wilhelm Staedel (born January 12, 1890 in Hamruden , Transylvania , Austria-Hungary ; † October 11, 1971 in Marburg , Germany ) was a Romanian clergyman from the German-speaking minority of the Transylvanian Saxons . From 1941 to 1944 he was Bishop of the Evangelical Church AB in Romania .

Life

As a student, Staedel was a member of the Coetus Honteri student association in Kronstadt. He later studied Protestant theology and philosophy in Jena , Budapest and Berlin . He counted himself to the "groupists", i. H. to a group of students from Transylvanian Hungary who studied to become pastors alone and not teachers. Finally, Stadel became vicar in Marktschelken .

In the First World War Staedel chaplain was. In 1919 he was given the parish of Arkeden , shortly afterwards he married Herta Scheiner (1901–1989), a sister of Herwart Scheiner . The couple later adopted two half-orphans, a girl and a boy. In 1924 Staedel went to Honigberg as a pastor and in 1930 to Kronstadt as a preacher . His friend Waldemar Gust , one of the later representatives of the radical National Socialist German People's Party in Romania (DVR), had found him a job with the St. Martin parish.

Together with the veterinarian Alfred Bonfert , an activist of the Wandervogel movement , Staedel took over the leadership of the German-Saxon Youth Association. He consistently converted the federal government into a Nazi youth organization. Future multipliers from school and student circles were encouraged to do charitable work in voluntary, multi-week labor camps , but were also politically and ideologically shaped . After the political split in this ethnic-nationalist group, Bonfert, who had become party leader of the DPR in July 1935, and his friend Staedel transferred many young people to the DPR.

In accordance with popular missionary principles, Bishop D. Viktor Glondys - with reservations - transferred the leadership of youth work in the regional church to Staedel, who was popular with young people. Due to a lack of trust in him, Glondys removed him from this position a little later. Around 1936 a conflict between the church leadership and the church Nazis came to a head because the church leadership had forbidden its employees to take part in party-political campaigns. Like Staedel, nearly 70 supporters persistently committed to the DVR and were subjected to disciplinary proceedings. Staedel was convicted in 1937 and removed from his position for refusing to sign circular Z. 924/1936.

When the semi-autonomous German ethnic group was formed in Romania in 1940 , Staedel was appointed to Sibiu from Wolkendorf , where he had previously spent time studying . He was promoted to head of the cultural office of the German ethnic group, for which he was appointed by the SS member and ethnic group leader Andreas Schmidt , who was also a German Gauleiter abroad . The resignation of the ailing bishop Glondys, controlled by the empire, took place within a short time, whereupon Staedel rose to be a candidate for the office of bishop. Staedel was also elected bishop by the regional church assembly on February 16, 1941; his opponent, Episcopal Vicar D. Friedrich Müller, lost. At the same time Staedel was rehabilitated. In the same year he let all religious institutions, youth organizations and women's associations dissolve and gleichschalten . In addition, he initiated the founding of a working group at the institute created in March 1942 to research and eliminate the Jewish influence on German church life in Transylvania. Following the example of Walter Grundmann and the German Christians , the curriculum for religious instruction was redesigned in the sense of a "de-Judaization of church and theology" (Grundmann). In August 1942, the German ethnic group took over the denominational school system.

The opposition " defense ring " led by Episcopal Vicar D. Friedrich Müller succeeded in thwarting Staedel 's administration. A few weeks after Romania's change of front on August 23, 1944, Staedel was asked by the pastor to resign. He resigned, also to avoid arrest. On October 18, 1944, the state consistory overruled numerous orders from his term in office.

Staedel was interned in the Târgu Jiu camp in October 1944 , from where he was released in the spring of 1946. In the summer of 1946 he was able to flee to the West and was hired as a hospital chaplain by the Evangelical Church of Westphalia in Minden . In 1959 he retired, which he spent with his family in Marburg .

Criticism and debate

Staedel's tenure as bishop is characterized by almost unrestricted subordination to the demands of the ethnic group leadership. First the handover of the church school system was arranged - with noticeable resistance on the part of the denominational opposition. Staedel's ideas were shaped by disorderly speculation about the kingdom of God and the childhood of the human soul. Political phrases and volkish exuberance permeated an Aryan-dominated syncretism . The attempts at self-reflection he left behind contain almost only apologetics. Critical replies were largely absent.

Works

  • Greece ; in: Akademische Blätter 13 (1909); Sibiu
  • The Saxon advanced training school: Address given at the general assembly of the general Transylvanian-German youth association at Reps on May 25, 1924 ; Pamphlets of the General Transylvanian-German Youth Association 1
  • Stephan Ludwig Roth. Speech ; Pamphlets of the General Transylvanian-German Youth Association 6 ; Schäßburg 1928
  • On the way to the Volkisch-German school of the Transylvanian Saxons ; oOoJ
  • For truth and justice in our church ; Sibiu 1936
  • My defense. A call to reflection in our church ; Kronstadt 1937
  • In the house of God the Father: sermon on John 14: 1–2a ; Church papers 1942
  • Church among the people. Report on the 39th regional church assembly of the Evangelical regional church AB in Romania from May 31 to June 3, 1942 with installation sermon and opening speech by Bishop Wilhelm Staedel ; Sibiu 1942
  • Critical remarks on Robert Schulz: Germans in Romania - The nationality problem in the Romanian People's Republic ; Leipzig, around 1955 2
  • Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen (ed.): The Volkskirche der Siebenbürger Sachsen ; Typescript 1957
  • Comments, questions and corrections to the "Documentation of the expulsion of Germans from East-Central Europe (Vol. 3): The fate of the Germans in Romania." ; Typescript 1957
  • Dr. Josef Capesius: a Transylvanian-Saxon schoolboy around the turn of the century (July 21, 1853– October 25, 1918) ; in: Südostdeutsche Vierteljahresblätter (Sodt Vjbl) 11 (1961), pp. 217–221
  • Andreas Scheiner the Younger (1890-1960) ; in: SodtVjbl 11 (1961), pp. 231-233
  • Andreas Scheiner the Younger in Memory (1890-1960) ; n: Transylvanian-Saxon house calendar 1962, pp. 66–68
  • Privy Councilor Professor Dr. Franz Schmidt ; in: SodtVjbl (14) 1964, pp. 52-54
  • German youth care, youth work and the youth movement of Transylvania in the first quarter of the 20th century ; Proceedings of the Working Group for Southeast German Folk and Local Research, 1966
  • Unforgettable and never lost. Sermons and addresses by Wilhelm Staedel ; ed. by Herta Staedel; Marburg 1978 (posthumous)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Bahr: Well-known men of Transylvanian Pennalien . In: Young Life . No. 2/2012 , p. 13 f .
  2. ^ Ulrich Andreas Vienna: Resonance and contradiction. From the Transylvanian Diaspora People's Church to the Diaspora in Romania . Martin-Luther-Verlag, Erlangen 2014, ISBN 978-3-87513-178-9 , pp. 398 (622 pp.).
  3. ↑ Peter Maser (editor): The Church Struggle in the German East and in the German-speaking Churches in Eastern Europe , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1982
personal data
SURNAME Staedel, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamruden , Transylvania , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1971
Place of death Marburg , Germany