Wolf-Dieter March

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Wolf-Dieter March

Wolf-Dieter Ludwig Richard Marsch (born October 2, 1928 in Beeskow ; † November 23, 1972 ) was a German Protestant theologian.

Life

Marsch was the son of forester Wolfgang Marsch and his wife Ursula Winter.

A serious bone disease in childhood led to long periods of illness and several operations that shortened the legs. The physical handicaps, the associated emotional complaints, later the experience of the war and the death of his father finally led him to theology.

Despite his serious illness, he had successfully completed the high school in Zossen and studied theology in Greifswald , Tübingen , Göttingen and finally in Nashville / Tennessee from 1946 . Here he collected material for his doctoral thesis "Christian Faith and Democratic Ethos, illustrated in the life's work of Abraham Lincoln", with which he was awarded a doctorate in 1956 in Göttingen. theol. PhD . This theme stayed with him all his life.

In 1954 he had passed the second state examination in theology in Hanover. In the same year he married the pastor's daughter Elisabeth Hoppe, ten years older than him, in Hildesheim. The young family moved to Göttingen, where Marsch worked as an inspector of the Evangelical Monastery. At the same time he was an assistant pastor at the student community. This created the prerequisites for ordination in 1956. Here, in Göttingen, the two sons were born.

Despite his ordination, Marsch never wanted to be a parish pastor. He remained in systematic theological research and in interdenominational dialogue throughout his life. However, he was less interested in the practice of theology itself than in theology as an integral discipline in dealing with society, politics and the environment, as well as with the fundamental values ​​and future questions of man. Therefore, he paid particular attention to the topic of “Christian hope”. This research interest could only be thoroughly pursued through a scientific career. In this way, together with Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Gerhard Sauter and the Catholic colleague Johann Baptist Metz, he devoted himself to the eschatological transformation of the Christian concept of hope.

In 1958 he became head of studies at the Evangelical Academy Berlin-Wannsee, whose guiding principle corresponded thematically to Marsch's research interests: “Evangelical academies came into being in response to the shock that Protestantism did not have the strength to fend off the moral and national catastrophe of National Socialist ideology and dictatorship and to oppose the persecution of the Jews with a single body. ”With a grant from the German Research Foundation, he began a post- doctoral thesis on Hegel's dialectics in 1961 at the suggestion of Jürgen Moltmann , although he was only able to complete it six years later due to an interruption.

In 1962 he followed a call as professor for systematic theology at the church college in Wuppertal . At the same time, he also invested a lot of work here in the editing of the magazine Pastoraltheologie , later on science and practice in church and society , of which he became editor in 1966. In this context he dealt with the importance of Christian ethics for future planning. Again and again, topics such as "Christians & Jews" or "Christians and Marxists" were discussed, for which he was involved in various ways.

In 1969 Marsch was appointed professor of Christian social sciences and director of the associated institute at the University of Münster .

Marsch was friends with Ernst Gottfried Mahrenholz .

In November 1972 he was hit by a car in Cologne and died two weeks later from serious injuries.

Works (selection)

  • The Consequences of Freedom: Christian Ethics in the Technical World ; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1974. ISBN 3-579-03889-3
  • Perhaps there is still hope: sermons about the humanity of God ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974. ISBN 3-525-60122-0
  • Philosophy in the shadow of God: Bloch, Camus, Fichte, Hegel, H. Marcuse, Schleiermacher ; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1973. ISBN 3-579-03877-X
  • Pleading on religion: Christian religion between denial and defense ; Contribution from d. Inst. For Christian Social Science at the University of Münster by Wolfram Fischer ... Ed. By Wolf-Dieter Marsch; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1973. ISBN 3-579-04510-5
  • Planning freedom: Christian faith and democratic consciousness ; Contributions from the Institute for Christian Social Sciences in Münster; Edited by Wolf-Dieter Marsch; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1971. ISBN 3-525-60688-5
  • Institution in transition: Evangelical Church between tradition and reform ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970.
  • About the virtue of urbanity ; Wuppertal: Jugenddienst-Verlag, 1969.
  • Future ; Wolf-Dieter March. - 1st edition - Stuttgart [u. a.]: Kreuz-Verlag, 1969.
  • Learning Freedom: Contributions to Political Theology ; Olten; Freiburg / Breisgau: Walter, 1967.
  • Discussion on the "Theology of Hope" by Jürgen Moltmann / ed. and a. by Wolf-Dieter Marsch. - Munich: Kaiser, 1967. - 240 pp.
  • Presence of Christ in Society: A Study of Hegel's Dialectic ; Munich: Kaiser, 1965.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Buntfuß, “Welcome from Professor Moltmann on the occasion of his lecture on January 10, 2007”, In: Income Ed. AUGUSTANA Theological University of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. (WS: 2006/07)
  2. ^ Evangelical Academy in Berlin. Our topics: 'Politics' ( Memento from March 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ See Ernst Gottfried Mahrenholz: Churches as Corporations. In memory of my friend Wolf-Dieter Marsch. In: Zeitschrift für Evangelisches Kirchenrecht 20 (1975) 43–76.
personal data
SURNAME March, Wolf-Dieter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marsch, Wolf-Dieter Ludwig Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Beeskow
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1972