Wolf-Dietrich Hardung

Wolf-Dietrich Hardung (* 1927 in Gleiwitz ; † December 15, 2009 in Tübingen ) was dean of the Bad Cannstatt church district , a former member of the leadership group of the Evangelical Society (formerly Church Brotherhood in Württemberg) and co-founder of the peace organization " Without Armament Life ".

Live and act

At the age of fifteen, the native Silesian came to the Heimatflak and was taken prisoner after the Second World War. His experiences prompted him to later become active in the peace movement.

After the war, Hardung did his Abitur at Lake Constance, where he found his parents again, and briefly studied at the art academy. After some hesitation - because he wasn't sure whether he would be able to preach for a lifetime - he studied theology and also archeology , in which he began a doctoral thesis on the subject of "On the representation of suffering in ancient times".

Hardung married in 1956 and received a half vicar position . In 1957 he became the second pastor in the Tübingen Jakobus parish . When this was divided because of the growing new building areas and he built up the new Stephanus congregation including church and community rooms, he no longer found enough time for the planned dissertation. From 1973 until he retired in 1990 he was dean of the Bad Cannstatt church district.

Hardung was a co-founder of the peace organization "Live Without Armament". The second sentence of her voluntary commitment comes from Hardung: “I want to advocate that peace without weapons is politically developed in our state.” For many years the thoughtful pastor Wolf-Dietrich Hardung and his spontaneous colleague Werner Dierlamm complemented each other in the group “ Life without armor ”.

By October 1981, the voluntary commitments had already received 18,000 signatures. The group relied on the so-called sentence of Nairobi, which had been formulated at a general assembly there in November 1975: "The church should emphasize its readiness to live without the protection of weapons". The corresponding self-commitment was accordingly: “I am ready to live without the protection of military armaments. In our state I want to advocate that peace without weapons is politically developed. ”Since the group also took pacifist positions, the Württemberg regional church initially distanced itself from it, because Article 16 of the Augsburg Confession says:“ That Christians .. ... can legitimately wage wars ... and that those who teach that this is unchristian will be condemned. ”Nevertheless, an ecumenical peace committee was set up, in which representatives of“ Armored Life ”participate. The initiator of this movement was Pastor Werner Dierlamm, who also worked in the synod.

Hardung's sermons and speeches set important accents in the peace movement. In 1980, during the hot phase of NATO's double decision , he spoke to a few thousand people at a counter-event to the public pledge ceremony on Stuttgart's Rathausplatz.

From 1984 he worked for the "Open Church" in the Württemberg regional synod , from the 1990s in the then so-called management group and at the same time in the editorial group. In the first period he was on the Standing Committee and both times Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Church, Society and Ecumenism. He brought this experience to the leadership group of the Open Church, to which he belonged from 1990 to 1997 and later accompanied him in an advisory capacity.

He did not always agree with politics in the state, but above all in the church, and therefore took part in issues that were important to him. In Stuttgart , for example, in 1985 local politicians and a citizens' initiative resisted a planned accommodation for asylum seekers in the Hallschlag residential area , which already had a proportion of foreigners of almost 40 percent. If there was a further influx of asylum seekers, the Dean Wolf-Dietrich Hardung feared that “the young people could go nuts on the Hallschlag”. Above all, however, he got excited about everything that had to do with war: the military chaplaincy , German arms deliveries to crisis areas such as Yugoslavia and the equipping of African child soldiers with rifles made in Germany.

Wolf-Dietrich Hardung died on December 15, 2009 and found his last resting place in the Tübingen mountain cemetery .

Works

• Guidelines for Bonhoeffer - For the Church 50 years after his death. (PDF; 640 kB)
• Peace movement as part of the ecumenical movement (PDF; 842 kB) , from the book And stretch out for what is ahead - 25 years of the Open Church - topics for the Protestant regional church in Württemberg. Ed. Eva-Maria Agster, pp. 53-57.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kathinka Kaden: Obituary for Wolf-Dietrich Hardung (excerpt), in: Impulses , Magazine of the Open Church - Evangelical Association in Württemberg, March 2010 edition , p. 8 (PDF).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Renate Lück: “That is our belief. Point. “On the 80th birthday of Wolf-Dietrich Hardung , in: Impulse , Magazine of the Open Church - Evangelical Association in Württemberg, February 2008 edition , p. 5 f. (PDF).
3. ↑ http://www.elk-wue.de/landeskirche/mektiven-landeskirche/detail/?tx_ttnews& (link not available)
4. ↑ Werner Dierlamm: 60 years after the end of the war , Lebenshaus Schwäbische Alb - Community for social justice, peace and ecology eV
5. ↑ Wolf-Dietrich Hardung: Peace Movement as Part of Ecumenism (PDF; 842 kB) , from the book And stretch out for what is ahead - 25 years of the Open Church - topics for the Protestant regional church in Württemberg. Ed. Eva-Maria Agster, pp. 53-57.
6. ^ Foreigners - People in the Hotel - Although many asylum seekers' assembly camps are overcrowded, cities and municipalities refuse to accept foreigners , Der Spiegel 36/1985.