Wolf Meyer-Erlach

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolf Meyer-Erlach (until 1935: Wolfgang Meyer , born September 21, 1891 in Kitzingen , † November 15, 1982 in Idstein ) was a German Protestant theologian , university professor and university rector.

Live and act

Meyer-Erlach studied Protestant theology at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen and the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen . From 1914 to 1916 he took part in the First World War as a soldier . After his ordination in 1917 he became a pastor in Fessenheim, Bavaria . Already in the first years of the Weimar Republic he found his home in ethnic circles. In 1922 he became a propaganda speaker for the NSDAP . From 1929 to October 31, 1933 he worked as a pastor at St. Paul in Heidingsfeld . His participation in the inauguration of the synagogue in Heidingsfeld in 1929 as a representative of the pastorate was later accused by the National Socialists. From 1931 on he worked as a radio pastor for the Bavarian radio . In 1933 Meyer-Erlach was deputy director of the German Christians in Bavaria. In March 1933 he joined the NSDAP.

In November of the same year Meyer-Erlach became full professor for practical theology at the University of Jena against the will of the theological faculty without a doctorate or habilitation . In 1934/35 he was dean of the theological faculty . In a church function he was a member of the 4th Regional Church Congress of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia . From 1935 to 1937 he officiated against the vote of the teaching staff of the university as rector of the Friedrich Schiller University. At the beginning of his rectorate he gave the "first thoroughly National Socialist rectorate speech in Jena" with an anti- science attitude in the Nazi propaganda style .

Wolfgang Schenk reports that in 1935 he changed his name from “Meyer” to “Meyer-Erlach”, “so that it doesn't sound too misleadingly Jewish ”. At the university he was the head of the working group “ Germanism and Christianity ”. During a guest stay in Athens in 1937 , he received an honorary doctorate in theology there. He passed on his anti-Semitic enemy image in numerous lectures in church circles. In Pirna, the superintendent of the Saxon Church , Leichte, provided the theological text accompanying the November pogrom . He called for events through the press. He had invited u. a. Wolf Meyer-Erlach. In “God's celebrations” of the “March community of Pirna of the 'German Christians' (National Church Unity)”, he spoke about the “turn of faith” and in the follow-up meetings on the subject of “ Luther and the Jews”; in Koenigstein on November 11th, Heidenau on November 12th, and in Pirna on November 13th, 1938.

In 1939 he declared his collaboration with the Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life . In this function he was very active and even gave lectures in 1942 at the Transylvanian branch of the institute in Sibiu .

In 1945 he lost all offices, and he was denied reinstatement in the Bavarian regional church . In 1950 Meyer-Erlach fled the GDR. From 1951 to 1963 he was the parish administrator in Wallrabenstein and Wörsdorf near Idstein im Taunus . Historical subjects such as the play "Anno 1634" were performed by him.

Honors

Works

  • Nordic seers and heroes. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1927 (also printed individually in 5 parts (Dante, Shakespeare, Cromwell, Carlyle, Dürer)).
  • The pastor in the Third Reich. Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar [1933].
  • University and people. Rector's speech about the new building of the German university (= Jena Academic Speeches. H. 22, ZDB -ID 966102-5 ). Fischer, Jena 1935.
  • Speeches in memory of Dr. phil. hc Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche at the funeral ceremonies in Weimar and Röcken. On November 11 and 12, 1935. Wagner, Weimar 1935 (Contains the speeches by Richard Leutheußer , Adalbert Oehler, Wolf Meyer-Erlach, Fritz Sauckel , Superintendent Förster, Walter Jesinghaus and the local pastor Thörel in Röcken, as well as an obituary by Walter Fritz Otto) .
  • Master Eckehart. A herald of German piety. Speech given to celebrate the academic award ceremony in Jena on June 19, 1937. With a chronicle of the university for the year 1936/37 (= Jena Academic Speeches. H. 25). Fischer, Jena 1937.
  • The new church in the new state: sent to all pastors of the German Protestant regional churches by the Bund f. German Christianity. Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1937.
  • The Influence of the Jews on English Christianity. Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1940.
  • Is God English? Sturmhut-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1940.

literature

  • Oliver Arnhold: "Dejudification" - Church in the Abyss. Volume 1: The Thuringian Church Movement German Christians 1928–1939, Volume II: The "Institute for Research into and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life" 1939–1945, Berlin 2010
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Vol. 6). Synchron, Wissenschaftsverlag der Authors, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 120.
  • Susannah Heschel : The Theological Faculty at the University of Jena as "a Stronghold of National Socialism". In: Uwe Hoßfeld , Jürgen John , Oliver Lemuth, Rüdiger Stutz (eds.): "Combative Science". Studies at the University of Jena under National Socialism. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2003, ISBN 3-412-04102-5 , pp. 452-470.
  • Andre Postert "I would rather go to hell with my people than to your heaven without my people." Wolf Meyer-Erlach and anti-intellectualism , in: Manfred Gailus , Clemens Vollnhals (ed.) For a species-appropriate Christianity indeed. Völkische theologians in the »Third Reich«, Göttingen 2016, pp. 219–238.
  • Klaus Raschzok : Wolf Meyer-Erlach and Hans Asmussen - A comparison between the practical theology of the German Christians and the Confessing Church. In: Klaus Raschzok (ed.): Between people and confession. Practical theology in the Third Reich. Evangelische Verlags-Anstalt, Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-374-01796-7 , pp. 167–202.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Elze: The Evangelical Lutheran Church. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 482-494 and 1305 f., Here: p. 491.
  2. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer 16048 ). Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 409.
  3. ↑ Research project Rector's speeches online (PDF; 202 kB) ( Memento from July 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Schenk : The Jenaer Jesus. On the work of the national theologian Walter Grundmann and his colleagues. In: Peter von der Osten-Sacken (ed.): The misused gospel. Studies on theology and practice of the Thuringian German Christians (= Studies on Church and Israel. Vol. 20). Institute for Church and Judaism, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-923095-74-0 , pp. 167-279.
  5. ↑ Chronicle 1938
  6. ↑ Hans Prolingheuer : We went astray. The guilt of the church under the swastika, according to the confession of the "Darmstadt Word" from 1947 (= Small Library 451 Church and Society ). Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7609-1144-7 .
  7. ↑ Chronicle ( Memento of July 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Meyer-Erlach, Wolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Wolfgang (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Kitzingen
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1982
Place of death Idstein