Wolfgang Bastian

Hans Wolfgang Bastian (born May 21, 1906 in Elsterwerda ; † March 18, 1942 in Torgau ) was a German Protestant pastor , historian , local researcher and resistance fighter .

Life

Saathain half-timbered church

Stolzenhain village church

Town hall Torgau

Wolfgang Bastian was born in 1906 as the fourth son of the veterinarian Otto Bastian and his wife Erna in the small town of Elsterwerda in southern Brandenburg . Bastian studied art history , but also took up a degree in theology . After his ecclesiastical exam he was ordained as a pastor on May 21, 1933. After Bastian was sent to the Stolzenhain-Saathain parish as a preacher on March 1, 1933, the Saathainer manor owner and church patron Otto Bormann appointed him to the palace preacher on June 5, 1934. On August 1, 1934, the church administration made him pastor, and on September 2, 1934, he was introduced to his pastor with a festive service.

After Bormann had recognized Bastian's cultural and historical expertise, the renovation of several historical buildings in the parish , such as the old Saathain parsonage, began with the financial support of the landlord . Bastian's significant merits include the renovation of the Stolzenhain village church with its valuable picture paintings and the restoration of the Saathainer Gutskirche , a half-timbered building from the 17th century, which is currently one of the cultural centers of the Elbe-Elster district . Both construction measures took place in 1936. In addition, the Saathain pastor devoted himself to local research and the historical processing of the parish. He published his findings, among other things, in the Black Elster , a local history supplement to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt , in which he published eight articles between 1934 and 1938.

Bastian took over from his predecessor a long-standing dispute with a cantor who demanded additional remuneration, which the parish-church council refused. The incident ended with the pastor being denounced to the authorities. Letters of complaint were sent to the Reich Bishop in Berlin, the Bishop in Magdeburg, the district leader of the NSDAP in Falkenberg / Elster and the state police in Halle (Saale) . Bastian, who was accused of "anti-subversive statements in two sermons" in the letters, received support from the church and the church authorities dismissed the case with a warning from the pastor.

In March 1942, Bastian gave a funeral speech in Prösen , where he uttered the following sentence, among other things: “His humble nature was so good and there are so many boasters walking around, obtrusive people who become a nuisance and rags of opinion who are Hosanna today and tomorrow Crucify scream ... ”, an unexpected house search by the Gestapo at the pastor's house. Some letters and the book Die Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann , whose complete works have been on the Propaganda Ministry's list of "harmful and undesirable literature" since 1936 , were confiscated . Afterwards he was ordered to be questioned in the Torgau Town Hall on March 16, 1942, without giving any reason , from where he never returned.

On March 18, 1942, his father received news that Wolfgang Bastian had committed suicide by hanging. At first there was no further information. On May 19, 1942, the case was finally closed in a letter from the District President to the Evangelical Consistory in Magdeburg with the words: “Pastor Wolfgang Bastian was arrested on March 16, 1942 for behavior that was hostile to the state ... for insulting political leaders at a funeral speech who had to feel hit. Furthermore, Bastian made the Wehrmacht contemptuous in the confirmation class ... "

Wolfgang Bastian was buried on March 22, 1942 in the Elsterwerda city cemetery on Berliner Strasse. With great sympathy from the population, 690 people lined up in the funeral procession. A memorial service was held in his honor for the last time in 1988 at his grave, which has now been leveled.

Honors

Memorial stone in front of the Saathainer Church

The sculpture created by Hans Eickworth and the commemorative plaques in Elsterwerda city park

In 1982 the Elsterwerda city cemetery on Berliner Straße was redesigned as a district memorial for the victims of fascism . In the rear of the facility, in the immediate vicinity of a four-meter-high sculpture created by the Elsterwerda artist Hans Eickworth , nine meanwhile heavily weathered memorial plaques with the names of Bastian and 90 other resistance fighters are located. There is also a memorial stone in honor of Bastian in front of the Saathain Church.

Documentaries (film)

• DVD: “We remember Hans Wolfgang Bastian's 100th birthday.” Documentation about Pastor Bastian von Erhard Galle (Elsterwerda City Archives) in cooperation with the Elsterwerda regional broadcaster “Elster TV”.

Publications (selection)

• The founder of the Lindena glass window: Volkmar Ritter von Kölitzsch, vassal in Liebenwerda. In: The Black Magpie. No. 479, 1934.
• The church in Würdenhain. In: Die Schwarze Elster , No. 486, July 1935.
• The former high altar of the Elsterwerda church - found again. In: The Black Magpie. No. 495, 1935.
• Addition and correction to the chapter "Prösen" of the "Architectural and art monuments of the Liebenwerda district". In: The Black Magpie. No. 502, 1935.
• For this year's renewal of the church in Stolzenhain. In: The Black Magpie. No. 525, 1936.
• The barn of God for the repair of the church in Saathain: July 13 to October 4, 1936. In: Die Schwarze Elster. No. 540/541, 1937.
• When is Wahrenbrück first mentioned? Not until 1199 but already 1017. In: The Black Elster. No. 544, 1938.
• The Rödermühle. Excerpt from a presumably no longer existing chronicle on the history of Saathain from 1941. In: Die Schwarze Elster. No. 17 (594), 1984.

literature

• Erhard Galle: Wolfgang Bastian - pastor, historian, author, victim of Nazi persecution, killed by the Gestapo and forgotten by posterity? In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Heimatkunde e. V. Bad Liebenwerda (Hrsg.): Home calendar for the old district of Bad Liebenwerda, the Mückenberger Ländchen, outskirts on Schraden and Uebigau-Falkenberg . No. 58 , 2010, ISBN 3-932913-08-6 , pp. 297-306 .
• Erhard Galle: Pastor Wolfgang Bastian would be 100 years old on May 21! In: Official Journal for the City of Elsterwerda . No. 5/2006 . Elsterwerda 2006, p. 8/9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Regina Scheer: Dealing with the monuments. A research in Brandenburg. Ed .: Brandenburg State Center for Political Education and Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg, Potsdam 2003, p. 53 ( political-bildung-brandenburg.de, PDF ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info : The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ).