Wolfgang Caffier

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Wolfgang Caffier (born March 10, 1919 in Leipzig ; † August 4, 2004 in Dresden ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran pastor , member of the Confessing Church and GDR CDU - district parliament member .

Life

Caffier was the son of a Christian father and a Jewish mother. He was baptized in 1934 and joined the Confessing Church in 1937 under the influence of his parents. After visiting the elementary school and the subsequent acquisition of its university he studied Protestant theology in Leipzig, but was due to his Jewish origins in 1940 expelled . Then he tried to expand his knowledge as a guest student . The Saxon Landesbruderrat the Confessing Church supported his further education and so Caffier was in March 1943 in the Church in Bavaria Evangelical Lutheran beTake your first theological exam . Since the Gestapo did not allow him to do church work and he was threatened with forced labor , he left Saxony and stayed in hiding for a time. Caffier stayed in contact with followers of the Confessing Church who belonged to the Dahlem branch . In 1944 he was officially employed again by Pastor Paul Braune as an assistant chaplain at the Hope Valley institutions in Lobetal . In an autobiographical report, Caffier tells about his life during the Nazi era .

After the liberation from National Socialism he passed his second theological exam in Berlin in 1946 and received his ordination . In the same year he was elected pastor at the Erlöserkirche Leipzig . In 1947 he also served as a student pastor in the Evangelical Student Community of Leipzig (ESG Leipzig). In mid-1948 he became a member of the SED and later held twelve functions there. In 1949 he became pastor in Liebenau (near Kamenz ) and in 1954 pastor in Weixdorf (church district Dresden-Land), where he remained active until his retirement. Here he left the service prematurely in 1967 for health reasons.

In 1970 he was given the office of editor of the Moravian Slogans by the Brothers' Union . In 1973, in a letter to Willi Barth from the Central Committee of the SED, he complained about the preliminary censorship exercised by the Evangelische Verlagsanstalt with regard to the (third) texts he had selected.

Wolfgang Caffier and his wife Ingetraut had three children, including the CDU politician Lorenz Caffier .

Positions

In the discussion of the Saxon regional church on the subject of youth consecration and / or confirmation , Caffier advocated a less rigorous position by shouting to the assembled pastors and Bishop Noth : "Be merciful!"

Caffier was loyal to the socialist state power. From 1958 to 1961 he worked as head of the SED-controlled Association of Protestant Pastors in the GDR . In addition, with the mandate of the CDU of the GDR, he became a member of the district assembly of Dresden .

With his positioning in favor of the SED, Caffier met with rejection in broad circles of the evangelical church and was relatively isolated in the pastorate. When he spoke at the pastors' conference, he was referred to as the "SED spy and Russian servant". In his Leipzig congregation he was completely isolated and preached “in front of empty halls”. Caffier has been a member of the Christian Peace Conference, which is close to socialism , since it was founded . He reported internals of the Saxon regional church and the Brothers' Unity to the Council of the Dresden District in Dresden (Lewerenz) and the Ministry for Higher and Technical Education of the GDR in East Berlin (State Secretary Wilhelm Girnus ) and thus indirectly to the Central Committee of the SED .

At the time of the fall of the Wall in the GDR , he sponsored a Dresden theater project and thus saved it from liquidation.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Wolfgang Caffier: You have a long way to go. In: stronger than fear. The six million who couldn't find a savior. Edited and with a preface by Heinrich Fink . With a foreword by Emil Fuchs . Union-Verl. VOB, Berlin 1968, OCLC 258240383 , pp. 159-179.
  2. ^ Georg Wilhelm: The dictatorships and the Protestant church. Total claim to power and church response using the example of Leipzig 1933–1958 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-55739-6 , 3.8 The "progressive" pastor Wolfgang Caffier between the SED and the Church , p. 289 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. a b Werner Krusche , Bishop of the Evangelical Church of the ecclesiastical province of Saxony: "The church was the besieged castle from which people fought for life and death." Interview on November 19, 1994 . In: Hagen Findeis , Detlef Pollack (Ed.): Self-preservation or self-loss. Bishops and representatives of the Protestant churches in the GDR about their lives - 17 interviews . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-202-6 , p. 213–249, here 216 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  4. ^ A b Hedwig Richter : Pietism in socialism. The Moravian Brethren in the GDR (=  Critical Studies in History . Volume 186 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-37007-0 , p. 345 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. Cf. the word of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount : “Be merciful, as your Father is also merciful.” ( Luke 6:36  LUT ) and 1 Pet 3 :LUT .
  6. Clemens Vollnhals (Ed.): The Church Policy of the SED and State Security . An interim balance (=  scientific series of the Federal Commissioner . Volume 7 ). 2nd, revised edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-86153-122-4 , p. 132 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Georg Wilhelm: The dictatorships and the Protestant church. Total claim to power and church response using the example of Leipzig 1933–1958 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-55739-6 , 3.8 The "progressive" pastor Wolfgang Caffier between the SED and the Church , p. 289 ff . ( Limited preview in the Google book search -; quoted from the letter from Gelb-Haussen, head of the Leipzig cultural association , to Karl Kneschte, state secretary of the cultural association, on June 15, 1949).
  8. Hedwig Richter: Pietism in Socialism. The Moravian Brethren in the GDR (=  Critical Studies in History . Volume 186 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-37007-0 , p. 161 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. theater: history. Projekttheater Dresden, accessed on July 21, 2014 .