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Jesus Church (Berlin-Kaulsdorf)
Encyclopedia
Jesus Church is the church of the Evangelical
Berlin-Kaulsdorf Congregation, a member of today's Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia
(under this name since 2004). The church building is located in Berlin, borough Marzahn-Hellersdorf
, in the locality of Kaulsdorf. The church was named after Jesus of Nazareth. The congregation's parish comprises the area of the historical village of Kaulsdorf, which had been incorporated into Berlin by the Prussian Greater Berlin Act
in 1920.
confraternity in Bernau bei Berlin
, as documented in a deed of donatio by Margrave Louis I of Brandenburg
as of 1347, representing the oldest surviving record of Kaulsdorf. The church is located in the midst of the village green
, enclosed in a church yard surrounded by a wall of boulders. The church dates back to the 14th c., its apse
of Romanesque
style may be preserved from a predecessing building (13th c.). The oriented
nave is built from small boulders, clad with plaster. In 1412 St. Peter's Church (Berlin-Cölln) acquired the manorial seigniority over parts of Kaulsdorf. Therefore the Provost
of St. Peter's held the ius patronatus
over church and parish in Kaulsdorf. Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector
wanted to increase the number of canons
at Berlin's Collegiate Church of Our Lady, the Holy Cross, the Ss. Peter, Paul, Erasmus and Nicholas. So he redeployed some ecclesiastical estates and thus in 1536 Kaulsdorf became a manorial estate held by the canon-law
College
of that Collegiate Church, in order to provide the revenues for its three additional prebendaries. Also the ius patronatus
was transferred to the collegiate church.
, as earlier had done many of his subjects. The church of Kaulsdorf thus became Lutheran too, like most of the electoral subjects and all the churches in the Electorate of Brandenburg. Kaulsdorf's church was now served by the pastors of the neighbouring village Biesdorf
.
In 1608 Prince-Elector John Sigismund
converted the collegiate church into the Supreme Parish Church of Berlin, which became a Calvinist church in 1613, when John Sigismund admitted his earlier conversion from Lutheranism to Calvinism
. Now Calvinist clergy had become the patrons of a Lutheran congregation in Kaulsdorf, since John Sigismund waived his regnal privilege to demand a conversion of his subjects (Cuius regio, eius religio
). In the course of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) Lutheran Swedish troops under Gustavus II Adolphus
and the Catholic Imperial Army under Wallenstein
ravaged and plundered Kaulsdorf and its inhabitants in 1638. The survivors deserted the devastated village, leaving the church without parishioners. With the successful repopulation of the village until 1652 by the Prince-Electors, ecclesiastical life reemerged.
In 1715 the church was refurbished and altered. The nave has been lengthened towards the east and the windows were altered in their forms. The new longer nave received a flat ceiling above a circular ledge, carried by busts of angels . On the southern side a chapel was added to the building, which now houses the heating system.
, the Lutheran congregation of Kaulsdorf, like most Prussian Protestant congregations, joined the common umbrella organisation then called the Evangelical Church in Prussia (under this name since 1821), with each congregation maintaining its former denomination or adopting the new united denomination (Prussian Union (Evangelical Christian Church)
. The Kaulsdorf church still being subordinate to the ius patronatus of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church, the king's court church, will most probably have promptly joined the Prussian Union.
In 1874 the new church constitution (Kirchenordnung) of the Evangelical Church provided for all parishes the election of presbyters and synodals, thus constituting the parishes as congregations of legal entity status. However, the church building, including the costs of its maintenance, remained under ius patronatus, allowing the patron, then the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church's presbytery , to appoint the pastors in Kaulsdorf. In 1875 the half-timbered church tower gave way for a new extension from brick masonry, attached to the west of the church, including a church tower on a square ground plan. The congregation experienced a drastic inflow of new parishioners moving in during the process of urbanisation after 1900. In May 1926 the Nazi Party (NSDAP) founded a local group (Ortsgruppe) in Kaulsdorf, thus becoming the first suburb of Berlin, where the party could establish. The local group, among others led by Wilhelm Kube
and Kurt Daluege
became the nucleus for most of the other local groups in Berlin's eastern suburbia.
als on 23 July 1933, which Adolf Hitler
had discretionarily imposed onto all Protestant church bodies
in Germany (see Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union), the Nazi partisan Protestant so-called Faith Movement of German Christians
, founded among others by Kube, gained a majority in the presbytery of the Kaulsdorf Congregation, like in most congregations within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. With the new majorities on all levels of church organisation the German Christians systematically tried to subject any unadulterated form of Protestantism by way of firing church employees of other opinion, blocking church property for non-Nazi Protestant groups, prohibiting collections for other purposes than the officially approved ones.
On 2 February 1934 the presbytery of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church appointed the Reformed Heinrich Grüber as the new pastor of the Kaulsdorf congregation, since this church still held the ius patronatus of the Kaulsdorf Church. Grüber, before pastor at the diaconal foundation Stephanus-Stiftung Waldhof in Templin
and known as member of the Nazi opposing Emergency Covenant of Pastors
was strictly rejected by the German Christian-dominated Kaulsdorf presbytery. But the March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical provincial consistory
(the competent bureaucracy within the old-Prussian Church) insisted on his appointment as decided by the presbytery of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church. The office of pastor included the function as executive-in-chief of the presbytery. Thus conflicts were unavoidable. The German Christian presbyters steadily denounced Grüber within the ecclesiastical bureaucracy for criticising Ludwig Müller, the then old-Prussian state bishop , and the Nazi party local group leader denounced him at the Gestapo
, for criticising the Nazi sterilisation laws (see Nazi Eugenics
) and for mercy and sympathy with the Jews.
Prior to Grüber's appointment the few congregants in Kaulsdorf opposing the Nazi interference and adulteration of Protestantism did not organise as a group. Now Grüber build up a Confessing Church
congregation at Jesus Church. As the officially appointed pastor Grüber held the regular services in Jesus Church, preaching against the Cult of personality
for Hitler, the severing armament of Germany and anti-Semitism
.
However, other events, such as collections of money for purposes of the Confessing Church, meetings of its adherents or elections of their brethren council, paralleling the German Christian-dominated presbytery, were forbidden to take place as events open for the public, but only card-carrying members were allowed. Grüber carried the – due to their colour so-called – Red Card No. 4, issued on 22 December 1934 by the Confessing congregation of Kaulsdorf. The information about Grüber's appointment spread among the adherents of the Confessing Church in neighbouring congregations comprising the competent deanery Berlin Land I, such as Ahrensfelde, Biesdorf, Blumberg, Fredersdorf, Friedrichsfelde, Heinersdorf, Hohenschönhausen
, Karlshorst, Klein-Schönebeck, Lichtenberg, Mahlsdorf, Marzahn, Neuenhagen, Petershagen, or Weißensee mostly without a local pastor supporting them. They started to travel for Sunday services to Jesus Church. Grüber encouraged them to establish Confessing congregations of their own and attended e.g. the formal foundation of Friedrichsfelde Confessing congregation on 1 February 1935. Grüber presided the Confessing synod of the deanery Berlin Land I, which constituted with Confessing synodals from the pertaining congregations on 3 March 1935. The Confessing congregants in Kaulsdorf's congregation became a great support for Grüber. He also provided for Confessing pastors, who would act in his place once he could not hold the service himself. In August 1935 his colleague Pastor Neumann from Köpenick
preached instead of him, criticising the anti-Semitic policy of the German government, which earned him a denunciation by the presbytery.
On the occasion of the Remilitarisation of the Rhineland in 1936 Hitler unconstitutionally and arbitrarily decreed a re-election of the Nazi puppet Reichstag
for 29 March, which was Palm Sunday
the traditional day Protestant congregations would celebrate the confirmations of the confirmands, who had grown to ecclesiastical adulthood. The compromising Wilhelm Zoellner, leading the Protestant church bodies
in Germany (1935–1937), regarded this an unfriendly act against Protestantism, but nevertheless obeyed and tried to delay the confirmations, asking a furlough for confirmands from the compulsory agricultural season labour of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), starting right next Monday. The DAF refused.
The second preliminary executive of the Confessing German Evangelical Church was of the opinion that the confirmations were not to be delayed. Since fathers, being state officials and/or card-carrying Nazi partisans, were ordered to organise and implement the poll as election judge
s and with relatives travelling all around Germany to participate in their relatives' or godchildren's confirmation, the Nazis feared a low turnout in the election. This made the confirmations on the traditional date a political issue. Thus only few pastors did not compromise in the end, but Grüber was one of the few (one out of 13 in Berlin, e.g.), who held the confirmation services as usual, even though the Nazi government had announced this would not be without consequences. German Christian presbyters denounced Grüber again for his opposing attitudes at the March of Brandenburg provincial consistory
and the Gestapo. The NSDAP local party leader (Ortsgruppenleiter) threatened Grüber to prompt his deportation to a concentration camp. In 1936 Berlin's congregation of Dutch Calvinist expatriates elected Grüber their pastor, which he remained until his arrestment in 1940.
The mainstream Nazi anti-Semitism considered the Jewry being a group of people bound by close, so-called genetic (blood) ties, to form a unit, which one could not join or secede from. The influence of Jews was declared to have detrimental impact on Germany, to rectify the discriminations and persecutions of Jews. To be spared from that, one had to prove one's affiliation with the group of the so-called Aryan
race. Paradoxical was, that never genetic tests or outward allegedly racial features in one's physiognomy determined one's affiliation, although the Nazis palavered a lot about physiognomy, but only the records of religious affiliations of one's grandparents decided. However, while the grandparents were earlier still able to choose their religion, their grandchildren in the Nazi era were compulsorily categorised as Jews, if three or four grandparents were enrolled as members of a Jewish congregation. This Nazi categorisation as Jews of course included mostly Jews of Jewish descent, but also many Gentiles of Jewish descent, such as Catholics, irreligionists, and Protestants, who happened to have had grandparents belonging – according to the records – to a Jewish congregation. While Jewish congregations in Germany tried – little as they were allowed – to help their persecuted members, the Protestant church bodies ignored their parishioners who were classified as Jews (according to the Nuremberg Laws
), and the somewhat less persecuted Mischling
e of partially Jewish descent.
On 31 January 1936 the International Church Relief Commission for German Refugees constituted in London, but its German counterpart never materialised. So Bishop George Bell gained his sister-in-law Laura Livingstone to run an office for the international relief commission in Berlin. The failure of the Confessing Church was evident, even though 70–80% of the Christian Germans of Jewish descent were Protestants.
It was Grüber and some enthusiasts, who had started a new effort in 1936. They forced the Confessing Church's hand, which in 1938 supported the new organisation, named by the Gestapo Bureau Grüber , but after its official recognition Relief Centre for Evangelical Non-Aryans.
In the night of 9 November 1938 the Nazi government organised the November Pogrom, often euphemised as Kristallnacht. The well-organised Nazi squads killed several hundreds, 1,200 Jewish Berliners were deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
. Many men went into hiding from arrestment and also appeared at Grüber's home in the rectory
of the Jesus Church. He organised their hiding in the cottages in the allotment clubs
in his parish.
The Nazis only released the arrested inmates, if they would immediately emigrate. Thus getting visa became the main target and problem of Grüber's Bureau. Grüber was allowed to travel several times to the Netherlands and Great Britain in order to persuade the authorities there to grant visa for the persecuted from Germany. So Grüber found hardly time any more to serve his actual office as pastor in Kaulsdorf.
From September 1939 the Bureau Grüber had to subordinate to the supervision by Adolf Eichmann
. Eichmann asked Grüber in a meeting about Jewish emigration why Grüber, not having any Jewish family and with no prospect for any thank, does help the Jews. Grüber answered because the Good Samaritan did so, and my Lord told me to do so.
By autumn 1939 a new degree of persecution loomed. The Nazi authorities started to deport Jewish Austrians and Gentile Austrians of Jewish descent to occupied Poland
. On 13 February 1940 the same fate hit 1,200 Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent from Stettin, who were deported to Lublin
. Grüber learned about it by the Wehrmacht
commander of Lublin and than protested at every higher ranking superior up to the then Prussian Minister-President Hermann Göring
, who forbade further deportations from Prussia for the time being. The Gestapo warned Grüber never to adopt party for the deported again. The deported were not allowed to return.
On 22–23 October, 6,500 Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent from Baden
and the Palatinate were deported to Gurs
, occupied France
. Now Grüber got himself a passport, with the help of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
's brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi
from the Abwehr
, to visit the deported in the Gurs (concentration camp). But before he left the Gestapo arrested Grüber on 19 December and deported him two days later to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and in 1941 to Dachau concentration camp, becoming the inmate with the No. 27832. For 18 December 1942 Grüber's wife Margarete, still living in the rectory of the Kaulsdorf congregation, managed to get a visitor's permit to speak him, accompanied by their elder son Hans-Rolf, for 30 min. in Dachau, arguing that he, being the husband and thus according to the garbled Nazi ideas of family values the decision-taking party in the family, would have to decide about important financial matters, about which he would have to instruct the remaining eldest, though minor, male family member. Grüber survived Dachau and built up good relations with many other inmates, among them also communists. He was released from Dachau to his wife Margarete, née Vits and their three children Ingeborg, Hans-Rolf, and Ernst-Hartmut in Kaulsdorf on 23 June 1943, after he signed not to help the persecuted any more.
Grüber then resumed his office as pastor of Kaulsdorf and the Confessing Church in the Berlin Land I deanery. He reported in the Confessing congregations of the deanery about the truth in a concentration camp, such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen. The church weathered the Second World War rather intact, but at the end of the war, the spire was shut down by artillery fire. On 22 April 1945 at the invasion of the Red Army
into the Kaulsdorf neighbourhood Grüber gathered some undaunted Kaulsdorfers to follow him with white flags marching in direction of the Soviet soldiers in order to avoid further bloodshed.
.
Grüber reopened his Bureau, now serving survivors, returning from the concentration camps. F.K. Otto Dibelius, who had assumed the post-war leadership of the March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical province within the old-Prussian Church for the time being, appointed Grüber as one of the Nazi opposing pastors for the new leading bodies to be established. With his contacts from Dachau to communists he could – at least to some extent – soften many of the ever-increasing anti-clerical measurements of the communist regime to be established in the East, until the communist rulers of the German Democratic Republic
(GDR) finally dropped him in May 1958.
On 18 May 1945 Berlin's provisional city council, newly installed by the Soviet occupational power, had appointed Grüber as advisor for ecclesiastical affairs. This earned him a bilingual Russian-German certificate, issued on 21 May, to spare him from the usual robbery of bikes by Soviet soldiers, so that he could move at all in the city, with all the transportation system having collapsed, and an exemption from the curfew valid for Germans, issued on 9 July. On 15 July 1945 Dibelius appointed Grüber as Provost of St. Mary's and St. Nicholas' Church in Berlin and invested him on 8 August in a ceremony in St. Mary's Church
, only partially cleared from the debris. Thus his time as pastor in Kaulsdorf ended. In 1946 the congregation commissioned the construction of a simple tent roof, covering the tower stump. Grüber's organisation for the relief of the survivors, today named Evangelical Relief Centre for the formerly Racially Persecuted, found later new premises in West Berlin's locality of Zehlendorf
, so the Grübers moved there in 1949.
Since 1947 the congregation was a member of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. In 1999 the spire was reconstructed following its original design. Today the tower houses a small museum.
, a structure extended at the northern façade of the church, contains a cross-ribbed vaulted ceiling from the 15th c. Within the nave there is a baroque
wooden pulpit
of 1690 with a decorative pulpit ceiling. The retable
, created in 1656, and restored in 1958, is structured by columns and tuberous ornaments on the edges (Wangen), surrounding portrait medaillons, which display Moses
and John the Baptist
.
The baptismal font
of 1695 consists of a sandstone bowl carried by a putto
statue. The congregation still owns one of the rare mediaeval oaken chests (early 15th c.), once containing its precious belongings.
Prussian Union (Evangelical Christian Church)
The Prussian Union was the merger of the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church in Prussia, by a series of decrees – among them the Unionsurkunde – by King Frederick William III...
Berlin-Kaulsdorf Congregation, a member of today's Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia
Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia
The Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia is a Protestant church body in the German states of Brandenburg, Berlin and a part of Saxony. The seat of the church is in Berlin. It is the most important Protestant denomination in the area....
(under this name since 2004). The church building is located in Berlin, borough Marzahn-Hellersdorf
Marzahn-Hellersdorf
Marzahn-Hellersdorf is the tenth borough of Berlin, formed in 2001 by merging the former boroughs of Marzahn and Hellersdorf.-Geography:It is situated in the northeast of Berlin...
, in the locality of Kaulsdorf. The church was named after Jesus of Nazareth. The congregation's parish comprises the area of the historical village of Kaulsdorf, which had been incorporated into Berlin by the Prussian Greater Berlin Act
Greater Berlin Act
The Greater Berlin Act , in full the Law Regarding the Reconstruction of the New Local Authority of Berlin , was a law passed by the Prussian government in 1920 that greatly expanded the size of the German capital of Berlin.-History:...
in 1920.
As a Roman Catholic place of worship (until 1539)
Kaulsdorf (then Caulstorp in the Electorate of Brandenburg) used to be a village of soccage farmers, with their dues to be delivered first to the Kalands BrethrenKalands Brethren
The Kalands Brethren, Kalandbrüder in German, Fratres Calendarii in Latin, were religious and charitable associations of priests and laymen, especially numerous in Northern and Central Germany, which held regular meetings for religious edification and instruction, and also to encourage works of...
confraternity in Bernau bei Berlin
Bernau bei Berlin
Bernau bei Berlin is a German town in the Barnim district. The town is located about northeast of Berlin.-History:...
, as documented in a deed of donatio by Margrave Louis I of Brandenburg
Louis V, Duke of Bavaria
Louis V, Duke of Bavaria, called the Brandenburger was Duke of Bavaria and as Louis I also Margrave of Brandenburg and Count of Tyrol. Louis V was the eldest son of Emperor Louis IV and his first wife Beatrix of Świdnica...
as of 1347, representing the oldest surviving record of Kaulsdorf. The church is located in the midst of the village green
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
, enclosed in a church yard surrounded by a wall of boulders. The church dates back to the 14th c., its apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
of Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
style may be preserved from a predecessing building (13th c.). The oriented
Orientation of Churches
The orientation of churches is the architectural feature of facing churches towards the east .The Jewish custom of fixing the direction of prayer and orienting synagogues influenced Christianity during its formative years. In early Christianity, it was customary to pray facing toward the Holy Land...
nave is built from small boulders, clad with plaster. In 1412 St. Peter's Church (Berlin-Cölln) acquired the manorial seigniority over parts of Kaulsdorf. Therefore the Provost
Provost (religion)
A provost is a senior official in a number of Christian churches.-Historical Development:The word praepositus was originally applied to any ecclesiastical ruler or dignitary...
of St. Peter's held the ius patronatus
Ius patronatus
Jus patronatus, also spelt ius patronatus, imitating classical Latin orthography, is the term in Roman Catholic canon law for the "right of patronage"....
over church and parish in Kaulsdorf. Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector
Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg
Joachim II Hector was a Prince-elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg . A member of the House of Hohenzollern, Joachim II was the son of Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg, and his wife Elizabeth of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden...
wanted to increase the number of canons
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
at Berlin's Collegiate Church of Our Lady, the Holy Cross, the Ss. Peter, Paul, Erasmus and Nicholas. So he redeployed some ecclesiastical estates and thus in 1536 Kaulsdorf became a manorial estate held by the canon-law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
College
College (canon law)
A college, in the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, is a collection of persons united together for a common object so as to form one body. The members are consequently said to be incorporated, or to form a corporation.-History:...
of that Collegiate Church, in order to provide the revenues for its three additional prebendaries. Also the ius patronatus
Ius patronatus
Jus patronatus, also spelt ius patronatus, imitating classical Latin orthography, is the term in Roman Catholic canon law for the "right of patronage"....
was transferred to the collegiate church.
As a Lutheran place of worship (from 1539 on)
In 1539 Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector converted from Catholicism to LutheranismLutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
, as earlier had done many of his subjects. The church of Kaulsdorf thus became Lutheran too, like most of the electoral subjects and all the churches in the Electorate of Brandenburg. Kaulsdorf's church was now served by the pastors of the neighbouring village Biesdorf
Biesdorf (Berlin)
Biesdorf is a locality within the Berlin borough of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Until 2001 it was part of the former borough of Marzahn.-History:...
.
In 1608 Prince-Elector John Sigismund
John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg
John Sigismund was a Prince-elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg from the House of Hohenzollern. He also served as a Duke of Prussia.-Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia:...
converted the collegiate church into the Supreme Parish Church of Berlin, which became a Calvinist church in 1613, when John Sigismund admitted his earlier conversion from Lutheranism to Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
. Now Calvinist clergy had become the patrons of a Lutheran congregation in Kaulsdorf, since John Sigismund waived his regnal privilege to demand a conversion of his subjects (Cuius regio, eius religio
Cuius regio, eius religio
Cuius regio, eius religio is a phrase in Latin translated as "Whose realm, his religion", meaning the religion of the ruler dictated the religion of the ruled...
). In the course of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) Lutheran Swedish troops under Gustavus II Adolphus
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
Gustav II Adolf has been widely known in English by his Latinized name Gustavus Adolphus Magnus and variously in historical writings also as Gustavus, or Gustavus the Great, or Gustav Adolph the Great,...
and the Catholic Imperial Army under Wallenstein
Albrecht von Wallenstein
Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein , actually von Waldstein, was a Bohemian soldier and politician, who offered his services, and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men during the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War , to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II...
ravaged and plundered Kaulsdorf and its inhabitants in 1638. The survivors deserted the devastated village, leaving the church without parishioners. With the successful repopulation of the village until 1652 by the Prince-Electors, ecclesiastical life reemerged.
In 1715 the church was refurbished and altered. The nave has been lengthened towards the east and the windows were altered in their forms. The new longer nave received a flat ceiling above a circular ledge, carried by busts of angels . On the southern side a chapel was added to the building, which now houses the heating system.
As a Prussian Union place of worship (after 1817)
In 1817, under the auspices of King Frederick William III of PrussiaFrederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel .-Early life:...
, the Lutheran congregation of Kaulsdorf, like most Prussian Protestant congregations, joined the common umbrella organisation then called the Evangelical Church in Prussia (under this name since 1821), with each congregation maintaining its former denomination or adopting the new united denomination (Prussian Union (Evangelical Christian Church)
Prussian Union (Evangelical Christian Church)
The Prussian Union was the merger of the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church in Prussia, by a series of decrees – among them the Unionsurkunde – by King Frederick William III...
. The Kaulsdorf church still being subordinate to the ius patronatus of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church, the king's court church, will most probably have promptly joined the Prussian Union.
In 1874 the new church constitution (Kirchenordnung) of the Evangelical Church provided for all parishes the election of presbyters and synodals, thus constituting the parishes as congregations of legal entity status. However, the church building, including the costs of its maintenance, remained under ius patronatus, allowing the patron, then the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church's presbytery , to appoint the pastors in Kaulsdorf. In 1875 the half-timbered church tower gave way for a new extension from brick masonry, attached to the west of the church, including a church tower on a square ground plan. The congregation experienced a drastic inflow of new parishioners moving in during the process of urbanisation after 1900. In May 1926 the Nazi Party (NSDAP) founded a local group (Ortsgruppe) in Kaulsdorf, thus becoming the first suburb of Berlin, where the party could establish. The local group, among others led by Wilhelm Kube
Wilhelm Kube
Wilhelm Kube was a German politician and Nazi official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for...
and Kurt Daluege
Kurt Daluege
Kurt Daluege was a German Nazi SS-Oberstgruppenführer and Generaloberst der Polizei as chief of the Ordnungspolizei and ruled the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia as Deputy Protector after Reinhard Heydrich's assassination.-Early life and career:Kurt Daluege, a son of a Prussian state official,...
became the nucleus for most of the other local groups in Berlin's eastern suburbia.
Under Nazi rule
After the premature re-election of presbyters and synodSynod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
als on 23 July 1933, which Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had discretionarily imposed onto all Protestant church bodies
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
in Germany (see Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union), the Nazi partisan Protestant so-called Faith Movement of German Christians
German Christians
The Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
, founded among others by Kube, gained a majority in the presbytery of the Kaulsdorf Congregation, like in most congregations within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. With the new majorities on all levels of church organisation the German Christians systematically tried to subject any unadulterated form of Protestantism by way of firing church employees of other opinion, blocking church property for non-Nazi Protestant groups, prohibiting collections for other purposes than the officially approved ones.
On 2 February 1934 the presbytery of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church appointed the Reformed Heinrich Grüber as the new pastor of the Kaulsdorf congregation, since this church still held the ius patronatus of the Kaulsdorf Church. Grüber, before pastor at the diaconal foundation Stephanus-Stiftung Waldhof in Templin
Templin
Templin is a small town in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg, Germany. Though it has a population of only 17,127 , it is with 377.01 km2 the second largest town in Brandenburg and the seventh largest town in Germany by area...
and known as member of the Nazi opposing Emergency Covenant of Pastors
Pfarrernotbund
The Pfarrernotbund was an organisation founded on 11 September 1933 to unite German evangelical theologians, pastors and church office-holders against the introduction of the Aryan paragraph into the 28 Protestant regional church bodies and the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche and against the...
was strictly rejected by the German Christian-dominated Kaulsdorf presbytery. But the March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical provincial consistory
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....
(the competent bureaucracy within the old-Prussian Church) insisted on his appointment as decided by the presbytery of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church. The office of pastor included the function as executive-in-chief of the presbytery. Thus conflicts were unavoidable. The German Christian presbyters steadily denounced Grüber within the ecclesiastical bureaucracy for criticising Ludwig Müller, the then old-Prussian state bishop , and the Nazi party local group leader denounced him at the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, for criticising the Nazi sterilisation laws (see Nazi Eugenics
Nazi eugenics
Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns...
) and for mercy and sympathy with the Jews.
Prior to Grüber's appointment the few congregants in Kaulsdorf opposing the Nazi interference and adulteration of Protestantism did not organise as a group. Now Grüber build up a Confessing Church
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
congregation at Jesus Church. As the officially appointed pastor Grüber held the regular services in Jesus Church, preaching against the Cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
for Hitler, the severing armament of Germany and anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
.
However, other events, such as collections of money for purposes of the Confessing Church, meetings of its adherents or elections of their brethren council, paralleling the German Christian-dominated presbytery, were forbidden to take place as events open for the public, but only card-carrying members were allowed. Grüber carried the – due to their colour so-called – Red Card No. 4, issued on 22 December 1934 by the Confessing congregation of Kaulsdorf. The information about Grüber's appointment spread among the adherents of the Confessing Church in neighbouring congregations comprising the competent deanery Berlin Land I, such as Ahrensfelde, Biesdorf, Blumberg, Fredersdorf, Friedrichsfelde, Heinersdorf, Hohenschönhausen
Tabor Church (Berlin-Hohenschönhausen)
Tabor Church is the church of the Evangelical Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Congregation, a member of today's Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia . The church building is located in Berlin, borough Lichtenberg, in the locality of...
, Karlshorst, Klein-Schönebeck, Lichtenberg, Mahlsdorf, Marzahn, Neuenhagen, Petershagen, or Weißensee mostly without a local pastor supporting them. They started to travel for Sunday services to Jesus Church. Grüber encouraged them to establish Confessing congregations of their own and attended e.g. the formal foundation of Friedrichsfelde Confessing congregation on 1 February 1935. Grüber presided the Confessing synod of the deanery Berlin Land I, which constituted with Confessing synodals from the pertaining congregations on 3 March 1935. The Confessing congregants in Kaulsdorf's congregation became a great support for Grüber. He also provided for Confessing pastors, who would act in his place once he could not hold the service himself. In August 1935 his colleague Pastor Neumann from Köpenick
Köpenick
Köpenick is a historic town and locality that is situated at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree in the south-east of the German capital city of Berlin. It was formerly known as Copanic and then Cöpenick, only officially adopting the current spelling in 1931...
preached instead of him, criticising the anti-Semitic policy of the German government, which earned him a denunciation by the presbytery.
On the occasion of the Remilitarisation of the Rhineland in 1936 Hitler unconstitutionally and arbitrarily decreed a re-election of the Nazi puppet Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
for 29 March, which was Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. ....
the traditional day Protestant congregations would celebrate the confirmations of the confirmands, who had grown to ecclesiastical adulthood. The compromising Wilhelm Zoellner, leading the Protestant church bodies
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
in Germany (1935–1937), regarded this an unfriendly act against Protestantism, but nevertheless obeyed and tried to delay the confirmations, asking a furlough for confirmands from the compulsory agricultural season labour of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), starting right next Monday. The DAF refused.
The second preliminary executive of the Confessing German Evangelical Church was of the opinion that the confirmations were not to be delayed. Since fathers, being state officials and/or card-carrying Nazi partisans, were ordered to organise and implement the poll as election judge
Election judge
In the United States an election judge is an official responsible for the proper and orderly voting in local precincts. Depending on the state, election judges may be identified as members of a political party or non-partisan...
s and with relatives travelling all around Germany to participate in their relatives' or godchildren's confirmation, the Nazis feared a low turnout in the election. This made the confirmations on the traditional date a political issue. Thus only few pastors did not compromise in the end, but Grüber was one of the few (one out of 13 in Berlin, e.g.), who held the confirmation services as usual, even though the Nazi government had announced this would not be without consequences. German Christian presbyters denounced Grüber again for his opposing attitudes at the March of Brandenburg provincial consistory
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....
and the Gestapo. The NSDAP local party leader (Ortsgruppenleiter) threatened Grüber to prompt his deportation to a concentration camp. In 1936 Berlin's congregation of Dutch Calvinist expatriates elected Grüber their pastor, which he remained until his arrestment in 1940.
The mainstream Nazi anti-Semitism considered the Jewry being a group of people bound by close, so-called genetic (blood) ties, to form a unit, which one could not join or secede from. The influence of Jews was declared to have detrimental impact on Germany, to rectify the discriminations and persecutions of Jews. To be spared from that, one had to prove one's affiliation with the group of the so-called Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
race. Paradoxical was, that never genetic tests or outward allegedly racial features in one's physiognomy determined one's affiliation, although the Nazis palavered a lot about physiognomy, but only the records of religious affiliations of one's grandparents decided. However, while the grandparents were earlier still able to choose their religion, their grandchildren in the Nazi era were compulsorily categorised as Jews, if three or four grandparents were enrolled as members of a Jewish congregation. This Nazi categorisation as Jews of course included mostly Jews of Jewish descent, but also many Gentiles of Jewish descent, such as Catholics, irreligionists, and Protestants, who happened to have had grandparents belonging – according to the records – to a Jewish congregation. While Jewish congregations in Germany tried – little as they were allowed – to help their persecuted members, the Protestant church bodies ignored their parishioners who were classified as Jews (according to the Nuremberg Laws
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
), and the somewhat less persecuted Mischling
Mischling
Mischling was the German term used during the Third Reich to denote persons deemed to have only partial Aryan ancestry. The word has essentially the same origin as mestee in English, mestizo in Spanish and métis in French...
e of partially Jewish descent.
On 31 January 1936 the International Church Relief Commission for German Refugees constituted in London, but its German counterpart never materialised. So Bishop George Bell gained his sister-in-law Laura Livingstone to run an office for the international relief commission in Berlin. The failure of the Confessing Church was evident, even though 70–80% of the Christian Germans of Jewish descent were Protestants.
It was Grüber and some enthusiasts, who had started a new effort in 1936. They forced the Confessing Church's hand, which in 1938 supported the new organisation, named by the Gestapo Bureau Grüber , but after its official recognition Relief Centre for Evangelical Non-Aryans.
In the night of 9 November 1938 the Nazi government organised the November Pogrom, often euphemised as Kristallnacht. The well-organised Nazi squads killed several hundreds, 1,200 Jewish Berliners were deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
. Many men went into hiding from arrestment and also appeared at Grüber's home in the rectory
Rectory
A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
of the Jesus Church. He organised their hiding in the cottages in the allotment clubs
Allotment (gardening)
An allotment garden, often called simply an allotment, is a plot of land made available for individual, non-professional gardening. Such plots are formed by subdividing a piece of land into a few or up to several hundreds of land parcels that are assigned to individuals or families...
in his parish.
The Nazis only released the arrested inmates, if they would immediately emigrate. Thus getting visa became the main target and problem of Grüber's Bureau. Grüber was allowed to travel several times to the Netherlands and Great Britain in order to persuade the authorities there to grant visa for the persecuted from Germany. So Grüber found hardly time any more to serve his actual office as pastor in Kaulsdorf.
From September 1939 the Bureau Grüber had to subordinate to the supervision by Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
. Eichmann asked Grüber in a meeting about Jewish emigration why Grüber, not having any Jewish family and with no prospect for any thank, does help the Jews. Grüber answered because the Good Samaritan did so, and my Lord told me to do so.
By autumn 1939 a new degree of persecution loomed. The Nazi authorities started to deport Jewish Austrians and Gentile Austrians of Jewish descent to occupied Poland
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
. On 13 February 1940 the same fate hit 1,200 Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent from Stettin, who were deported to Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
. Grüber learned about it by the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
commander of Lublin and than protested at every higher ranking superior up to the then Prussian Minister-President Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
, who forbade further deportations from Prussia for the time being. The Gestapo warned Grüber never to adopt party for the deported again. The deported were not allowed to return.
On 22–23 October, 6,500 Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent from Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
and the Palatinate were deported to Gurs
Gurs
Gurs is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.Gurs was the site of the Camp Gurs concentration camp. Nothing remains of the camp; after World War II, a forest was planted on the site where it stood.-Geography:...
, occupied France
Military Administration in Belgium and North France
The Belgium and Northern France was an Axis-occupied territory that included present-day Belgium and the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais...
. Now Grüber got himself a passport, with the help of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...
's brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi
Hans von Dohnanyi
Hans von Dohnanyi was a German jurist, rescuer of Jews, and German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime.-Early life:...
from the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
, to visit the deported in the Gurs (concentration camp). But before he left the Gestapo arrested Grüber on 19 December and deported him two days later to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and in 1941 to Dachau concentration camp, becoming the inmate with the No. 27832. For 18 December 1942 Grüber's wife Margarete, still living in the rectory of the Kaulsdorf congregation, managed to get a visitor's permit to speak him, accompanied by their elder son Hans-Rolf, for 30 min. in Dachau, arguing that he, being the husband and thus according to the garbled Nazi ideas of family values the decision-taking party in the family, would have to decide about important financial matters, about which he would have to instruct the remaining eldest, though minor, male family member. Grüber survived Dachau and built up good relations with many other inmates, among them also communists. He was released from Dachau to his wife Margarete, née Vits and their three children Ingeborg, Hans-Rolf, and Ernst-Hartmut in Kaulsdorf on 23 June 1943, after he signed not to help the persecuted any more.
Grüber then resumed his office as pastor of Kaulsdorf and the Confessing Church in the Berlin Land I deanery. He reported in the Confessing congregations of the deanery about the truth in a concentration camp, such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen. The church weathered the Second World War rather intact, but at the end of the war, the spire was shut down by artillery fire. On 22 April 1945 at the invasion of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
into the Kaulsdorf neighbourhood Grüber gathered some undaunted Kaulsdorfers to follow him with white flags marching in direction of the Soviet soldiers in order to avoid further bloodshed.
After the war
In the massive rapes of girls and women by the Soviet soldiers in the following weeks and months Grüber organised to hide girls and women. In 1945 Kaulsdorf turned out to be part of the Soviet Eastern Sector of BerlinEast Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
.
Grüber reopened his Bureau, now serving survivors, returning from the concentration camps. F.K. Otto Dibelius, who had assumed the post-war leadership of the March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical province within the old-Prussian Church for the time being, appointed Grüber as one of the Nazi opposing pastors for the new leading bodies to be established. With his contacts from Dachau to communists he could – at least to some extent – soften many of the ever-increasing anti-clerical measurements of the communist regime to be established in the East, until the communist rulers of the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
(GDR) finally dropped him in May 1958.
On 18 May 1945 Berlin's provisional city council, newly installed by the Soviet occupational power, had appointed Grüber as advisor for ecclesiastical affairs. This earned him a bilingual Russian-German certificate, issued on 21 May, to spare him from the usual robbery of bikes by Soviet soldiers, so that he could move at all in the city, with all the transportation system having collapsed, and an exemption from the curfew valid for Germans, issued on 9 July. On 15 July 1945 Dibelius appointed Grüber as Provost of St. Mary's and St. Nicholas' Church in Berlin and invested him on 8 August in a ceremony in St. Mary's Church
St. Mary's Church, Berlin
St. Mary's Church, known in German as the Marienkirche, is a church in Berlin, Germany. The church is located on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße in central Berlin, near Alexanderplatz. Its exact age is not known, but it was first mentioned in German chronicles in 1292. It is presumed to date from earlier...
, only partially cleared from the debris. Thus his time as pastor in Kaulsdorf ended. In 1946 the congregation commissioned the construction of a simple tent roof, covering the tower stump. Grüber's organisation for the relief of the survivors, today named Evangelical Relief Centre for the formerly Racially Persecuted, found later new premises in West Berlin's locality of Zehlendorf
Zehlendorf (Berlin)
Zehlendorf is a locality within the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf in Berlin. Before Berlin's 2001 administrative reform Zehlendorf was a borough in its own right, consisting of the locality of Zehlendorf as well as Wannsee, Nikolassee and Dahlem...
, so the Grübers moved there in 1949.
Since 1947 the congregation was a member of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. In 1999 the spire was reconstructed following its original design. Today the tower houses a small museum.
Furnishings
The square sacristySacristy
A sacristy is a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.The sacristy is usually located inside the church, but in some cases it is an annex or separate building...
, a structure extended at the northern façade of the church, contains a cross-ribbed vaulted ceiling from the 15th c. Within the nave there is a baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
wooden pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
of 1690 with a decorative pulpit ceiling. The retable
Retable
A retable is a framed altarpiece, raised slightly above the back of the altar or communion table, on which are placed the cross, ceremonial candlesticks and other ornaments....
, created in 1656, and restored in 1958, is structured by columns and tuberous ornaments on the edges (Wangen), surrounding portrait medaillons, which display Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
and John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
.
The baptismal font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...
of 1695 consists of a sandstone bowl carried by a putto
Putto
A putto is a figure of an infant often depicted as a young male. Putti are defined as chubby, winged or wingless, male child figure in nude. Putti are distinct from cherubim, but some English-speakers confuse them with each other, except that in the plural, "the Cherubim" refers to the biblical...
statue. The congregation still owns one of the rare mediaeval oaken chests (early 15th c.), once containing its precious belongings.