On August 18, 1976, before the Evangelical church of St. Michael in Zeitz, something happened that at first seemed to be an act of despair of 1 man. Pastor Oskar Brüsewitz poured gasoline and set himself on fire.
Four days later, he died in the infirmary from injuries.
Christian Resistance
However, it was not just a suicide act. Brüsewitz left a political and spiritual message behind. On the car he arrived in front of the church, he placed a banner directed against the communist GDR system. He accused communism of persecution of the Church and atheistic indoctrination of children and youth. His death became 1 of the most dramatic symbols of Christian opposition to the SED regime.
A State That Wanted to rise a fresh Man
In order to realize Brüsewitz's desperate act, we request to look at the reality of the German Democratic Republic more broadly. The GDR was simply not a state where there was a conflict between the state administration and a fewer unruly clergymen. The communist strategy had a much more ambitious social project. He wanted to make a fresh man – a socialist man whose view was to be based on Marxism-Leninism, not on Christianity. religion was a competitive origin of authority for this project. The church told man that there was a fact higher than the state. Christianity reminded us that man has dignity independent of his usefulness to the collective. The communist state, on the another hand, wanted to decide on education, education, social organization and, to a large extent, on the values that the young generation should shape. The issue of children and adolescents was so peculiarly important. The young man raised by the school, youth organisations and state propaganda was to be primarily a socialist citizen.Christian education and the influence of the Church were competitive in this process. For Brüsewitz, this was not an abstract political dispute. This was a fundamental question: who has the right to form a man's conscience?
A pastor who refused to keep quiet
Oskar Brüsewitz did not belong to people inclined to submit to the system. He was born a 3rd kid in a mediocre craft household close Memel in East Prussia. After graduating from primary school in 1943, he began his commercial profession, which he had to halt in 1944 due to evacuation from the Memel region. As a 15-year-old, he was incorporated into the Wehrmacht in Warsaw. The effort to desert was unsuccessful. At the end of the war, he was put into russian captivity, from which he was released into the russian business region in the autumn of 1945. From 1945 to 1947, he held a suture practice with the Sevsky Master Maxa (Maximiliana) Ogertschniga At Töpfergasse 35 in Colditz, and then passed his apprentice exam at Burgstädt close Chemnitz, where he lived with his mother, after which he moved to Melle close Osnabrück. There he opened the szewski workshop, and in 1951 passed the examination for the Szewski master. In the same year Brüsewitz married and moved to Hildesheim; in 1952 Renate's daughter was born. The matrimony ended in divorce in 1954. In 1954, under the influence of a decaying marriage, Brüsewitz rushed to Weißenfels in East Germany and there, thanks to the influence of his host family, became increasingly aware of the Christian faith. shortly thereafter, he applied to a clergy seminary in Wittenberg, but due to severe psychosomatic illness he had to halt studying. After treatment Brüsewitz went to Leipzig. There he met Christa Rohland. After the beginning of the sewing workshop in Markkleeberg they married in late 1955. The following year their boy Matthias was born, who died in 1969 due to illness. In 1958 their daughter Esther was born; she later became a pastor at Döschnitz. In Leipzig Brüsewitz actively participated in the parish life. After another illness, the household moved in 1960 to Weißensee (Turingia), where the daughter of Dorothea was born, and Brüsewitz continued to work as an independent shoemaker and – after moving business to the PGH Schuhmacher company based in Sömmerda – as branch manager. besides in Weißensee Brüsewitz actively participated in parish life, engaged in youth work and organized evangelization activities in the church territory of Sömmerda. In particular, his different promotions for evangelization caused conflicts not only with representatives of the government but besides with members of the parish council, to which he himself belonged.
From 1964 to 1969, Brüsewitz attended a preaching school in Erfurt. In 1970, he was ordained in Wernigerode and then took up the position of Evangelical-Lutarian pastor in Rippicha in the territory of Zeitz. His work with youth and symbolic protest actions met with both affirmative consequence and harsh repression by the state. For example, this controversial pastor has controlled the SED password “Without God and sun, we reap” with the inscription on the poster: “Without rain, without God the full planet will go bankrupt”. The placement of the cross from fluorescent lamps on his church on the 1 hand made him popular and led to unprecedented attendance in his parish, but on the another hand caused expanding conflicts with the state authorities. In addition, any of his colleagues rejected him due to his unconventional methods. In his activities, he paid peculiar attention to young people. He did not intend to limit Christianity to a private sphere of life. religion had social and moral consequences for him. And that's where the conflict started. The GDR strategy tolerated the Churches as long as they were predictable and ready to respect state-designated boundaries. The Church was to exist, but its influence on society was to be limited. The clergyman who crossed those boundaries rapidly became a problem for the safety apparatus. In 1976, church leadership suggested that Brüsewitz agree to change his pastoral position or decision to the West.
Conflict with your own Church
Brüsewitz's communicative is besides interesting due to the fact that his criticism was not directed solely against the state. He besides criticized his own church environment. He felt that part of the Evangelical establishment In the GDR, she went besides far in compromise with you. The Church tried to preserve the anticipation of functioning under dictatorship conditions through dialogue, negotiations and caution. From the point of view of many clergy, it was a policy of realism. If a complete confrontation with the state could lead to the closure of theological schools, a regulation of parish activities or a clerical arrest, caution should be exercised. After all, the Church had to last first. Brüsewitz looked at the problem differently. For him there was a limit which the Church should not exceed, even in the name of her own survival. If the Church ceases to talk the fact due to the fact that she fears the consequences, then its organization endurance may prove to be an apparent victory. It is this conflict – between the endurance of institutions and the fidelity to principles – that is 1 of the most crucial elements of Brüsewitz's history.
August 18, 1976
On the morning of 18 August, Brüsewitz arrived in Zeitz. Before St. Michael's Church, he prepared his protest. He didn't talk to the crowd. He didn't organize a demonstration. He didn't effort to start the uprising. He utilized a symbol that was impossible to ignore. He spilled gasoline and set himself on fire. He had previously placed on his car a banner containing an accusation of communism about the persecution of the Church and children and youth. So it was a demonstration made by his own body. Brüsewitz knew that authorities could confiscate flyers, remove banners, ban conventions, interview participants, or lock a demonstrators in prison. However, they could not easy erase the fact that before 1 of the churches in East Germany a man publically burned himself to the point of protest against the system.
Why self-incineration?
Self-incineration is 1 of the most utmost forms of political protest. He's not just an act of force against others. It is simply a directing force against its own body to draw attention to a peculiar case. This was besides spiritual in the case of Brüsewitz. Of course, it cannot be said that Christianity considers suicide a appropriate method of political action. On the contrary. After his death, the Church itself distanced itself from this form of protest. But Brüsewitz's motivation was related to his knowing of the testimony. In his attitude there is simply a very old Christian thought of martyrdom – the belief that there are values that man should not renounce even under the threat of suffering. Of course, historical caution is needed here. Brüsewitz was not a classical martyr in the theological sense. His act was a conscious, highly tragic political-religious protest. However, his own writings show that he interpreted conflict with the state primarily in terms of faith, fact and falsehood.
State Answer: A "unbalanced" man
For SED, the situation was very dangerous. If the authorities had admitted that the pastor had deliberately made an act of protest against the communist system, they would gotta admit that there was a real conflict between the state and the Christian part of society. That's why we needed another narrative. The easiest way to discredit a political opponent is to present him as an irrational, ill, fanatical or unbalanced man. This was besides how Brüsewitz was tried to interpret. The mechanics was simple: “We are not facing a protest against the system. We are dealing with a individual tragedy of a man who had intellectual problems.” specified an explanation was to take distant his death's political significance. The problem was that Brüsewitz left behind very clear testimonies of his views. His activities, conflicts with authorities, banners and letters did not easy bring the full substance into the category of individual crisis.
Church between the hammer and the hardwood
The Evangelical Church was in an highly hard situation. On the 1 hand, he could not accept self-incineration as a Christian method of protest. On the another hand, it was hard to ignore the reasons that led Brüsewitz to specified dramatic action. So the Church had to answer a question which was much more hard than condemning the act itself: did the strategy truly exceed the limits against which Brüsewitz was protesting? And here the answer was more complicated. The GDR authorities formally allowed the churches to exist. It was not a strategy that simply banned Christianity. Churches had temples, parishes, clergymen, and a certain space of action. At the same time, the state systematically reduced their social impact. Therefore, the situation of the Church in East Germany was more subtle than classical spiritual persecution. It was a strategy of control, pressure, infiltration, administrative constraints and ideological force in which the state sought to control the limits of the Church's activities.
Death
Brüsewitz was transported to a infirmary in Halle-Dölau. The doctors were incapable to save his life. He died on August 22, 1976. He was 47. 4 days later, his ceremony was held in Rippicha. About 400 attended, including about 200 clergymen. It was a peculiarly dangerous minute for the authorities. The ceremony of the man who made a public protest against the state could have become a political manifestation. And it has indeed become a symbolic event. Not due to the fact that the participants started an open uprising. On the contrary. The top force was presence. People came to say goodbye to the man you tried to represent as problematic and unstable.
‘Fanal von Zeitz’
In time, the event began to be called ‘Fanal von Zeitz’ "Zeitz Fanal". And the word "fanal" is very accurate here. It does not mean that Brüsewitz himself started the process which led to the fall of the GDR. This would be a simplification. In 1976, no 1 could have predicted that thirteen years later the Berlin Wall would cease to be and that the SED would fall apart. However, Brüsewitz belonged to people who showed that the ideological monopoly of the state was not absolute. There was a space in which man could say no. And the Churches became just specified a space.
Churches and 1989
In later years the importance of Churches in the GDR began to grow. There were people in the temples who could not freely organize outside of them. Peace, environmental and social groups were formed. Prayers for peace were arranged. The church became a place where things could be said that could not be spoken freely in the authoritative state space. In 1989, churches played an crucial function in mobilising society. Monday prayers in Leipzig turned into mass demonstrations. Password “Keine Gewalt!” – “No violence!” became 1 of the symbols of the peaceful revolution. Within a fewer months, the strategy that seemed to last for decades began to fall apart. This does not mean that you can connect Brüsewitz's self-burning line to the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, something else could be said: Brüsewitz belonged to a generation of people who had challenged the moral legitimacy of the strategy before most of the GDR society.
Brüsewitz lesson
The communicative of Oskar Brüsewitz has meaning beyond the past of the GDR. It touches the problem that arises in all age: what should a man do erstwhile a state demands of him a compromise with his own conscience? Not all compromise is simply a betrayal. Not all conflict requires heroism. The state and social institutions request compromises to work. But there are situations where compromise begins to mean giving up fundamental principles. Brüsewitz believed his Church was approaching this border. You can discuss his method. You can, or even have to, justice her critically. Self-incineration is not a political solution and should not be romanticised. However, its message cannot be ignored for this reason. due to the fact that the point of his protest was not the desire to die. The point was to refuse to submit to the state's conscience.
Heritage
Oskar Brüsewitz did not overthrow the GDR. He didn't make a political movement. He wasn't leading the opposition. However, he left something that the totalitarian strategy feared especially: a moral testimony. You can control the media. He can control schools. He can control the police, the administration and the safety camera. He may even effort to control the Church. But it is much harder to control the conscience of man. That is why Brüsewitz's communicative remains important. On August 18, 1976, before the church in Zeitz, 1 man showed that there were values that were more crucial to him than security, career, and life. Thirteen years later, the Berlin Wall collapsed. It was not the consequence of 1 act. past doesn't work that simple. But before the crowds took to the streets of Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin, for decades there were people who, frequently alone, refused to admit the communist state as the highest moral authority. Oskar Brüsewitz was 1 of them. Therefore, his death should not be remembered solely as the tragedy of 1 pastor. It should be remembered as 1 of the most dramatic testimonies of the conflict between the Christian conscience and the atheistic communist state in post-war German history.
"Forest wandering is simply a form of opposition an individual can defy to Leviathan" – he wrote Ernst Jünger (Der Waldgang).
Matthäus Golla
Literature:
The president Oskar Brüsewitz, Naumann, Würzburg 1978, ISBN 3-921155-37-1;
Hartmut Bartmuß, „Sonym denn meine Hände...“ Pfarrer Brüsewitz und der schwere Entschluss, aus dem Leben zu scheiden, Harald Schultze (Hrsg.), Das Signal von Zeitz – Reaktionen auf die Selbstverbrennung von Oskar Brüsewitz, 2nd Auflage. Evang. Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-374-01427-5;
Helmut Müller-Enbergs, Heike Schmoll, Wolfgang Stock,Das Fanal. Das Opfer des Pfarrers Brüsewitz und die evangelische Kirche, Ullstein, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-548-36616-3;
Gerhard Ringshausen, Paul Schneider und Oskar BrüsewitzIn: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. 9/1 (1996), S. 89–110, ISSN 0932-9951;
Helmut Müller-Enbergs, Wolfgang Stock, Marco Wiesner, Das Fanal. Das Opfer des Pfarrers Brüsewitz aus Rippicha und die evangelische Kirche, Aschendorff, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-402-05263-6;
Karl-Joseph Hummel (Hrsg.), Zeugen einer besseren Welt: Christliche Märtyrer des 20. Jahrhunderts, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2000, ISBN 978-3-374-0112-3;
Freya Klier, Oskar Brüsewitz – Leben und Tod eines mutigen DDR-Pfarres, Bürgerbüro, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-00-013746-7;
Karsten Krampitz, Lothar Tautz, Dieter Ziebarth (Hrsg.), „Ich werde dann gehen...“ – Erinnerungen an Oskar BrüsewitzEvan. Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-374-02398-3;
Harald Schultze (Hrsg.), Ihr Ende schaut an. Evangelische Märtyrer des 20. Jahrhunderts, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-374-02370-7, S. 617–619;
Kathryn Mileta, Leben und Wirken von Oskar Brüsewitz, 2008, Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur;
Renate Brüsewitz-Fecht, Das Kreuz und die Flame, Projects-Verlag, Halle 2009, ISBN 978-3-86634-697-0.
Film:
Der Störenfried – Ermittlungen zu Oskar Brüsewitz, 1992, Thomas Frickel.
