stroke at Christmas 1933, he wrote several letters to Adolf Hitler and accompanied him “with grateful intercession”. He repeatedly defended Adolf Hitler in letters and leaflets. His successor Ernst Buddeberg noted on 23 October 1940: “The deceased founder and leader of the work, Pastor Heinrich Coerper, was one of the first pastors in Württemberg to openly declare his support for the Führer.” The founder of the Liebenzell Mission recognised his mistake shortly before his stroke. He left the “German Christian” movement in the same month and distanced himself from them when he became aware of their anti- Christian course. Ernst Buddeberg had initially joined the Confessing Church and campaigned against anti-Semitism. When he took over the leadership of the Liebenzell Mission, however, he exercised the greatest political restraint. Nevertheless, he was deeply nationalistic and patriotic; he saw Adolf Hitler as the leader sent by God who, as “God’s instrument, led the uprising of the German people”, according to Helmut Egelkraut, who wrote the standard work “DieLiebenzellerMissionundderNational- sozialismus” (The Liebenzell Mission and National Socialism) in 2015. The Gestapo praised Ernst Buddeberg for his “National Socialist attitude”. He unreservedly sided with Hitler and approved of his political actions. This is how Marianne Baral remembers the former Jewish preacher Samuel Ostrer, who worked in Brucken in Swabia and from whom the Liebenzell Mission parted ways in June 1936 due to his Jewish descent. His whereabouts could never be clarified. Vilma Lasser, a Jewish doctor and missionary to China, also had to leave the Liebenzell Mission in 1938. The Nazi party’s seizure of power in 1933 also had a serious impact on the Liebenzell Mission: in Germany, the mission organisations were subject to increasingly strict fundraising restrictions, and tax breaks were also abolished over time. The restrictions or the blocking of foreign currency in the mission areas had dramatic consequences for the salary payments to the missionaries and the financing of the work there. The missionaries and their families were directly affected by the aggressive behaviour of the NSDAP foreign organisation; in this way, they were controlled by the National Socialists in China. Heinrich Coerper himself was characterised by a strong patriotic sentiment and great rejection of the Jews: he blamed them for Germany’s defeat in the First World War and the difficult political and economic situation in the following years. Until his “It was the Pentecost Mission Festival in 1936, my mother went there by foot ... They wanted to look for Brother Ostrer, but he was no longer allowed among the people, so they didn’t meet him. They sadly made their way home, passing the Kaffeehof (in Liebenzell). Brother Ostrer was sitting on a bench at the top and said to them: “I also have to say goodbye to you, otherwise I won’t be able to leave. The next day he had to leave for Poland, to the camp in Lodsch.” The Liebenzell Mission during the National Socialist era Mission festival with the mandatory flags of the time DARK SHADOWS OVER A GREAT HISTORY 14 Mission festival – now also for teenagers O First teenage mission festival on the Sunday after Pentecost with 500 participants, at that time still on the Mission Mountain, today in the Monbachtal. Start in Bangladesh O The mission work in Bangladesh begins with the departure of Albert and Marianne Rechkemmer and the sisters Charlotte Andres and Gertrud Endlich. 1974 1975 1974 New: The Feierabendhaus O The “Feierabendhaus” on the Mission Mountain is inaugurated. Liebenzell sisters can spend their twilight years there.
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