Karl Friedrich Stellbrink (28 October 1894 – 10 November 1943) was a German

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

pastor, and one of the

Lübeck martyrs The Lübeck Martyrs were three Roman Catholic priests – Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange – and the Evangelical-Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. All four were executed by beheading on 10 November 1943 less than ...

, guillotined for opposing the Nazi regime of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

Biography

Born in Münster, Germany in 1894, son of a customs official, Karl Friedrich Stellbrink served in the First World War until he was medically discharged in 1917 with a crippling wound to his hand. After completing his Lutheran theology studies, he was ordained in 1921 to the

Evangelical Church of Prussia's older Provinces The Prussian Union of Churches (known under multiple other names) was a major Protestant church body which emerged in 1817 from a series of decrees by Frederick William III of Prussia that united both Lutheran and Reformed denominations in Prus ...

. He resided in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

from 1921 to 1929, where he served as a foreign

vicar A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...

. In 1934, he was appointed as a pastor of the Lutheran Church in

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

, Germany. He initially identified with the

National Socialist Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

movement but was not involved with the

Confessing Church The Confessing Church (german: link=no, Bekennende Kirche, ) was a movement within German Protestantism during Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German E ...

, which arose to resist Hitler's efforts to subjugate German Protestantism under a unified Reich Church. However, the Nazi ''

kirchenkampf ''Kirchenkampf'' (, lit. 'church struggle') is a German term which pertains to the situation of the Christian churches in Germany during the Nazi period (1933–1945). Sometimes used ambiguously, the term may refer to one or more of the follo ...

'' campaign against the Churches altered his conviction, and he was expelled from the Nazi party in 1936. Later he was interrogated several times by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

"for helping persecuted Jews". Lübecker Märtyrer

In 1941, while serving as a pastor in Lübeck, he met Johannes Prassek, a Catholic priest from the nearby Sacred Heart Catholic Church ( de). They shared their disapproval of the Nazi regime, and Prassek introduced Stellbrink to his Catholic colleagues, Frs

Hermann Lange Hermann Lange (16 April 1912 – 10 November 1943) was a Roman Catholic priest and martyr of the Nazi period in Germany. He was guillotined in a Hamburg prison by the Nazi authorities in November 1943, along with the three other Lübeck martyr ...

and Eduard Mueller. The four priests spoke publicly against the Nazis – initially discreetly – distributing pamphlets to friends and congregants. They copied and distributed the anti-Nazi sermons of the Catholic Bishop

Clemens August von Galen Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen (16 March 1878 – 22 March 1946), better known as ''Clemens August Graf von Galen'', was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church ...

of Münster. Then, following the RAF air raid on the city, after which Stellbrink tended wounded, he delivered a Palm Sunday sermon which attributed the bombing to divine punishment. Stellbrink was arrested, followed by the three Catholic priests. He was sentenced to death by the People’s Court on 23 June 1943, and executed in Hamburg on 10 November 1943, along with the three Catholics. The mingling of the blood of the four guillotined martyrs has become a symbol of German

Ecumenism Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...

.After his death, Stellbrink's widow was billed for his court costs, imprisonment, and execution."Chapter 8, Beheaded by Hitler: Cruelty of the Nazis, Judicial Terror and Civilian Executions, 1933–1945; Fonthill Media, Stroud; 2014." Fifty years would pass before the

North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church The North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church (german: link=no, Nordelbische Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche; NEK) was a Lutheran regional church in Northern Germany which emerged from a merger of four churches in 1977 and merged with two more churc ...

, successor of the Lübeck Lutheran church body, would initiate court proceedings to clear Stellbrink's name and admit their shame at how this noble martyr had been treated. In November 1993, the German courts officially overturned the guilty verdict against him. He was honoured by inclusion in the Lutheran Calendar of Saints on his day of death, 10 November.

Biography

See also

References

External links

Further reading