# Hartwig Hohnsbein

Hartwig Hohnsbein (* January 19, 1937 in Rotenburg (Wümme) in Germany) is a Protestant pastor, political scientist and author. He worked in Lehrte and in Wolfsburg.

## Biography

Hohnsbein grew up in Neubrandenburg and Schneverdingen and passed his high school diploma in 1957 in Bederkesa. In Schneverdingen Hohnsbein found his way into church youth work and decided to study theology after graduating from high school.
From 1957 to 1963 he studied Protestant theology at the universities in Hamburg, Marburg, Vienna, Tübingen, Berlin (Church University) and Göttingen. Here he passed the first theological exam. In 1963/4 he completed the vicariate in Kingston upon Hull (Great Britain), attended the theological seminary in Loccum in Germany from 1964 to 1966 and passed the second theological examination in 1966. From 1970 to 1972 he studied political science at the Leibniz University Hannover and passed the examination. He worked as a pastor in the Matthäuskirche in Lehrte from 1966 to 1975. 1976 to 1997 he served as pastor in the St. Marien parish in Wolfsburg. From 1968 to 1997 he was part-time teacher at high schools in Lehrte and Wolfsburg (Kreuzheide). For many years he was a member of the board of the Wolfsburg Church District Council and chairman of the Mission Committee of the Wolfsburg Church District Council. Hohnsbein retired in 1997 and lives in Göttingen.

## Activities

The Ostdenkschrift of the Protestant Church in Germany of 1965 changed Hohnsbein's social and church-political view. The Ostdenkschrift contributed significantly to the implementation of the “policy of détente” of Willy Brandt. Hohnsbein took part in many actions that attracted great attention beyond the region:
* Hohnsbein's commitment included, in particular, the protest against the Vietnam War, the legitimization of which was defended by the regional bishop D.Hanns Lilje still in 1968.
* Protest against the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and campaigns “For the defense of freedom and democracy in Chile - now”.
* In April 1975 Hohnsbein and another pastor marched in a cassock at the head of a demonstration in Hannover as a sign of non-violence against fare increases for public transport. Two days earlier, the police had used tear gas for the first time, which meant that 40 people had to receive ophthalmological treatment. This caused a huge journalistic response. For both pastors involved, this resulted in an “official discipline procedure” with an reprimand from the church chamber for official discipline and resulted in Hohnsbein being transferred to the Wolfsburg parish of St. Marien.
* A focus of his interest was the role of the church during Nazi Germany. In a letter to the synod in 2000 he demanded a change of attitude regarding the former racist bishop August Marahrens.
* Later, his efforts were aimed at compensating forced laborers in Nazi Germany, but the Volkswagen-AG did not want to respond to this request for a long time.
* By his citizen's proposal during his retirement in Göttingen Hohnsbein achieved that the city council renamed a central square that bore the name of the former Nazi-friendly pastor Albrecht Saathoff in 2005.
* In 2014 Hohnsbein submitted a petition to the presidium of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover for the rehabilitation of the victims of the Loccum witch trials. In a letter dated May 5, 2015, the regional church office informed him that the church senate and the convent of Loccum Monastery had declared "social rehabilitation" for the victims of the witch hunt.
* In 2015 he took part with Hartmut Hegeler at the stand of the “working group on witch trials” demanding the exoneration of the executed victims on the German Protestant Church Assembly (Kirchentag) in Stuttgart.

## Publications

* 550 Jahre St. Marien in Alt-Wolfsburg. Hrsg: Kirchenvorstand St. Marien, Wolfsburg. 1984
* Das Rote Kreuz in Wolfsburg in den 30er/40er Jahren: Von einem vaterländischen Frauenverein zu einer Wehrmachtsgliederung. Königslutter / Aktion Sühnezeichen, 1987
* Die Vergangenheit ist noch längst nicht vorbei! - (Kirchen-)geschichtliche Beiträge aus Wolfsburg und der Landeskirche. Wolfsburg, 1992
* Erlitten - Vergeben - Nicht vergessen - Erinnerungen ehemaliger KZ-Häftlinge und Zwangsarbeiter in der Stadt des KDF-Wagens. (KDF: Kraft durch Freude), 1995
* Erklärung von Hartwig Hohnsbein, ehemals Mitstreiter von Klaus Rauterberg und früherer Pastor in Lehrte, zum 8. Mai, 2000
* Vom Saathoffplatz zum Nahnsenplatz. Dokumentation des Versuchs einer Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Göttingen 2005. Göttingen, 2006
* Talar und Tränengas. Pastoren zwischen Glauben und Politik; Dokumentation eines Amtszuchtverfahrens aus dem Jahre 1975 in der ev.- luth. Landeskirche Hannovers. 2011
* Rauterberg, Klaus (1930-2006). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band XXXIII (2012), Sp. 1085-1090
* Ernst Arfken. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band 34, Bautz, Nordhausen 2013, ISBN 978-3-88309-766-4, Sp. 21–27
* Bode, Wilhelm Wolfgang Dietrich Friedrich (1860-1927). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band XXXVIII (2017), Sp. 255-261
* Der Dunkelluther und sein Erbe: Rede wider den herrschenden Luther-Mythos: ein garstig Brevier. Aufsatzsammlung (Essays), 2017
* Höffer von Loewenfeld, Julius Ruprecht (1881-1939). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band XXXVIII (2017), Sp. 883-888
* Heinrich Rimphof(f). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL), Band XXXIX, (2018), ISBN 978-3-95948-350-6, Sp. 1248–1261
* Lochte, Friedrich David Eduard (1800-1877). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band XLI (2020), Sp. 819-826
* Wendeborn – Lochte – von Loewenfeld – drei bemerkenswerte Gestalten aus Alt-Wolfsburg. Nordhausen, 2022. ISBN 978-3-95948-553-1
* Petersmann, Werner Adolf Dietrich (1901-1988). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band XLV (2023), Sp. 1116-1126
Many Essays.

## Weblinks

* Hartwig Hohnsbein. In: Ossietzky, Zweiwochenschrift für Politik, Kultur, Wirtschaft.
* Stephan Krull, 2011, Neues Deutschland: Die Vergangenheit ist längst nicht vorbei. Tagung beleuchtete die Rolle Ferdinand Porsches im Dritten Reich und die anhaltende Verehrung des Wehrwirtschaftsführers.