Paul Schempps Streit mit dem Oberkirchenrat

The article describes the canonical fight between pugnacious Protestant pastor Paul Schempp and the bishop of the Protestant regional church in Stuttgart. Paul Schempp, who was born on January 4th, 1900, was dismissed from his position as a teacher of religion at the beginning of the Nazi era after having declared that, one now had to pay attention that the gospel of the Kingdom of God would not suddenly become a gospel of the Third Reich. He then became a priest in Iptingen in Württemberg from 1933 to 1942. His dispute with the bishop concerned, on the one hand, the internal church constitution. He rejected the forced collection of church taxes as unevangelical. On the other hand, he vehemently opposed, in word and writing, the arrangement of his regional church with the Nazi government. In particular, he strictly rejected the planned oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. Thereby He also sharply attacked the bishop personally. In 1942, he eventually left the Protestant regional church. After the Second World War, he initially taught German, philosophy, and religion at the Eberhard-Ludwig-Gymnasium (High School) in Stuttgart. In 1955, he was awarded the honorary doctorate of theology from the University of Bonn, where he became Gollwitzer’s successor as a professor of theology in 1958. He died in Bonn on July 4th, 1959.