Maurus Gerner-Beuerle

Maurus Wilibald Beuerle was born and grew up in the village Hausen im Wiesental, a short distance up the valley from Lörrach, in the extreme south-west of Germany. He was the third-born of his parents' four recorded children.[4] He was born into a Protestant family: his father, Oskar Beuerle (1867-1952), served as the village pastor between 1901 and 1933.[2] He attended the "Realschule" (secondary school) at the neighbouring village of Schopfheim. He acquired his double name when he was 18, after he was adopted by a newly widowed cousin of his mother's, Sophie Christina Betz. The cousin had been born Sophie Christina Gerner, however, and presumably reverted to using her pre-marriage name. Her new adoptee, Maurus Beuerle, now became Maurus Gerner-Beuerle.[1]

He completed the secondary school curriculum and passed his "Abitur" (school final exams) in 1922, with supplementary passes in Latin and Greek.[2] Under normal circumstances this would have opened the way to university level education, but Gerner-Beuerle was very unsure of his future career path and in no hurry to decide. Despite being the son of a church minister, and having already thought extensively about religion as he was growing up, the last thing on his mind was a university theology course spent studying formulaic sermons authored by eminent churchmen in the past. For some months after leaving school he worked in the village as a brick layer and as a carpenter.[1]

He embarked on his university career in 1923. Between 1923 and 1930 he studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Kiel, Tübingen and Marburg. It is apparent that he was still agonising about his long-term career trajectory: initially he enrolled for a "free study" course of the Philosophy Faculty, allowing for a maximum choice between study topics. His decision to focus on Theology owed much to the unconventional Protestant theologian Johannes Müller. The encouragement came initially from Müller's writings and later from meeting Müller. The two became friends and, in matters of Theology, allies. During the 1920s and 1930s Gerner-Beuerle suffered several bouts of serious ill-health which seems at times to have delayed his studies. During the 1920s he suffered from Pleurisy and, according to one source, was incapacitated by Tuberculosis between 1925 and 1927. When he was away from university, much of his time was spent at Schloss Elmau, the theological hostel-retreat that Müller had opened near Garmisch during the war years. It was also at that Maurus Gerner-Beuerle met Erna Moritz (1905–2004), who was working a stint as a "Haustochter" (very loosely, "trainee housekeeper") and whom he later married. During his student years he spent a term in Finland under a student exchange scheme. He also found opportunities for visits to Franconia, Italy, Estonia, Sweden and Norway. Towards the end of the 1920s he was employed by Müller as a "house tutor" at the Schloss Elmau retreat. Klaus Schubring, who has studied his life in some detail, points out that Gerner-Beuerle never became part of any wider literary movement or circle. But as his reputation spread, he did come to be viewed by admirers as a "disciple" of Johannes Müller, the man who had "understood him the best".[1][2]

The final part of Gerner-Beuerle's university-level education was completed at the Theology Seminary at Heidelberg. Having passed his Level I National Exams in 1927, he now completed his Level II National Exams in 1930. Following brief "vicariates" (in parish traineeships) at Wertheim and Karlsruhe, on 31 March 1931 he was ordained into the ministry at his home church in Hausen im Wiesental. No doubt Oskar Beuerle, who was still the pastor in charge, was filled with fatherly pride. The passion with which the son used his inaugural sermon to relate his inner development and to lay before his listeners his pastoral goals was very much at variance with the father's customary approach, however.[1][2]

Following ordination he served as a semi-itinerant "diaspora minister", filling in for absences at various rural Baden parishes, before being installed in his first more permanent parish position at Sankt Blasien, some 25 km / 15 miles north of Waldshut and the Swiss border. His incumbency ran from 1932 till 1938.[5] At Sankt Blasien he ran into difficulties. The prayer room that the congregation had formerly used had recently ceased to be available, and there was a pressing need to organise the construction of a little Protestant church for the congregation to use. Sankt Blasien was home to a powerful Jesuit school (which would be closed down by the government in 1939). There was inherent scope for divisions between Catholics and Protestants in the village, while both church communities had faced a new set of pressures and threats since the National Socialists had taken power across Germany in 1933 and rapidly transformed Germany into a one- party dictatorship. For Gerner-Beuerle there was an urgent need to raise funds for the construction of a new church. Meanwhile, it was also at Sankt Blasien that on 12 May 1935 his mother died of cancer, aged only 57.[6] Before there had been time to make very much progress on the new church his Tuberculosis returned. Between 1936 and 1937 Maurus Gerner-Beuerle was obliged to take a prolonged cure, locked away from all contact for several months at a sanatorium with Specialist physicians in Davos. After that there was a further protracted period of convalescence at Schloss Elmau in Upper Bavaria. The treatment evidently worked: for forty years between 1936 and 1976 he was spared further health crises. But in during his absence from Sankt Blasien the parish council had become appallingly split over the funding for the proposed new Protestant church.[7] Leading the opposition was Karl Bronner, the proprietor of a small shop in the parish and a Hitlerite extremist. Another villager, Ferdinand Odenheimer, promised to make a substantial cash donation. Odenheimer was also the proprietor of a shop, but it was a large one. Of greater significance, given that antisemitic racism had become a core underpinning of government strategy since 1933, was the fact that Ferdinand Odenheimer was Jewish. It may have been as early as 1933, and was almost certainly before the parish council had had any opportunity to accept the gift offered by Odenheimer, that Karl Bronner lodged an objection to the possibility that it might be accepted. Regional church leaders were called in and prevaricated, seeking to impose various conditions that were either difficult or else impossible to meet. As the local minister, Gerner-Beuerle was forbidden by the church hierarchy from involving himself in the dispute. It is clear from his letters that he had already taken a firm opinion in favour of accepting Odenheimer's cash, however, and it is likely that parish councillors were not kept entirely in the dark as to their church minister's view of the matter. In 1936 Gerner-Beuerle applied for a "loft conversion" upper floor to be added to the apartment which he shared with his wife (whom he had married in 1932) and children (the first of whom was born in 1933). The parish council and the regional church leadership, delighted to find a simple question on which they could both agree, jointly turned down his request. That same year the parish council formally lodged a complaint against their minister. A further blow was the discovery that his vicar (deputy), Wolfgang Lorenz, was "scheming" against him. The new church was nevertheless consecrated on 13 December 1936.[7] By this time Gerner-Beuerle was starting to look for a new position.[2]

Bremen Cathedral

It was during a visit by Hermann Rahm, who had been the Protestant minister in charge of the parish at Sankt Blasien between 1915 and 1923, and was now in charge at another parish nearby, that the suggestion came up that Gerner-Beuerle should apply for a job at Bremen, far to the north. He was offered and accepted a post, and during 1938 moved to Bremen with his family.[2] His first job in Bremen was as pastor to the congregation in the city's "Hohentor" quarter, where the sudden arrest of the previous incumbent and his resignation from the church ministry had opened up an unexpected vacancy. Gerner-Beuerle lived through the hard years of the war at the side of his congregation. The quarter of the city near the city and alongside the river suffered badly in the aerial bomb attacks of the 1940s. The recently built Hohentor church was completely burnt out and collapsed. At this point Gerner-Beuerle seriously contemplated signing up for army service, but instead he stayed where he was till 1946, when he accepted an appointment at the cathedral. Much to the displeasure of the parish church council, when Gerner-Beuerle moved to the cathedral as "Domprediger", which is only a ten minute walk from the Hohentor parish, many of his congregation went with him. The role involved a combination of administrative and pastoral duties and also, especially in Gerner Beuerle's case, offered ample opportunity for preaching. He remained in the job from 1946 till his retirement in 1971.[2][3][8]

The difficult years of immediate post-war period marked the high point of Gerner-Beuerle's hands-on pastoral role. He could come up to a crowd of people who had been pushed aside, while united more closely together through their shared hunger and the cold, and speak well-chosen words of consolation necessary to renew their self-confidence. His sermons were discussed on the streets and in the trams, and sometimes were even aired on the local radio, which meant having to contend with American military censorship.[lower-alpha 2] The first booklet of his sermons appeared as early as 1947, subjected to censorship.[10] During the 1950s and 1960s, as material conditions improved, he continued to serve the city folk as a tireless pastor, a patient listener and a highly esteemed preacher.[2]

Maurus Gerner-Beuerle suffered a severe stroke in 1976. His mental faculties were unaffected, but he never fully recovered his physical powers. He died at Bremen on 10 August 1982.[2]

His body is buried with that of his wife and other near relatives in a family grave at the Riensberger Cemetery, which is situated between the city centre to the south and the concrete university campus to the north.[8]