Member of the Confessing Church


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Hermann Maas, the pastor of the main parish in Heidelberg and also known as a “Jew-lover”, was the chaplain in Wieblingen as of 1935. He also signed von Thadden’s declaration of membership in the Confessing Church on November 1, 1934. Like he, she did what she could for fellow Jewish citizens and attempted to help them. She had personally selected the chaplain for her school to ensure that German Christian thinking would be kept at bay from religion and confirmation class after 1933.


After her days in Wiebling as well, she regularly had dealings with Confessing Church groups in Berlin and attended Bible study with Pastor Gerhard Jacobi.


The lecture evenings with prominent representatives of the Confessing Church, the Catholic theologian Romano Guardini, Elly Heuss-Knapp or Gertrud Bäumer were forbidden by the Gestapo at the close of 1942. During this time, she also established contact with the head of the Una Sancta movement, the Freiburg diocesan priest Max Josef Metzger, who would be executed in 1944, as well as with the diplomat’s widow Hanna Solf, while never engaging in active opposition herself. At her trial before the People’s Court, she confessed that she had come into a conflict with National Socialism primarily as a follower of the Confessing Church.


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  • © Archiv der Evangelischen Stadtmission Heidelberg e. V.

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