50th anniversary of death of Friedrich of Bodelschwingh - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1996 - 100 Pfennig

The Protestant theologian Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, born on August 14, 1877, is the youngest son of the eponymous founder of the Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten in Bethel near Bielefeld, an institute for epileptics. After studying theology, he followed the call of the father to work in Bethel and took over after his death in 1910, the management of the institution. Bethel became the central research facility for the treatment of epilepsy. New tasks came from the general distress after the First World War. In 1921 the three "corporations" Bethel, Sarepta and Nazareth were merged to form the "Anstaltsbund". As a preacher he understood the simplest epileptic and the highly educated academics at the same time. In 1933 he was designated as Reich Bishop, but never took up this post, as Ludwig Müller got the office as a shop steward of Hitler. Bodelschwingh remained as a man of the Confessing Church still the secret bishop of the church, where countless people took advice and help. The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) is already being formed in the "Working Group of Missionary and Diaconal Works" co-founded by Bodelschwingh. In the church fight he held back at first, which changed however at the moment, when the National Socialist state with the action for the annihilation of the so-called "unworthy life" the life of the sick not only in Bethel threatened. Through his indomitable resistance he rescued his patients. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh died on 4 January 1946. (Text: Wilhelm Schlemmer, Evangelical Church in Germany, Bonn)