Debate about renaming Bischof-Meiser-Strasse in Pullach continues

Created: 01/19/2022, 09:00

By: Andrea Kästle

The discussion about Bischof-Meiser-Straße in Pullach is not over yet, although the municipal council decided in April 2021 to rename the street.

© Andrea Kästle

The discussion about Bischof-Meiser-Straße in Pullach is not over yet, although the municipal council decided in April 2021 to rename the street.

Pullach

- After the SPD surprisingly backed down in November and declared that they would no longer approve of the whole thing, the History Forum, which had applied for the renaming, is now presenting its view of things in detail once again.

Angelika Bahl-Benker, Wolfgang Haas, Peter Habit and Hans Wiedmeyer come to the conclusion that what Meiser said and did not do must be seen in the context of the time, but must be judged "in the light of today".

The bishop has spoken out clearly as "racist anti-Semitic" on at least two occasions, among others.

In its four-page letter, the history forum also refers to the statements of church representatives and theologians, some of whom had been asked by the community for a statement before the first community council meeting, or even before Nuremberg and Munich then renamed their Bischof-Meiser-Straße, had reported.

"The anti-Semitic, ethnic confusion of the German people shared, represented and promoted in the Bavarian state church"

Some of those involved said they were “remarkably clear”; Professor Wolfgang Stegemann, who until 2010 lectured at the Augustana University, the theological university of the Evangelical Church in Bavaria, said it most clearly. He wrote that Meiser had “shared, represented and promoted the anti-Semitic, ethnic confusion of the German people in the Bavarian State Church”, had “stabbed in the back” of the Confessing Church and had introduced the Hitler salute in religious education. Stegemann's conclusion: "The commemoration of Hans Meiser is also symbolically linked to the outstretching of the arm of a Bavarian regional bishop and thus a stain on the history of our church. State Bishop Meiser belonged to the elite of Nazi Germany.”

Bishop says: It is no longer appropriate to name streets or places of residence or study for future theologians after Meiser

But also Ralf Meister, leading bishop of the body responsible for the Theological Studies Seminar of the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the university senate of the Augustana University are of the opinion that it is no longer appropriate to name streets or residential and study sites of future theologians after Meiser. One was, wrote Meister, "observing with horror the transgressions that had come to light" of Meiser, who in 1933 succeeded Friedrich Veit, a Nazi opponent, and then remained in office until 1955. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, today Bishop of the Evangelical Church, expressed reservations about renaming the street because it was usually accompanied by "quarrels and divisions". But he also said on the phone to the administration that it was no longer conceivable today to name a new street after its predecessor.

Christian values ​​disregarded

Overall, according to the history forum, “highest and critical standards” should be applied to street names, including renaming.

Meiser, however, "through his anti-Semitic statements" "contributed to preparing the ground for the racial fanaticism of the Nazi ideology".

And through "his consistent silence on the persecution of the Jews and their murder, on euthanasia and the pogrom night" he "disregarded Christian values ​​and helped make the Holocaust possible".