Hildegard Schaeder (13 April 1902 – 11 April 1984) was a German theologian and church historian. In her research, she focused on the history and theology of Eastern orthodox churches, with studies not only in Breslau and Hamburg but also in Prague and the Soviet Union where she lived when the Nazis came to power.
Born in Kiel, Schaeder was the fourth child of the professor of systematic theology Erich Schaeder and his wife Anna née Sellschopp (1867–1948).[1] She had three brothers; Hans Heinrich Schaeder became an orientalist, Reinhard Schaeder an economist, and Johann Albrecht Schaeder a physicist and brain researcher. She attended a private school first in Kiel and later, after her father had accepted a call from the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelm University, in Breslau, where she achieved the Abitur as an external student in 1920. She studied classical and slavicphilology, Eastern European history, Byzantine studies and philosophy at the University of Breslau and the University of Hamburg.[1] At the University of Hamburg, she received her doctorate in 1927 supervised by Richard Salomon[1] with the dissertation "Moskau, das dritte Rom – Studien zur Geschichte der politischen Theorien in der slavischen Welt". After further studies in Prague and the Soviet Union, she returned to Germany in 1934. She began working as a research assistant in the Publikationsstelle Berlin-Dahlem [de] of the Prussian Privy State Archives in Berlin in 1935.[1]
Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin-Dahlem
Schaeder became a member of the Confessing Church in 1934, and from 1935 also worked actively in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche Dahlem [de], which was ministered by Martin Niemöller. She studied at the Kirchliche Hochschule für reformatorische Theologie which Niemöller had initiated in 1935, and which was run illegally after being banned immediately.[1] A focus of her parish work was the care of Jews who had been deported to the Lublin Ghetto.[2] She also explored hiding places for persecuted Jews in Berlin and supplied food and clothes to those in hiding.[1] After a denunciation, Schaeder was taken into protective custody (Schutzhaft) on 14 September 1943 for "favouring fugitive Jews". She was imprisoned at the Polizeipräsidium Alexanderplatz [de], and from 1944 as a political prisoner at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was liberated in 1945.[1]
Moskau, das dritte Rom – Studien zur Geschichte der politischen Theorien in der slavischen Welt; Hamburg; 1929
Die dritte Koalition und die Heilige Allianz – Nach neuen Quellen; Königsberg, Berlin; 1934
Ostern im KZ; Berlin; 1947
Russische Kirche und östl. Christentum. Edited by Ernst Benz [de]. With contributions from Hildegard Schaeder, Ludolf Müller, Robert Schneider. Tübingen 1949
Autokratie und Heilige Allianz; Darmstadt, 1963
Impulse für die evangelisch-orthodoxe Begegnung. Ausgewählte Schriften von 1949 bis 1972, edited by Karl Pinggéra, Jennifer Wasmuth and Christian Weise. Mit einer biographischen Hinführung von Gisa Bauer; Münster 2016 (Forum Orthodoxe Theologie; 17)
Martin Rohkrämer: Kirchliche Ost-West-Begegnungen zwischen 1952 und 1959. In Willy Brandt, Helmut Gollwitzer, Johann Friedrich Henschel (ed.): Ein Richter, ein Bürger, ein Christ. Festschrift für Helmut Simon. Baden-Baden 1987, (Schaeder pp. 929–95).
Gerlind Schwöbel [de]: Leben gegen den Tod – Hildegard Schaeder: Ostern im KZ. Evangelischer Regionalverband, Frankfurt, 1995, ISBN3-922179-25-8.
Gisa Bauer [de]:『Versöhnung durch Begegnung. Hildegard Schaeder als Osteuropahistorikerin, bekennende Christin und Ökumenikerin.』In Hildegard Schaeder, Impulse für die evangelisch-orthodoxe Begegnung, ausgewählte Schriften von 1949 bis 1972; Münster 2016, 5–73.
Sabine Arend / Hans-Christian Petersen, Art. Schaeder, Hildegard, in Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften. Berlin, Boston 2nd edition 2017, pp. 690–696.
Germany
