Otto Dibelius
1880-1967
- Protestant theologian
- General Superintendent of Kurmark
- Member of the DNVP
- Member of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) after World War II
- Head of the Evangelical Church in Germany after World War II
After having studied Protestant theology and philosophy, Dibelius obtained a Ph.D. in Gießen in 1902 and a Lic. Theol. in Berlin in 1906. He managed to work his way up quickly within the Evangelical Church. During World War I, he was one of the many Protestant clergymen who, with their excessive nationalistic zeal, supported the government’s war goals. After the war was lost, he supported the “stab-in-the-back myth”, very common within nationalistic and right-wing conservative groups, and was critical of the republic. Nevertheless, he was able to continue his career, as many in the Evangelical Church shared his views. Accordingly, he became General Superintendent of Kurmark in the Consistory of Brandenburg in Berlin in 1925. He joined the DNVP during the same year. In 1930, Dibelius published “Peace on Earth?”, in which he rejected war and demanded support for conscientious objectors. Although he was softening his radical views in part in this publication, he is still pointed to as an example demonstrating the extent to which the Evangelical Church’s leadership distanced itself from the republic. Although Dibelius initially sympathized with the NSDAP, he resigned from his posts when the Evangelical Church was struck by the Gleichschaltung process. After the war, he joined the CDU and became head of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).