DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
BLACKBURN CATHEDRAL
9th November 2008
DOMPREDIGER JOACHIM HEMPEL
Dean of Brunswick Cathedral /Germany
In the name of God the Almighty,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
“Through us immense suffering was brought to many people and countries.
What we have often attested to our congregations, that we declare now in the
name of the whole church:
It is true that for many years we fought in the name of Jesus Christ against
that spirit which found its horrible expression in the national-socialist rule
of violence; but we accuse ourselves that we did not confess more courageously, did not pray more faithfully, did not believe more joyously and did
not love more fervently.”
To admit guilt
and to accept responsibility
is not easy in our personal lives as well. With the ‘Stuttgart Confession of
Guilt’ the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany publicly declared in
October 1945 German guilt and responsibility for the first time.
My grandfather was buried alive in Flanders during WW I,
my father kept a T-shirt with three large letters on the back “P.O.W.” Prisoner of War - , which he brought from british and US captivity into
which he had come 1943 in Northern Africa.
I am the grandson of one of your enemies and I am the son of one of your
enemies. Both, grandfather and father were told that Britain is one of our
enemies.
Today, I bow my head and touch my heart for you are listening to me the
Dean of Brunswick Cathedral, a German preacher on this very special day!
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the
signing of the Armistice on November 11th 1918, to signal the end of WW I.
The guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years
continous warfare.
You wear a red poppy in memory of those who sacrificed their lives for you
during wars. On the cover of the leaflet there is a picture of a Pals Regiment
of 1916 - I learnt these were men from a town often the same streets in this
part of the United Kingdom; thousands of them were killed at the river
Somme on one or two days leaving their town with a generation of young
men lost.
You know the famous poem by Laurence Binyon:
“They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow:
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning
We will remember them.”
Today, in Brunswick Cathedral - as all over Germany - people will remember
the burning of the Synagoges 70 years ago and next Sunday will bring us a
Day of National Mourning, - we think of guilt and failure in view of the war
which had been started by Germany and the crimes committed in the name
of the Germans. But we have to think of our soldiers as well:
“Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn
We will remember them...”
Together we will remember millions of dead, soldiers and civilians; we lament
destroyed cities and devastated country-sides; we lament the death of millions
of Jews, children, women and men; we lament the death of thousands of
members of minority groups, those dissenting and political persecuted; we
think of the million people having to leave their homes and having died as refugees.
Suffering was immense!
Those who survived, survived accidentally.
And you and me we are the survivers or the children and grandchildren of
those, who survived.
And as those who survived today, we declare remembering history: There
is only one God and he blesses the peacemakers!
We know there are warmakers and warlords even today in Afghanistan, in the
Congo, dealing with drugs and weapons, forcing even children to fight, we
know WW I was followed by WW II and since 1945 a lot of wars did rob
young lives.
But there is a vision, there is a promise by our Lord quoted in the Holy
Scripture of the Old Testament:
“God shall judge between nations
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2.4+5)
Time has come to learn peace - no war - anymore. Time has come to join our
Lord in his paece-keeping force. Why should’nt there be a BlackburnBrunswick peace-keeping regiment: people with peaceful thoughts speak
words of peace and bring about peaceful deeds.
You, the victors of two WW opened up to the defeated and conquered the
possibility to build a common future through reconciliation. On behalf of the
Cathedral and the people of Brunswick and on behalf of the Dioces of the
Lutheran Church
thank you for signs of forgiveness and love,
for outreached hands of recociliation and friendship
Thank you for a common day of remembrance!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his prison cell of the Gestapo 1944:
‘May be tomorrow the day of judgement will come, then we shall put down
the labour for a better future, but not before!’
The sead of peace will always grow , - always in time and in eternity,
thanks to the Lord!.
Amen