Friedrich von Bodelschwingh

Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, Junior (14 August 1877, Bethel – 4 January 1946, Bethel, a locality of Bielefeld) was a German theologian and public health advocate. His father was Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, Senior (6 March 1831, Tecklenburg – 2 April 1910, Bethel), founder of the v. Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten Bethel charitable foundations.

Friedrich was the son of Reverend Friedrich von Bodelschwingh and his wife Ida. He is sometimes known as Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Younger to distinguish him from his father. Reverend Friedrich von Bodelschwingh began and operated the von Bodelschwingh Bethel Institution, which offers health care and other advantages to the poor, for many years. Upon the death of his father in 1910, Bodelschwingh the younger took over their operation. Both he and his father were close friends and colleagues of Ernst von Dobschütz. In 1921 he expanded the services of the Institute to care for orphaned children; boys who did not know their birthdate were given March 6, in honor of Reverend von Bodelschwingh, and girls were given February 20 in honor of Frieda von Bodelschwingh.

Both Bodelschwinghs were concerned with inherited defects, and expressed distress at the increasing number of handicapped persons in Germany. In a speech on 29 January 1929 he referred to the "catastrophic development" of "the increasing number of weak ones in body and spirit."

After its takeover of power the Nazi Reich's government aimed at streamlining the Protestant regional church bodies, recognising the Faith Movement of the German Christians (German: Glaubensbewegung Deutsche Christen, DC) as its means to do so (see Struggle of the Churches, German: Kirchenkampf). On 4 and 5 April 1933 representatives of the German Christians convened in Berlin and demanded the dismissal of all members of the executive bodies of the then 28 Protestant regional church bodies in Germany, then rather loosely associated with each other in the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund (German Protestant Church Confederation). The German Christians demanded their ultimate merger into a uniform Protestant Reich Church, to be named German Protestant Church (German: Deutsche Evangelische Kirche), led according to the Nazi Führerprinzip by a Reich's Bishop (German: Reichsbischof), abolishing all democratic participation of parishioners in presbyteries and synods. The German Christians announced the appointment of a Reich's Bishop for 31 October 1933, the highly symbolic Reformation Day public holiday.

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