Edo Osterloh - Theologian and Politician
Edo Osterloh was born as the eldest of five siblings on April 2, 1909 in Rotenhahn near Varel. His father was a smallholder. Due to his high intellectual talent, Edo Osterloh finally could study theology and philosophy at the Bethel Church University and at the Universities of Marburg, Göttingen and Zurich by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.
After the National Socialists took power, he became a member of the NSDAP in May 1933. In Göttingen he also became a university group leader of the "Studentenkampfbund Deutsche Christen". In the same year, he described his previous attitude as "error and illusion" and joined the Confessing Church. In 1934 encephalitis prevented him from taking a job as an assistant at Bethel College. From 1935 to 1940 he was a lecturer in Reformation theology, Hebrew and philosophy at the then illegal Church College of the Confessing Church in Berlin. In 1937 he became also the student chaplain of the Confessing Church.
After being called up in 1940, he became an artillery officer and later a specialist officer on the General Staff of “Heeresgruppe Mitte” due to his good mathematical skills. In the summer of 1945 he was a Soviet prisoner of war, from which he was able to escape in August 1945.
After the end of the war, Osterloh's path led through various church offices, in which he was already dealing with school and educational issues, into federal politics in Bonn. He joined the political party CDU and advocated a liberal family and education policy as well as tolerance towards minorities. On January 18, 1956, Osterloh became Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein and was a member of the state parliament from 1958 to 1964.
In the first few months, he developed a comprehensive program for the expansion of Kiel University and for the development of the schools. His goal was to improve school education, especially for rural and socially disadvantaged youth. He was also a founding member of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation.
During his tenure, there were a number of scandals involving those responsible for NS injustice, who had gone into hiding in Schleswig-Holstein after the end of the war. In 1960, for example, he pleaded for leniency with Werner Catel, director of the University Children's Clinic in Kiel from 1954 to 1960, who had been one of the organizers of child euthanasia in the Nazi state: "I am convinced that before 1945 Professor Catel was subjectively of the opinion, that he had done nothing wrong in the ethical and moral sense and that he only decided for beings, who would certainly never attain human consciousness." Osterloh's benevolent attitude towards Catel apparently also stemmed from the fact, that he had previously treated a mentally handicapped child of his medically well.
Towards the end of the war, the former SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Joachim Beyer fled to Schleswig−Holstein, where he was denazified without further ado. In fact, Beyer had previously held numerous high key positions in Nazi science. In 1947, the Evangelical Church of Schleswig-Holstein made him their spokesperson, knowing his past. In 1950, Beyer applied for a history professorship at Flensburg's teacher training college, where, following a declaration of no objection from the Ministry of Education, he received a positive assessment, so he trained prospective history teachers for ten years. As early as 1953, newspapers drew attention to Beyer's past. Nevertheless, Minister of Education Osterloh only took him out of service in 1961 and then released him "for research work" with full salary.
At the suggestion of his history teacher, the head boy Uwe Barschel, later Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein (1982-1987), invited Karl Dönitz to the Otto-Hahn-Gymnasium in Geesthacht on January 22, 1963, to speak to pupils in grades 9 to 13 about "the 30th January 1933 and its consequences". The glorifying portrayal of the National Socialists' seizure of power and the positive portrayal of the Nazi system by the former commander-in-chief of the Navy and Hitler's successor prompted the Bergedorfer Zeitung to write an enthusiastic report about this "history lesson of the highest order". National and international media took up the case. The state government of Schleswig-Holstein has been heavily criticized. The Minister of Education launched an investigation. Right at the beginning, the director of the high school took his own life. Osterloh felt guilty therefore.
On February 25, 1964, Edo Osterloh, father of eight children, committed suicide in the Kiel Fjord near the Landeshaus. He may also have feared mental deterioration because of the long-term effects of the encephalitis of 1934.
The board of directors of the Studentenwerk then decided on March 19, 1964 to name the dormitory planned in Kiel-Projensdorf “Edo-Osterloh-Haus”: “This naming is intended to reflect the deceased Minister of Education’s contribution to the development of the university and the social facilities of the students honored and the memory of a politician in our country, who felt a special obligation to academic youth should be kept alive.”