Karlheinz Deschner

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Karlheinz Deschner
church and of religion
SpouseElfi Tuch
Children3

Karl Heinrich Leopold Deschner (23 May 1924 – 8 April 2014) was a German researcher and writer who achieved public attention in Europe for his trenchant and fiercely critical treatment of

Christianity's Criminal History (Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek).[1]

Life

Deschner's father Karl was a forester in

Roman Catholics, but the mother converted from Protestantism
at some point.

Karlheinz, the eldest of three children, attended elementary school in Trossenfurt (close to

paratrooper
.

Initially matriculating as a major in Forestry in the

Lenau
's Lyrics As an Expression of Metaphysical Despair. In the same year he married Elfi Tuch. They had three children: Katja (1951), Bärbel (1958) and Thomas (1959 to 1984).

From 1924 to 1964, Deschner resided in a former hunting lodge of the prince-bishops of Tretzendorf (Steigerwald), then for two years in the country house of a friend in Fischbrunn (near Hersbruck, Franconian Jura). After that, he resided in Hassfurt am Main until his death.

Karlheinz Deschner published novels, literary criticism, essays, aphorisms, and history critical of religion and the Church. Over the years he gave more than 2,000 public lectures.

In 1971, he was called before court in Nuremberg, charged with "Insults against the Church", but was acquitted. Outside of Germany, his works remained largely unpublished until the eighties, when translated versions (where necessary) were published in Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Poland. (The fourth part of The Cock Crowed Once Again was translated into Norwegian and published in 1972).

Deschner worked on his ambitious Criminal History of Christianity from 1970 to 2013.

Münster University who left the Catholic Church in 1981.[3]

During the summer semester of 1987 Deschner taught a course entitled Criminal History of Christianity at the University of Münster.[4]

Karlheinz Deschner was a member of the Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Historical Sciences.[5]

Prizes

In a foreword of his The Criminal History of Christianity an overview of awards and prizes is presented:[4]

Deschner was awarded the

International Humanist Award. In September 2001 he received the secularistic Erwin Fischer Prize,[6] to be followed in November 2001 by the Ludwig Feuerbach
Prize.

Works

The first of Deschner's books that has been translated into English is God and the Fascists: the Vatican Alliance with Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, and Pavelic (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2013).

The following translation of his titles is taken from the English version of his official website.[7]

Novels

  • Night Surrounds My House (1956)
  • Florence Without Sun (1958)

Critique of religion and the Church

  • What Do You Think of Christianity? (1957)
  • The Cock Crowed Once Again (1962)
  • With God and the Fascists (1965)
  • Images of Jesus from a Theological Perspective (1966)
  • The Century of Barbarism (1966)
  • Church and Fascism (1968)
  • Christianity in the View of Its Opponents, Volume 1 (1969)
  • Why I Left the Church (1970)
  • Church and War (1970)
  • The Manipulated Faith (1971)
  • Christianity in the View of Its Opponents (1971)
  • On the Cross of the Church (1974)
  • Church of the Unholy (1974)
  • Why I Am a Christian/Atheist/Agnostic (1977)
  • A Pope Travels to the Scene of the Crime (1981)
  • A Century of Sacred History, Vol. 1 (1982)
  • A Century of Sacred History, Vol. 2 (1983)
  • The Offended Church (1986)
  • Christianity's Criminal History
    , Vol. 1     (1986)
  • Opus Diaboli (1987)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 2 (1988)
  • What I Believe In (1990)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 3 1990)
  • The Politics of the Papacy in the 20th Century (1991)
  • The Anti-Catechism (1991)
  • God's Representatives (1994)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 4 (1994)
  • World War of the Religions: the Eternal Crusade in the Balkans (1995)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 5 (1997)
  • Nobody on Top (1997)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 6 (1999)
  • Between Subjection and Damnation. Robert Mächler (1999)
  • Memento (1999)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 7 (2002)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 8 (2004)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 9 (2008)
  • Christianity's Criminal History, Vol. 10 (2013)

Literary criticism

  • Kitsch, Convention and Art (1957)
  • Talents, Poets, Dilettantes (1964)

Social criticism

  • Who Is Teaching in German Universities? (1968)
  • The Moloch: A Critical History of the U.S.A. (1992)
  • What I Think (1994)
  • For a Bite of Meat (1998)

Aphorisms

  • Only the Living Swims Against the Current (1985)
  • Offences (1994)

Miscellaneous

  • Dreams of Sleeping Beauty and Stench from the Stall (1989)
  • The Rhoen Region (1998)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Hans Küng, p. xxi of The Catholic Church, 2001
  2. ^ Karlheinz Deschner Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums Rowohlt Magazin rowohlt.de (in German)
  3. ^ Horst Herrmann Einer singt falsch beim Halleluja, published on 02 Jan 1989 in Der Spiegel: spiegel.de (in German)
  4. ^ a b Deschner, Karlheinz (1986). Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums. Rowohlt. p. 526., Über den Autor, Bd. 8, p. 526
  5. ^ sanu.ac.rs Archived 2018-03-25 at the Wayback Machine Foreign members in the Department of Historical Sciences.
  6. ^ Erwin Fischer Award 2001: Dr. Karlheinz Deschner honored
  7. ^ "Die offizielle WebSite des Kirchenkritikers Karlheinz Deschner". 18 January 2002.

External links

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