Fiedler studied from 1913 in Leipzig theology and was initially parochial vicar in Planitz in Saxony. 1918 he was in Leipzig with a dissertation on Gustav Theodor Fechner Dr. phil. PhD. On the 23. October of the same year he led the baptism of Elisabeth mann by, the fifth child of Thomas and Katia man, Thomas Mann, with whom he corresponded since 1915, reports about it in hexameters im Song from the child, Mann's literary portrait of the "spiritual youth" is not free of distanced irony and injured Fiddler; yet "among the victims of Thomas Mann's incorporation into the work as a material for blackmail, he was one of those who could be reconciled" (Thomas Sprecher).[1]
In addition to the church office, he published a lot. His first anonymous published pamphlet Lutheranism or Christianity? 1922 led to his dismissal from the church service. He went to school, first as a primary school teacher, then as Studienrat in Neustadt an der Orla, starting at 1930 in Altenburg as a religious teacher.
At the end of 1932, Fiedler refused, in the classroom Fritz sauckel (NSDAP), the Thuringian Minister of the Interior, to carry out decreed propaganda. He then lived as Journalist in Dettingen on the Main, Twice he visited Thomas Mann in Küsnacht 1934 in August and 1936 in April, until he joins 2. September 1936 was arrested without giving any reason. Later, Fiedler learned that the Gestapo arrested him for suspecting an agent of a spy ring around Thomas Mann.[2] Fiedler succeeded in the third week of detention escape from the political department of the Wuerzburg Landgericht prison, the border crossing took place on a boat over the Bodensee, to Switzerland, where he received the support of Mann and the European Central Agency for Church Aid a job as Pfarrer in St. Antönien received and 1947 was naturalized. He also met Thomas Mann after his return from the US again. Their correspondence continued until Mann's death. The "most important statements about religion and religiosity", which are available from Thomas Mann, can be found in reply letters to Fiedler.[3]
He left his parish at 1955 and spent his retirement in complete seclusion in Ticino.
Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuno_Fiedler
For Kuno Fiedler see also:
Klaus Bäumler
Kuno Fiedler (1895-1973)
A German destiny - to wrest from oblivion
Published in:
Dirk Heißerer (ed.):
Thomas Mann in Munich
Lecture series Summer 2003
Thomas Mann Series Series Volume 2. Munich, Peniope, 2004
A highlight on Kuno Fiedler raises the following description of the wife of Erich Schairer, Helene Schairer, born. Lutz (1889-1981)
Kuno Fiedler and the III. rich
Dr. Fiedler put his articles for the Sunday newspaper in careful covers. Those who had ears to hear heard and understood the call - Germany wake up! The leaders of the III. Reiches attentive and locked him in prison in Würzburg. Nothing was known about it, and Erich Schairer had no idea about it for a long time. It must have been around the summer of 1935 when Erich Schairer was invited by his friend Owlglass to Fürstenfeldbruck for a few days of relaxation. His health urgently needed it, I was alone in the house and garden with the children, where there was always a lot of work. One morning in the morning there was a careful knock on a window in Erich Schairer's study; it was on the ground floor facing the street. I went u. looked to me, a stranger was standing in front of me - an acquaintance in poor clothes, with a disgusted face and an almost toneless voice. Stuttered asked "Is Schairer here?" I absolutely have to speak to him! ”-“ Unfortunately he is away for about 10 days! ”. And the other then said: “I was Kuno Fiedler, escaped from prison in Würzburg yesterday, I don't have a penny of money, I am being followed by the police, I have to cross the border to Switzerland as quickly as possible. Schairer still owes me a fee for a few articles in his newspaper, "he constantly looked anxiously in all directions, stood outside the house -" I don't want to be found here. "I didn't have the desired sum in the house, and bank accounts we didn't have it back then either, my housekeeper was the landlord who, depending on what he had, paid me cash in marks. “I can't give you anything now! If you can come again tomorrow? ”He accepted that, also because he was so full of restlessness and rushed, and quickly ran down the street to Esslingen. - I then thought: do what now, Ms. Schairer - the money, who will give me that so quickly without me giving the reason for the need? I only had a few marks in my pocket because I was expecting the master of the house to return soon, bad that there is no money in the house, there is no money in the house - but a thought occurs to me. Kreszens, the good maid from back then, she put her good monthly wages in her bedside table drawer, she didn't put that on the bank, she wanted to save it up for a later trousseau and now and then see and count how much it was already. Schairer paid his employees a little over the usual to demonstrate his Christian social thinking. And I told the girl that I would like to lend it to a friend of the house who suddenly had a great need and should get 120M from me tomorrow. The landlord would replace it for her when he returned. And the good Kreszens was happy to help.
So came the next day. In the early morning two police officers stood in front of the front door. They wanted Dr. Speak Schairer. “We went to his office downstairs in Stuttgart yesterday and he wasn't there anymore,” they wanted to meet him up here before he went to his office. "But my husband is not at home at all, he has been in Fürstenfeldbruck for a few days to relax and will be back in the editorial office in about eight days." At such moments you really are under divine protection. I would have been in great danger if, for example, the two of them came to me after Dr. Fiddlers would have asked. I was not so skilled at making excuses that everything had gone wrong, but according to my frank and natural answer they didn't think about it and left.
During Hitler's rule in the Third Reich, Erich Schairer lived with his family in Sulzgries, a suburb of Esslingen near Stuttgart. Down in the Stuttgart basin he had an editorial room for the publication of his Sunday newspaper. Schairer was a great opponent of the Nazi regime, that was taken for granted. It was difficult for him to stay afloat without being forbidden to publish newspapers because of his sincerity and willingness to fight. He was clever, superior to the constant daily harassment, about which he hardly spoke a word to those around him. His family with six school-age children lived well-protected in simple circumstances on the Sulzgrieser Höhe, where he had acquired an old farmhouse, the former “zum Bären” inn. This was spacious and had a large garden around the house full of beans and berries with a farmer's meadow and behind it as a demarcation a funny and clear flowing stream. Erich Schairer was very tidy, woe if a garden rake could not be found in its place. Everything he got was of great simplicity, but everything had to be useful and solid. Even if he had little money, he at least bought the best quality. That way nothing useless accumulated and the house could be kept in good order. Down in the city of Stuttgart he had many friends and followers, readers of his newspaper, whom he gladly invited to his Sulzgries house for a glass of wine or some homemade Swabian apple cider. There was also house bread baked by the housewife, he bought the flour himself from the farmers on the Swabian Alb, where he could be sure that he was receiving the pure gift of God and no mixed goods, nothing in between: "spelled" a type of wheat, which does not give bumper harvests and was only grown on the Alb. This description of the house yard and garden is intended to be an introduction to an event that I had been planning to write down for a long time. It is a contemporary document from the III. Rich and should be freshened up from time to time, as we are still facing the turn of the century and still have to bear the fruits of this “heroic time”. As Erieh Schairer prophesied back then and spoke about it with a worried heart: "Our children and grandchildren will still have to pay for it!"
His office, where he edited his weekly, was initially on the lower Königstrasse, not far from the station, a modest space, a one-man operation; Editor and writer, printing and shipping, everything under his supervision, subscribers continue, ad collector! The copies sent by post (sent with wrapper) were partly fabricated in the evening in the family circle. It also said that where there is a will there is a way. With cleverness and great skill, this all went according to plan. He also had to make an effort to find employees who shared his outlook on life and who also had above-average ratings. One of these was Dr. Kuno Fiedler. Like Erich Schairer, he was trained as a theologian, but soon left the conscience because of questions of conscience. “He wrote, living alone in a small house in the Main Valley, surrounded by vineyards:“ The Levels of Knowledge ”, a philosophical book that was recognized. Fiedler, like Er1ch Schairer, was a great opponent of Hitlerism; from the very outset of his triumphal cry, he absolutely did not dare and put on a notebook in which he gathered secretly, hearsay from the people, in which he learned about devils and radio in Western countries the Nazis came on the track. A few hours later, it knocked again on the window of the mansion. Dr. Fiedler stood outside. This time a bit more composed and quiet. He could have spent the night with extensive acquaintances down in the Neckar valley, they understood his situation and he was able to satisfy his hunger there. He then told me something about his escape from prison. As he stood on the street in a prison suit and wanted to cross the street as quickly as possible, there was a house, which had built a balcony in the ground floor apartment, which was barely a meter above the ground. Under this he found shelter, he lay to the back of the house wall, so that you could not see him from the street. There he waited the night until the main traffic on the road had faded and tried to get on with a freight truck. And really - such an understanding captain of the Landstrasse, who had often experienced adventurous things in his job, was kind enough to take the refugee with him, he drove south to wherever Fiedler wanted to go. - Fiedler got the promised money, then I got a timetable to determine his onward journey, via Ulm-Bodensee. As far as Ulm with an express train - but reluctantly - in this one he could be surprised by a train control, but without this rapid transport to Ulm he would not have been able to reach Lake Constance on the same day. From there in zigzag on small rail lines, and he actually came in the evening in the proposed place Allensbach am Untersee. There, a painter named Marquard had a house with board, located in the border area, year-round and in the summer there were guests from Germany, they recorded as many as the single-working housewife could cope. Erich was already there with his older children.
Erich Schairer, who was visiting friend Owlglass during these days, wanted to go to the lake from there. The beautiful, warm weather attracted swimming and boating. When Erich came, the whole house was occupied, but Marquard, who was a loyal reader of his Sunday newspaper, told him anyway, most of the guests were from Germany, it was the time of "Heil Hitler" hurray patriotism, one was no longer completely en famille. That late evening another guest came into the house, an unexpected one, Erich Schairer couldn't believe his eyes - that's Dr. Fiedler, it can't be, he's in prison in Würzburg. But it was him - how daring to bring that together, so some Nazis under the same roof with someone who was being persecuted by the Führer! The three non-Nazis were still sitting together. and a wise plan arose.
The next morning it was announced in the pension: “Today we are going on a trip to Switzerland, 24 people have space in the boat. You can go to a coffee shop over there and buy unbranded sugar. Back in the evening. The nice weather must be used today! ”Many drove along, the border guards knew Marquars and his coffee guests, at the border they were counted and noted. When driving back, the border guard said “There's someone missing!” And Marquard said “That was a Swiss man from Bern who wanted to go back, it was announced!”
And so Dr. Kuno Fiedler across the border traveled to Bern and was warmly received by the Swiss President, as he was able to provide information on two Swiss who had disappeared in Hitler's Germany and who were also detained as suspects in the Würzburg prison.
(With slight corrections to the wording of a typewritten version, which Helene Schairer dictated to her son Eberhard around 1980.)