Source: RNS
HAMBURG, Germany (RNS) In late 1945, after the end of World War II, Kurt Neumann began digging in his garden.
During the previous eight years, under the brown soil, a bunch of documents and photos had lain in repose. He scrubbed off the dirt and unspooled the documents from the oil paper preserving wrapped to protect them. He had survived the war and so had the founding papers of the city’s anti-religion, secularist movement.
His son, Konny Neumann, held up the images of the founding documents recently in a hard-bound green almanac. Hidden for years during Nazi rule, and brought out again in 1945, these helped resume the tradition of Jugendweihe. Konny Neumann is the head of the Hamburg branch of the Jugendweihe Deutschland, a body rooted in a distinctly secularist approach.
It has been 125 years since this group of anti-church, humanist thinkers established themselves in this port city, and in an increasingly irreligious country the tradition it promoted — akin to a confirmation ceremony without religion — is undergoing a rediscovery.
In April 350 teenagers in Hamburg dressed up and went to the ceremony, where they were formally pronounced as having graduated into the Jugendweihe. This was about 50 more than the previous year’s ceremony and more than triple the 100 students who went through the process 10 years ago.
Categories: Europe, Germany, Secularism, The Muslim Times
I would question Kurt Neumann’s birthright. The jews invented ‘our’ religion, on close inspection of the Bible, it has nothing to do with us, it never did, the complete works in the Bible took place behind our backs except for Matt, 15, second half and Paul (a Gentile), who was completely taken over by JC, unaware of (again, Mutt 15, second half). It is explained in the Bible, [to the Jews], ‘old wine’ does not agree with ‘new glasses’, i.e. Judaism is not for outsiders. The truth about JC is, for one example made plain in Matthew Chapter 15, second half.