White, Otto

Protestant pastor

Born: 21.03.1900 in Erlenbach (Odenwald)

Died: 22.09.1965 in Rothenberg (Odenwald)

Weiß studied Protestant theology in Tübingen and Marburg. After his ordination in 1925, he first became a parish assistant in Darmstadt (Johannesgemeinde) and from December 1925 to October 1928, he was parish administrator at the Christuskirche in Mainz.

From 1929-34, he was a pastor in Wörrstadt/Rhine Hesse and was appointed to the Marktkirche in Wiesbaden in July 1934 during a politically, theologically and above all ecclesiastically turbulent time. There, the previous pastor, Ernst Ludwig Dietrich, had been appointed Bishop of Nassau-Hessen on February 6, 1934. Pastor Walter Herrich (1892-1982), who had been appointed market church pastor on 01.01.1931 mainly by the (then still conservative) churchwarden August Jäger, was transferred by Dietrich to Maar/Oberhessen on 15.06.1934.

Due to public criminal proceedings (accusation of homosexuality), Weiß was temporarily dismissed from the ministry on November 13, 1935, and at the end of 1936, following his conviction, he was dismissed from the church ministry, along with the loss of his clerical rights.

Weiß was fully rehabilitated after 1945. From 1936-45, Weiß then worked for the Berlin City Mission, where he was appointed City Missionary in 1939. On 01.07.1946, he was restored to the rights of the clergy; at the same time, he was granted leave of absence to serve in the relief organization of the Evangelical State Church in Hesse. From 1947-65, he served first as a parish administrator and then as a pastor in Rothenberg/Odenwald.