The Adventist Welfare Work (AWW) is celebrating 125 years as the social welfare organisation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany. On Saturday, September 17, the anniversary was marked in a celebration ceremony in Hanover. If you ask about the beginnings of the AWW, you have to go back to the end of the 19th century. The first mention is in 1897, when some Seventh-day Adventists in Hamburg decided to found a Christian Aid Society. According to the words of Jesus in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the credibility of a Christian is not shown in pious speeches, but in doing good works of mercy. Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and caring for those in need was the only appropriate service for Jesus and the right preparation for his coming, it was said at the time.
"This essentially outlined the Adventists' idea of Christian social work,” writes Lothar Scheel, head of communication and public relations at the AWW, in an article about the anniversary in the September issue of the magazine "Adventisten Heute". Welfare groups emerged very quickly at the end of the 19th century in Germany and other European countries. They collected food and shoes, sewed or altered clothes, and distributed them to the needy. In 1899, the first poor relief fund was established.
Beginnings in Friedensau
Even before the turn of the century, the Seventh-day Adventist Church bought a site of about 35 hectares in Friedensau, near Magdeburg, and began to build and operate a mission seminary as well as various health and social facilities. In 1907, a home for the elderly was added to the "Friedensau Institutions". With the outbreak of the First World War, it was no longer just the many already-poor who were in need of help. After the end of the war, community nurses were employed, although an "aid organisation" in today's sense did not yet exist.
Founding member of the "German Parity Welfare Association" (DPWV)
With the beginning of the 1920s, the economic difficulties in Germany steadily increased and with them the need, but also the willingness, of Adventist church congregations to help the poor. On April 7, 1924, with the participation of the AWW as a founding member, the "Fifth Welfare Association" was founded, which, in 1932, was renamed the "German Parity Welfare Association" (DPWV) and became a member of the "League of Free Welfare". The Seventh-day Adventist leadership also had the AWW registered as an association. The first registration at the Berlin-Charlottenburg District Court took place on September 5, 1927, 30 years after the first beginnings.
The work of Hulda Jost
Hulda Jost became director of the AWW on September 1, 1928 and remained so until her death in March 1938. Lothar Scheel characterises her as a charismatic personality with assertiveness and organisational talent: "Hulda Jost was the face of the AWW during this time." With the ‘Gleichschaltung’ or dissolution of all social welfare organisations, including the DPWV from 1934, the AWW was subordinated to the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV). Hulda Jost used her contacts with influential personalities not only to keep the AWW alive, but to present the social work as a shelter and legitimisation of Seventh-day Adventists.
War and post-war period
When the war broke out, the AWW, now under the direction of Otto Brozio (1938-1968), was also increasingly put at the service of war-related requirements, especially the war on the "home front". In the first years after the war, there was virtually no organised welfare work. There was hunger everywhere in Germany. Now it was the members of the Seventh-day Adventists overseas, especially those in the USA, who helped in an exemplary way with food, clothing, and daily necessities. It was not until March 25, 1949 that the AWW was licensed as an association by the Allied Command in Berlin, and on July 5, it was entered in the register of associations at the Berlin District Court. In the same year, it became a member of the newly founded DPWV in West Germany. Now the conditions were in place for the AWW to develop into the free-church social organisation it is today. Since 1998, the administrative headquarters and, later in 2018, also the association headquarters, have been in Hanover.
Social work in East Germany
East Germany remained largely exempt from these developments. Adventists in the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) were not allowed to maintain their own social work. Diaconal services as well as children's and youth work had to be carried out exclusively within the church. Only in the area of addiction did addiction help work develop from the 1970s onwards, initiated by individuals, with a network of self-help groups that still exists today. The recognised addiction counselling and treatment centre (SBB) in Chemnitz emerged from addiction self-help. Since the 1970s, it has been possible to deliver medicines, food, vehicles, and various aid supplies to some African countries associated with the communist system, such as Angola and Mozambique. Occasionally, relief supplies could be donated in the case of natural disasters in so-called Eastern Bloc countries, such as Romania.
The development of the AWW since reunification in 1990
According to Scheel, the political changes of 1989 and German reunification were also a kind of "fresh cell cure" for the AWW. An essential area of social activity of the AWW help circles in the old Federal Republic, namely sending aid packages to the "East", had disappeared overnight. Instead, the doors to social activities of all kinds were wide open in the East. Many social institutions were privatized, and daycare centres (Kitas) were looking for sponsors. However, the leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church was cautious and waited at first.
It was not until 1993 that new facilities were finally founded and taken over by the AWW with the SBB Chemnitz and the overnight shelter for homeless women in Leipzig. From 2006 onwards, the AWW began to establish its own daycare centres with the opening of the day care centre in Berlin-Waldfriede. Around 2000, Walter Kopmann started a founding initiative for an outpatient hospice service in Berlin, from which the AWW Hospiz Berlin e. V. association finally emerged in 2006. The hospice idea was thus planted in the AWW and, in 2005, became the founding initiative for a fully inpatient hospice in Lauchhammer in the southern state of Brandenburg. In 2009, the first hospice was opened in Lauchhammer with 50 percent participation from the AWW. This was followed in 2013 by the opening of another hospice in Uelzen. The refugee situation in 2015 and the many aid projects in the AWW were not a one-off event, but are still being continued by the wave of refugees from the Ukraine war.
Then as now, voluntary work was a mainstay of the AWW. Lothar Scheel emphasises that without effective helping hands reaching out to society, the Christian message of God's love for humanity will be heard and accepted less and less. "Religious themes without convincingly lived compassion will at best eke out a niche existence in marginalised groups but will no longer permeate and shape society."
New image
The AWW logo, which has been familiar for decades, was replaced by a new image at the same time as the anniversary. It consists of a new logo with a new slogan (claim). The redesign of the "corporate design" (CI) was preceded by an intensive phase of dealing with fundamental questions, the AWW said in a statement. These included, for example: What is the current situation? What are the strengths of the AWW? And what are the goals of the Sozialwerk? The guiding principle of "profession and dedication" was the basis of all communicative measures and finally led to the resulting guiding idea with the new claim, "You are important. We are here", according to the AWW.
AWW facilities
AWW runs currently 4 daycare centres (Berlin, Fürth, Munich, Bad Aibling); 1 curative daytime education centre (Neuburg/Donau); 2 addiction counselling and treatment centres (Chemnitz, Schwedt); 1 overnight shelter for homeless women (Leipzig); 4 nursing homes for the elderly (Friedensau near Magdeburg, Berlin-Steglitz, Uelzen, and Neandertal near Düsseldorf, Bad Aibling); 2 hospices (Lauchhammer, Uelzen); 1 residential facility for people with disabilities (Gross-Umstadt near Darmstadt); Advent School Oberhavel (Oranienburg); and a clothing collection and recycling program in cooperation with the Adventist Development and Disaster Relief ADRA Germany.
Across Germany, about 50 AWW help circles are active on a voluntary basis. Among other things, they run soup kitchens, food banks, clothing stores, and clothing exchange centres.
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