International Federation of the Blue Cross

The Blue Cross is a Christian organization for self-help with addictions. The two mottos " Gospel and abstinence - with Jesus and without alcohol " already belonged to the founder Louis -Lucien Rochat and for Blue Cross work together inseparably.

• 4.1 Books
• 4.2 Magazines

Organisational structures

The Blue Cross is one of the most important organizations of the temperance movement in Switzerland and Germany. In Germany there are two associations, and several independent Blue Cross clubs. The associations are the Blue Cross in Germany e V, the (now Wuppertal) on August 8, 1892 as the " German main club of the Blue Cross " in Barmen was founded, and the Blue Cross in the Protestant Church ( BKE ). In Switzerland and in Germany it is based in Bern or in Lüdenscheid ever a Blue Cross -Verlag.

As trade associations, the BKE and BKD are members of the " German Association for addiction treatment in the Social Service Agency of the Protestant Church" and a member of the " German Centre for Addiction Issues ".

OCS is organized into 17 regional associations. More than 20,000 participants will meet in 1,200 self-help groups. On the concept of the Blue Cross abstinence from alcohol addicts belong together with their families. Approximately 10,000 people as members and friends of the BK, have committed themselves to it.

• Blue Cross in the Evangelical Church Bundesverband eV, Dortmund; Founded in 1902 in Soest
• Blue Cross Hannover eV in the City Association for Home Mission in Hannover; Founded on July 23, 1900 in Hannover
• Blue Cross in the Evangelical City Mission Heidelberg
• Blue Cross, volunteer work addiction, Ihrhove eV since 1997 an independent, independent association
• Blue Cross Diakonieverein eV, founded in Nachrodt -Wiblingwerde 2007

Blue Cross Youth " Together against addiction"

The the Blue Cross in Germany eV affiliated youth organization " Together against addiction" has arisen from the hope of covenant groups that were formed in 1886 in Basel. When turned toward the turn of the century in various places Blue Cross groups of youth work, called Blue Cross co-founder Arnold Bovet on 8 October 1900, the heads of about 50 youth groups in order to organize them in a Swiss-German Association. The hope Bund enjoyed well into the 20th century such as the YMCA, the blue ring or the Boy Scouts extremely high popularity.

History

Switzerland

The Blue Cross was in Geneva by Louis- Lucien Rochat (1849-1917), who was free-church pastor in the canton of Vaud, founded on 21 September 1877, a further 27 people. In Switzerland, the consumption of spirits had nearly doubled in the second half of the 19th century. Rochat saw in the example of the U.S. and British temperance movement, which he had in 1876 met in England in person, a solution of the social, medical and personal problems that caused the rampant alcohol addiction among the rural poor and the working class of the industrial age.

Together, they committed themselves to abstinence from alcohol. The founders compared to, in reference to the recently created Red Cross, with " stretcher-bearers who go to the battlefield of life to rescue the victims of alcoholism and tavern life." Thus arose as a symbol of the cross. The color blue has always been the color of the temperance movements in the Anglo- Saxon countries.

The Swiss Blue Cross worked with the Evangelical Reformed Church, but also with the Protestant Free Churches. It was not just the alcohol, but also " the inn " sharply criticized, as the Blue Cross members there saw the origin of the " self-indulgence " and therefore a " threat to social morality ."

As a sister organization to the Protestant -oriented Blue Cross, the Swiss Catholic abstainers League ( SKAL ) was founded in 1895, but never reached the same social weight as the Blue Cross. As an affiliated youth organization shall be the covenant hope.

The Blue Cross in Germany

Arnold Bovet, a Swiss preacher of the Free Evangelical Church in Bern, founded on 5 October 1885 in Hagen the first Blue Cross Club in Germany. On October 6, 1887, the Prussian officer Curt von Knobelsdorffstraße joined, who himself had previously had problems with alcohol and now became an enthusiastic agitator of this movement.

In subsequent years, the Blue Cross experienced a significant upswing, but at the same time also as a result of denominational divisions voltages. So took the " Home Club Barmen " a church- neutral, but influenced by Pietism and Methodism position. In 1902 it came to the elimination of the " Blue Cross in the Protestant church " (until 1945: " Churches Federation of the Blue Cross" ), in which merged Lutheran embossed circles from Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Westphalia and Schleswig -Holstein. 1906, split off a free Blue Cross church. 1926/27, followed by the separation of a group that is close to the intra- ecclesial community movement.

In the GDR, Blue Cross was banned as a club. Therefore, " to ward off the dangers of addiction ( AGAS ) Protestant Association " was founded under the auspices of the Inner Mission on 1 January 1960. After the fall of the Wall, the Blue Cross and AGAS 1991 merged.

The Blue Cross is a member of the diaconal work, the Working Group missionary service of the EKD, the Evangelical Gnadauer Community Association and serves on the International Blue Cross (International Federation of the Blue Cross - IFBC ) to.

Catholic counterpart to the Blue Cross is the Cross of Nations. Denominational unbound are the Good Templars ( IOGT ).