Voice of Ukraine

From Sergei Nakul (Pastor of Big City Church in Kyiv):

“I can’t welcome this criminal symbol”…

We all know the pastor Dietrich Bongeffer who was killed by the Nazis in 1945. But a little-known other pastor, Paul Schneider, is named the Buchhenwald preacher.

He is considered the first Protestant pastor executed by the Nazis in 1939.

For his anti-Nazi activities (preaching that Nazism has nothing to do with Christianity, and removing from church members those who were jealous of Hitler and company) he was arrested, then imprisoned, and sent to Buchhenwald concentration camp.

He was moved into an isolation cell when he refused to remove his beret in honor of Hitler on Fuhrer’s birthday, April 20, 1938, and to honor the flag with a swastika. He explained his behavior by saying “I cannot welcome this criminal symbol”. He also declined, as before, a Hitler salute, saying that “salvation (hail) can be obtained only from the Lord, not from man.”

Once on Easter Sunday, when thousands of prisoners were gathered in the square despite being severely injured by previous tortures, he climbed up to the camera window and shouted: “Comrades, listen to me.” This is pastor Schneider. People are tortured and killed here”. .. So says the Lord: I am the resurrection and life! »

On July 18, 1939, Erwin Ding-Schuler killed Schneider by lethal injection of strofantin in a camp hospital. Camp officers informed Margaret Schneider of her husband’s death, and she traveled a long way from Dickensheed to retrieve his body in a sealed coffin. Despite the Gestapo tracking, Schneider’s funeral was attended by hundreds of people and about two hundred pastors, including many members of the Confessionary Church.

One of the pastors preached near the grave: “May God make the testimony of your pastor, our brother, remain with you and continue to influence generations to come, and that it remains lifeless and bear fruit throughout the Christian Church.”

Сергій Накул Сторінками Біблії Radio M