Chaplain Gerecke: bringing Christ to unlikely recipients



From http://www.faithtacoma.org/Content.aspx?id=2006-04-16-pm

Excerpts:

Here is the story. It concerns the ministry of a Missouri  Synod Lutheran pastor by the name of Henry Gerecke to the Nazi war criminals  tried, sentenced, and, in most cases, executed by the Allied Tribunal at Nürnberg  in 1945 and 1946.  Gerecke’s assignment at  Nürnberg lasted from November of 1945 to November of 1946.
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Visiting condemned men in their cells was nothing new to  Henry Gerecke. Much of his early career was devoted to work in prisons.  However, the men he went to see in their cells at Nürnberg, Germany,  just after midnight on Wednesday, 16 October 1946, were no ordinary prisoners.  They were high-ranking Nazis sentenced to be hanged for the vilest crimes. He  walked with the ten condemned men from their cells to the gallows. He heard all  their last words. Some expressed thanks and faith. Others stayed defiant to the  end, their belief in Hitler still unshaken, even though he was dead. One  condemned man even shouted, ‘Heil Hitler!’ on the gallows before taking the  final drop into the darkness.
... early in November 1945, Gerecke was called into the  office of his commanding officer, Colonel James Sullivan. The fifty-two-year-old  Gerecke had been posted to the 6,850th Internal Security Detachment at  Nürnberg. His assignment was to serve as spiritual adviser and chaplain to the  top Nazi war criminals on trial there. Sullivan offered his opinion that it was  the most unpopular assignment around. He told Gerecke that he did not have to  go. He encouraged him to use his age as a reason to return to the inactive  reserves in America.  Gerecke wrote, ‘I almost went home.’ [His revulsion for the Nazi leaders, his  weariness of the war, his homesickness, all made the assignment utterly  unappealing to him.  But, Christian  minister that he was,] He prayed for guidance. ‘Slowly the men at Nürnberg  became to me just lost souls whom I was being asked to help.’ (1) After a few  days he gave Colonel Sullivan his decision: ‘I’ll go.’
The US Army had selected Gerecke for three reasons: first,  he spoke German; second, he had extensive experience in prison ministry; and,  last, he was a Lutheran Protestant. Fifteen of the twenty-one Nazis on trial  identified themselves as ‘Protestant’ which was to say Lutheran. Assisting him  would be Roman Catholic chaplain Sixtus O’Connor. Six of the prisoners claimed  to be ‘Roman Catholic’.
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The next cell contained fifty-one-year-old Fritz Sauckel.  Once Head of Labor Supply, he was, according to Chief Justice Jackson, ‘the  greatest and cruelest slaver since the pharaohs of Egypt’  (6) He worked millions of slave laborers to  death without mercy. When Gerecke appeared, he exclaimed with feeling: ‘As a  pastor, you are one person to whom I can open my heart.’ During the  conversation that followed he wiped away many tears. Yes, he would attend  chapel services.
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There were only three men among the Allies at Nuremberg who spoke  German to the defendants: Dr Gilbert, the psychologist, O’Connor [the Roman  Catholic Chaplain] and Gerecke. They bore the burden of the spiritual response  to the issue of guilt among the Nazis. Hans Fritzsche, who had been found not  guilty, later wrote a book in which he offered his opinion: ‘Of all the prison  officials, the most outstanding was the insignificant-looking, unassuming, Lutheran  pastor from St Louis,  Gerecke.’ (23)
So far the history as reported by Chaplain Gerecke. No one  can look into another man’s heart.  But  surely we cannot believe that it is impossible that von Ribbentrop or Sauckel  or Field Marshall Keitel found grace at the very end of their lives.  Not if we believe the New Testament.  Not if we believe that there was grace for a  man such as Paul.  Still more if we  believe that there is grace for such as ourselves.  What evil lies in any human heart? 

Posted: Sun - February 24, 2008 at 05:36 PM           | |

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