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Central Europe
Hans Asmussen, Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany
A startling event in the summer of 1939 highlighted the harshness of the National Socialists in Germany against the church. This time, the reason was a meditation by Hans Asmussen. On 18 July 1939, Paul Schneider, “the pastor of Buchenwald”, was brutally murdered. Shortly afterwards, on 2 August, there was…
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Central Europe
Hans Hirzel survived to the dismay of his betrayer
The German resistance group, the Weisse Rose, has become very famous. On Wednesday, February 22, it was 80 years ago that the Nazis ended the lives of three of its members: Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst. Less well known is that another student involved in the group, Hans…
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Eastern Europe
Traugott Hahn, martyr of the Baltic church
His name is not known to most of the public. Still, Traugott Hahn is considered one of the most famous martyrs of the Baltic church. On January 14th 1919, communist Bolsheviks killed the Lutheran pastor from Estonia.The gifted Traugott Gotthilf Hahn was born on February 1st, 1875, as the eldest…
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Central Europe
Brave German teacher resists Hitler
Two weeks after the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, Elisabeth Schmitz knew it for sure. With the last Jews, also Christianity would disappear from Germany. Who was this concerned German teacher?*”Because we remained silent on 1 April 1933 (start of the boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany),” Schmitz wrote,…
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