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Paul Schneider (1897-1939), a German Reformed minister, is known as the pastor of Buchenwald. Alarmed at the growing threat of the Nazi party, Schneider issued the state a “divine warning” in 1936. When the Gestapo told Schneider to stop preaching the exclusive claims of Christ or his six children might become orphans, he replied, “Better that they should be orphans than grow up and know that their father bowed down to the devil instead of the living God.” (Excerpted from, Between God and the Gestapo, Arvan E. Gordon, anglicansonline.org/churchtimes.htm)
In 1937, after he disciplined some Nazi members of his parish, they arrested him and banished him from his homeland. When he tore up his banishment order and returned to his parish, they arrested him again and took him to Buchenwald.
At Buchenwald he refused to obey an order to salute the swastika. The guards beat him and placed him in the punishment cell, where the director of the camp, the infamous sadist, Martin Sommer, tortured him.
The Nazi’s gave Schneider the freedom to leave Buchenwald at anytime. All he had to do was sign an agreement to respect the banishment order. But he chose to stay in the prison to preach to the prisoners and guards.
They put him in solitary confinement, but he preached the gospel from his cell window to everyone who passed by.
When he refused to stop preaching, they murdered him by lethal injection.
Vast crowds attended his funeral, including 200 robed ministers. A Gestapo official who was present said to one of the clergy, “This is like the funeral of a king.” “Hardly,” replied the cleric. “It is a martyr of Jesus Christ who is being carried to his grave.”
One of the pastors prayed at Schneider’s funeral, “May God grant that the witness of your shepherd, our brother, remain with you and continue to impact on future generations, and that it remain vital and bear fruit in the entire Christian Church.”
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