Lyle Dorsett: Would You Share the Gospel with Hitler’s Worst Henchmen?

From Christianity Today online. The following excerpt is from Dorsett’s review of Tim Townsend’s book, Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis. This would have been an extraordinarily difficult task for any who faced the Nazis to do. Good for the two who did. Check it out and see what you think.

518rUIWbTjL._SX140Among the unsung heroes of World War II was U.S. Army Chaplain Henry Gerecke (pronounced Cherokee). Born in southeastern Missouri in 1893 to German-American parents, Henry grew up in a rural community populated by first- and second-generation Germans who farmed the land and worshipped God in the Missouri Synod Lutheran tradition. In his teens young Gerecke heard God’s call to preach. He left the farm and worked his way through St. John’s Academy and College in Kansas, and then moved to St. Louis, where he attended Concordia Lutheran Seminary. During his St. Louis years he met Alma, who became his wife and mothered their three boys. Between 1940 and 1942 the two oldest boys joined the Army. And then in 1943 Henry Gerecke followed his sons into the Army by volunteering for the Chaplain Corps.

The fascinating story of Chaplain Henry Gerecke is engagingly told by Tim Townsend, the senior writer and editor for the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project in Washington, D.C. In Mission At Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis, Townsend illumines a hidden gem of World War II history and brings to light the life and career of a truly heroic Christian man.

Townsend is at his best when he uncovers the dilemma faced by both chaplains. They had seen countless American soldiers maimed and killed by the German military machine. They had witnessed the savage effects of German aggression all over England and Europe, and they had seen, touched, and even smelled the horrors of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Now they had to decide if they really believed what they taught and preached: that Jesus Christ came to seek and save the lost, and that he died for sinners.

These chaplains were confident God had called them to care for souls. Would they delay going home to minister to such unrepentant Nazis? Would they have the courage to close their ears to the opinions of officers and men of the United States Army who hated these Germans and everything they stood for? Many American servicemen argued that these criminals did not deserve ministry from American chaplains. Some even suggested that spiritual care for these Nazis bordered on treason. Many people on the home front also shared these deep anti-German sentiments, and letters filled with anger and threats inundated the pastors. In the same vein, a chorus of Jewish people argued that ministry to such loathsome men as Hermann Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Hans Frank, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner could only be construed as anti-Semitism.

Read the entire review and consider buying the book. It’s certainly an appropriate read for this coming Memorial Day weekend and worthy of our best Christian reflection.