Christian Puritz - Christ or Hitler?: Stories from my life and times, by Pastor Wilhelm Busch (1897-1966)

Christ or Hitler?

Wilhelm Busch

Christ or Hitler?

Stories from my life and times by
Pastor Wilhelm Busch
(18971966)

Compiled and translated
by Christian Puritz

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Christian Puritz 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

First published 2013

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available
ISBN: 978-085234-914-4

Photographs supplied by members of the Busch family, kindly made available by Dr Martin Rther of the NSDokumentationszentrum der Stadt Kln.

Preface

W ilhelm Busch, a Lutheran pastor, was born in 1897; his father was also called Wilhelm, and was also a pastor, and some of his life story forms the first part of the present book. The son, who is the author and main subject of the book, served in the German army in the First World War and was converted during that time.

After studying theology he spent some years as an assistant preacher in Bielefeld, then in the Essen Altstadt congregation, and finally from 1929 as Youth Pastor in Essen, in which post he continued till his retirement in 1962. He died in 1966 while returning after preaching in communist East Germany.

Wilhelm Busch requested that no biography of him should be written, and this request has been honoured. However, he left a great deal of published autobiographical material, from which this book has been compiled.

I first came across the book Freiheit durch das Evangelium (Freedom through the Gospel), which described Buschs encounters with the Gestapo. This was a transcript from two recorded talks that Busch gave during the1960s. I enjoyed reading it and decided to translate it with a view to having it published in English. One of the publishers I approached liked it in principle but said it needed more material.

That started me on a quest for more books by or about Pastor Busch, and I found there were plenty. Two of the main sources for this book were Pastor Wilhelm Busch erzhlt (Pastor Wilhelm Busch narrates) and Plaudereien in meinem Studierzimmer (Chats in my study). The former contained relatively short incidents; the latter was about men of God whose pictures Busch had in his study, men who had impacted Buschs life in some way. The chapters in this were longer.

As mentioned above, Buschs own biography of his father, Dr Wilhelm Busch, ein frhlicher Christ (Dr Wilhelm Busch, a cheerful Christian), has been drawn on in this work, as have various other shorter books of anecdotes, some published quite recently. There is also near the end a brief extract from Ulrich Parzanys Im Einsatz fr Jesus: Program und Praxis des Pfarrers Wilhelm Busch (On Mission for Jesus: the Programme and Practice of Pastor Wilhelm Busch. Ulrich Parzany was the successor of Wilhelm Busch as youth pastor in Essen).

Wilhelm Busch junior confesses that he could see no faults in his father; but he is very candid in describing his own failings, giving glory to God for his grace. In particular he has a vivid sense of his share in the guilt and timidity of the generation that lived under the Nazi regime, as he shows at the beginning of Chapter 9 and also in connection with a visit to the Norwegian Bishop Berggrav near the end of Chapter 12.

However, I received the following from Ulrich Parzany, here translated from his German:

Dear Mr Puritz, there were, thanks be to God, many opponents of Hitler who survived the Nazi time. Wilhelm Busch was among the few pastors who refused to take the oath of loyalty to Hitler. Together with his brother Johannes he saw to it that the West German Young Mens Union (today the YMCA West Union) held to the Confessing Church. He criticised the readiness for compromise of the Evangelical (i.e. Protestant) Church. You will find more about Wilhelm Busch and the NS time in my book Programme and Practice of Pastor Wilhelm Busch, which I wrote in the 70s. Cordial greetings, Ulrich Parzany.

The gripping way in which Wilhelm Busch tells of the varied experiences he had before, during and after the Nazi years have made the translation and compiling of this book a real pleasure, which I hope will be shared by the reader.

I am grateful to Mark Robins for help with the typing, to Paul Kendall for his encouraging and helpful comments on a draft version, and to George Noble for a striking early version of the front cover.

I am also deeply grateful to my late father, Gerd Puritz, for his persistence in keeping my and my brothers German alive and well after we moved from Germany to England in 1948 when I was seven and Rupert was four. He kept talking to us in German and making us read German books long after we were more fluent in English. Without his endeavours I could never have undertaken the writing of this book.

Christian Puritz
July 2013

Prologue:

Christ or Antichrist

D esperately I fought to save my house. The terrible air raid of two days ago had turned the city into a sea of fire. All around me they had given up the struggle; only soot-blackened walls remained, with clouds of smoke silently rising from within.

There was not much I could save. The two upper storeys were gutted; but if I could put out the fire, then I could salvage my valuable library and a few pieces of furniture.

Eyes were inflamed with smoke and weariness, hands were burned. We used poles to pull the fire apart. Water had long been unavailable.

Then heads were raised. What was that? Yes! The telephone still worked! It seemed ridiculous that in the burning wreckage of a house, with the blue spring sky looking in from above, the phone was ringing. I rushed towards it.

This is the Secret State Police. Come here immediately.

But I cant. My house is on fire!

When the State Police call, you are to appear immediately. We expect you in half an hour.

So there I sat in the Gestapo office facing an elegant official who gave just a fleeting glance at my burned clothes and then informed me about one of the petty restrictions with which the evangelical youth work was constantly being tormented.

I wouldnt mind having your worries!

I was rather shocked at the words that had escaped me. But the important man was very gracious. Why? he asked simply.

Well, here a world is coming to an end. And you have the effrontery to summon me to your office for a thing like this!

At that he suddenly became very serious and said, This matter is very important to us. You see, we have been observing you carefully, and we noticed that you have not cancelled any service or youth meeting. When your halls and churches were destroyed, you went into the cellars. And when a cellar was destroyed, you arranged to meet in the next one.

I had to smile: Yes, the triumphal march of the gospel goes on!

At that he flared up: And our conflict of world views goes on as well! Even if the world comes to an end!!

We looked each other in the eye and sensed, each in the other, a tremendous determination.

In that case you are admitting, I said slowly, that the theme of this dreadful time is: Christ or Antichrist!