As Between Brothers

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As Between Brothers
The Story of
Lutheran Response
to World Need
BY RICHARD W. SOLBERG
Auspices, Department of
World Service
Lutheran World Federation
AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE

MiNNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
AS BETWEEN BROTHERS
The Story of Lutheran Response to World Need
© 1957 Department of World Service, Lutheran World Federation
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 57-12882
Manufactured in the United States by Augsburg Publishing House

(Dedicated
to the late
S. C. MICHELFELDER
The publication of this book was made possible by a con-
tribution at the 1952 Hannover Assembly from the Ger-
man churches to the Lutheran World Federation. This
thank-offering was used partially to help the Brazilian
Church in providing theological education and the re-
mainder for the writing of this record of Lutheran response
to need. The German churches intended that their gift
should honor the memory of Dr. Michelfelder and to
show their gratitude to God.
Introduction
Dr. Solberg has rendered an invaluable service to historic re-

search as well as to the Lutheran World Federation by his book
As Between Brothers. He gives a clear and stirring account of
Lutheran World Service, that powerful and most important agency
of the Lutheran World Federation. This federation is by far the
largest single organization of World Protestantism, and Lutheran
World Service is one of the most active factors of the modern
ecumenical movement. This in itself justifies the publication of
this scholarly work.
But closer inspection will reveal the fact that Dr. Solberg’s
book is far more than a history of a single organization. It is the
dramatic story of spiritual forces overcoming a crisis which shook
the foundations of modern society.
It will be memorable forever how, in these tumultuous years,
Lutheran Christians met the crying needs of post-war Europe.
They were motivated by the simple desire to help as it was ex-
pressed in the slogan of the first Lutheran World Convention at
Eisenach in 1923: “We Want to Help One Another.” It will be
likewise memorable that the Lutheran Church, the church of
justification by faith rather than by works, which was considered
by some to be only a passive and theologically-minded church,
first established its world-wide unity in the Lutheran World Fed-
eration by these acts of common love.
Dr, Solberg does not only depict in a masterful way the history
vi
Introduction Vii
of these motivations, but he also gives a vivid account of those

personalities who were leading in this field. So the pictures of some
of the unforgettable leaders of the earlier days of World Luther-
anism rise again out of the past: Dr. Morehead, Dr. Larsen, Dr.
Boe, and, closest in time and affection, Dr. Michelfelder.
To the reader who considers these great figures there can be
no doubt that the Lutheran Church of today has been entrusted
with a great spiritual heritage which calls for devotion and dedica-
tion. But in following the tale of organizations and leading per-
sonalities one is always forced to remember also the simple Chris-
tian folks, the congregations which were willing to serve their
Lord and Master in this magnificent crusade of love and charity.
It really is a story worth telling, which calls for our gratitude and
a renewal of the spirit of sacrifice.
Dr. Solberg is well equipped for this important task. He is a
scholar of renown in the field of church history. Also his solid
method of research and the breadth of his views have helped
him to accomplish this excellent study. But in addition to this,
there is that realistic touch which cannot be achieved only by
study at the desk but which is conditioned by actual personal
knowledge of the work. Dr. Solberg spent a long and valuable
time in Europe as a servant of Lutheran World Service. So the
reader of As Between Brothers enjoys the benefit of two great
qualities which Dr. Solberg brings into this work. To his gift of
a crystal-clear description of sometimes very complicated events
he adds the clarity of the Christian heart which knows and under-
stands human needs and the service of love, Dr, Solberg has ful-
filled a very important task in church history and he has done it
in such a way that he deserves of the gratitude of Lutherans all
over the world.
Bishop Hanns LILjE
President of the
Lutheran World Federation
Hannover, Germany
Pentecost, 1957
F oreword
A few months after the outbreak of World War II representa-

tives of the National Lutheran Council gathered about their con-
ference table in Chicago to lay the first plans for large-scale relief
operations. With the hard-won achievements of two decades in
world Lutheran unity already swept away, and with war and
destruction taking their toll in one Lutheran country after another,
these men felt deeply the seriousness of their task. Needs were
great and would become greater. In the midst of the tensions of
the moment some way of presenting the needs of the Church
would have to be found which would lift people above political
and national feelings onto the high level of Christian compassion
for the suffering Body of Christ.
Turning to the Scriptures for guidance and encouragement, one
councillor after the other cited appropriate injunctions to brotherly
love and Christian sharing. Dr. Lars W. Boe, president of St. Olaf
College and veteran member of the Lutheran World Convention
Executive Committee, reminded his colleagues of the New Testa-
ment incident in which Jesus healed the man who had been blind
since his birth. Our Lord’s disciples who witnessed the miracle
inquired whose fault it was that this man had been born blind.
Jesus answered, “Neither this man’s nor his parents’, but that the
name of God might be glorified.”
Here, said Dr. Boe, was the soundest basis for an appeal to the
Lutherans of America for the relief of suffering churches and
Vill
Foreword ix
people, in whatever country they might be. Far beyond considera-

tions of victory or defeat, no Christian could escape the pressing
burden of responsibility for the plight of his fellow humans. But
it was clear to all that in a ministry of mercy lay a matchless op-
portunity to glorify the name of God, whose love had been so
great that through the Incarnation of His Son Jesus Christ He had
identified Himself completely with human need at its deepest
level.
This was the impulse that twice in this century moved the Lu-
theran Christians of the world to launch major cooperative efforts
to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and to help to repair the
spiritual and physical destruction of war. In both World Wars the
Lutheran church had had strong representation on both sides,
and its members were not immune to the temptation to fasten
blame at one point or another for the coming of the wars or for
their sweeping destruction.
Instead, these tragic periods in the wake of wars have twice
become opportunities for the Lutheran churches of both old and
new worlds to glorify the name of God through what Dr. S. C.
Michelfelder, first Executive Secretary of the Lutheran World
Federation, often termed “the Gospel of the Inasmuch.” And in
each case, as an added blessing of God, there has come a fuller
knowledge of one another and a deeper appreciation of their inti-
mate relationship of faith and love. Lutherans of Norway and
Sweden found themselves sending food and clothing to brethren
—
in Rumania and in Hungary; German Lutherans collected money

for a famine-ridden colony in Russia; and Americans learned for
the first time of the existence of Lutheran churches in Poland and
Yugoslavia when they were confronted with the needs of those
countries. Efforts such as these following World War I, and the
desire to continue the process of mutual strengthening of the Lu-
theran churches in all parts of the world, led in 1923 to the organi-
zation of the Lutheran World Convention at Eisenach in Germany.
In the same way, the tragic needs of 1945 and 1946, and the
desire to minister to them in the name of Christ and of His Church,
led directly to the founding of the Lutheran World Federation in
x Foreword
1947 at Lund, Sweden, an even stronger and closer family group

—
than that of Eisenach twenty-four years earlier.

Thus has God used the catastrophes which man’s willfulness and
blindness have brought upon the world for undeserved blessing
and enrichment. He has put into the hands of His Church the instru-
ments through which, in humility and gratitude, it may continue to
bind up the wounds that remain, and strengthen its members in all
parts of the world.
In this mission of brotherly love the name and work of Dr.
Michelfelder hold a position of special honor. More than that of
any other person, his energetic leadership and devotion brought
the Lutheran World Federation to fruition. When he died in 1951,
on the eve of the Second World Assembly, the Lutheran churches
of Germany gathered a thank-offering which they presented to
the Federation as the Michelfelder Memorial. Most of that fund
has been used to further the work which he began, but a portion
of it was set aside for the preparation of this historical account of
the great work of Lutheran World Service, to which he gave both
his strength and his life. To the memory of Sylvester Clarence
Michelfelder this book is respectfully dedicated,
RicHARD W. SOLBERG
Contents
Chapter I: REHEARSAL FOR UNITY PAGE

EISBIGNLOF MGIOY rye sien cesarauce ion aKiciainre sae ween are ies ecncena 2
FRODORG FCO LOT ONE 5 55505 50d gi 4 FU ln eee aie ww Ue wl We wine 4
mic tor the Church’s Eastern Brot s..15::5:6000050
06 nia sca aceee ewe’ 6
houghts:on Lutheran Unity .. 0.008210
oe eee aes 8
BROUIOE SOL PUIGS1S cis cric cccseeaea eure ies h nsw eae pate meaaap erp races 10
World Lutheranism at Eisenach.....................0.005 14
Morehead and Lutheran World Service.................... 17
Brom: Gopenhagen to. Paris, oe ln oe nckeeniia ene aeeein 18
PINTO MNO HOPOS cc sore hea es wae w bW NM easln rw aaa a 21
Chapter II: A MAN SENT FROM GOD

Bread First—Catechisms Later .......260.0
00sec ces ceevees 27
neopening the Road ‘to: Germany’... <2.
ene nee nae 28
AcPles tor Puman VaAves 32 2:0 ieis essen
ces ea eae vee 34
munerion bears the APpeal 5... ep ace nee cee emaiaeismven 36
eae itsiness' for The: LOne 46.53 yee OW annie 38
Michelfelder’s “Challenge of a Lifetime”................... 89
Preparing tor Lund ii: oven omeiiishaw
menue sa eeeutenon 44
PROCES VE CTI AEN CERES SEONG S755) 4.50 5a sav ain’ are rove wipiovere a xara nthe iave 47
PNG RREEICE PRESEN ONY 0 05 so ose ses sinincp ase oo esse ane NS alse Has 50
xii Contents
Chapter Ili: THE GOSPEL OF THE INASMUCH

Lutheran World Relief Crosses the Ocean.................
“Naked and Ye Clothed Me” ..................00cceeeeaee
Bread: Cast: Upon the Waters isc. eancaen Saw vinwes
Good Neighbors in the North... «0... 026 sep eas ene enim ens
Self-Help ‘Through Hilfswerk: 2:0. 2sccvec4aces Ses eat
Strengthening the Minority Churches......................
Beyond the Household of Faith... ......0...... 000.000.0005
Chapter IV: REBUILDING THE WALLS OF ZION

The Cross and the Arm: Lutheran World Action............
Mobilizing the Swedish Church.............. 0.00.00. 000.
Working Through the World Council......................
Forming the National Committees...................0.0..
The United States Committee at Work..................0..
Spiritual Reconstruction in Norway...........0..... 000008.
One Million for Finland ...... Dt URAL, Pate: th dem aoe EE 5 lt oo
New Altars tr Goering sic scsi Gir ie ialelelon ec wR ees
Strength for the Priests and Prophets......................
Social Evangelism in the German Church..................
God's: Printed: Pages. oss cnsssneawaimacwameetnnne
ey nd owe5.e
(Through: German: ges) ois cas oak cake chs Noe wee oa Sek
Lutheran Minorities in France and Italy...................
Austria’s Four Hundred Thousand........................
Yugoslavia:s LAGHEIANS noisy exe oe ine wena seal
Churches Under the Cross: Eastern Europe................
Chapter V: NOT STRANGERS, BUT FELLOW-CITIZENS

Mandate Pron: fonts scceeececeseeperssprelew
don ara wane meron
Ministering to the Churches in Exile......................
LWF’s Ambassadors ..............-; Fas CARE
Contents xiii
Organizing for Resettlemiant:.....s225 0 cacesnssenwrenwen seamen 145

The American DP Program...................2022 eee eee 150
Tic Refugee Revel ACE Of 1958 osc ccscncwsencis cumws eves os 154
New Australians .. 0.6.6.2 156
Tae Onen: Door in Canadee.s ecasscacccnnasawiers wate 28 158
Scandinavian Welcome .............. 2.005 c cece ee eee eee 160
The German Church and the Homeless Foreigner........... 162
Thirteen. Million Magellees ... 00: <cncens cams epeecenenmneaomaae 167
SAY dt oedk Ph UISTID ae Sas Pa aS Ee aR ES 170
Ser Uerans I6 BAN og sided enue hey aew res cee cRemmexmee 178
Ministry of Pulpitand Plow isi. iis eck 91 sequen venneaans 175
Chapter VI: WE WANT TO HELP ONE ANOTHER

Pri WeasiTe OF DEVOUOR 86. 2056 BOYS SEAR RRGRLES DSO OM 178
S@DTINE SOF DOTVIE cose inie nee cue io eee eues Seer oes 180
Pene LOCCUIN COnFEreNnCe 6 co acnk Ga On we RS Es Gate ES 184
PATI I AGOUOVE Siicc5 cea maxes
eure mmmseines 186
Support From the Member Churches....................5. 189
Widening Circles of Cooperation .................0.000
0. 192
World Service and World Missions........................ 195
Berenptnening the Brethren. vce. .02n conemence
wan seuss vam 197
Investment in the Kingdom..........................0.0. 199
Be QUICKEMING OPI. ccnssaas caterer Kens WORN ees 201
Learning From Each Other..............
000 seve eee ee eee 203
New Viewpoints in Latin America................000..00. 205
Prnerpency in Fung ary a... econ eseieseon ence ye oop gracesean mies eiwensminees 209
Acknowledgments and Bibliographical Notes................. 213
No GN Ice NK S SN a OSS DORON Ge MR 216

CHAPTER ONE
Rehearsal
tor Unity
On the 11th of November, 1918, the guns of World War I were

silenced along the western front. Armistice had come, bringing to
an end four years of the most destructive warfare ever to con-
vulse the nations of the world. Frenzied celebrations of joy in
hundreds of cities could not disguise the realities of ruin and
despair in hundreds of others. The continent of Europe was pros-
trate.
ti
Just one month later, on December 11, the newly-organized Na-
tt
tional Lutheran Council met in Columbus, Ohio, and authorized
its Executive Committee to send a commission of five men “to
visit the Lutheran churches in Europe for the purpose of Christian
contact and helpfulness.” During the war a combined Lutheran
ministry to American soldiers and sailors had demonstrated the
possibilities of effective Lutheran cooperation, and had given the
impetus to the formation of the Council, but it was in the work
of European church relief and reconstruction that it found its
first major challenge.
Six months elapsed before three members of the Commission,
Dr, John A. Morehead, president of Roanoke College in Virginia,
Professor Sven Youngert of Augustana Seminary in Rock Island,
Illinois, and the Reverend G. A. Fandrey of Chicago, Illinois, were
1
2, As Between Brothers
able to secure passports, but in this interim the Council had

engaged in the first of its long series of fund-raising efforts for
European relief. As part of a Joint Protestant Drive for twenty
million dollars, the Lutherans set their goal at $500,000, promptly
exceeded it by gathering $628,253.
MISSION OF MERCY
On the 5th of June, 1919, three of the commissioners sailed for
France, aboard the Lorraine, under instructions from the Nationa]
Lutheran Council to survey the problems of European Lutheran
churches in countries which had been involved in the war, and
to discover in how far those churches would need outside aid
and counsel in solving those problems. They were to bring the
sincere and cordial greetings of the Lutheran churches in America
and their assurances of willing assistance. On the basis of infor-
mation secured by the Commission, the Council then would be
able to act intelligently in dispensing aid. The commissioners were
given discretionary powers over $50,000, but any additional ex-
penditures were to be specifically authorized by the Council. They
were also instructed to cooperate with the three agents in Paris
for the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Commission—Dr. Charles J. Smith,
Mr. Frank M. Riter, and Professor M. J. Stolee.
The commissioners arrived in Paris in the midst of the assem-
bling Peace Conference of Versailles. This provided Dr. Morehead
and his colleagues a splendid opportunity to speak with officials
from almost every country in Europe where there were Lutheran
churches, and to gather general information about the religious
and physical conditions in those countries. Through a written
account of the Church in Poland in a French periodical, Dr. More-
head became acquainted with the author, Dr. Julius Bursche,
superintendent of the Polish Lutheran Church, who was a mem-
ber of the Polish delegation at Versailles. Dr. Bursche presented
Dr. Morehead to the Polish Premier, the great pianist Ignace
Rehearsal for Unity 8
Paderewski, who immediately invited all three American commis-
sioners to visit Poland. On the basis of this official invitation,
American Embassy officials amended their passports, and in less
than two weeks Dr. Morehead and Professor Stolee were aboard
the Premier’s special train to Warsaw, by way of Switzerland. In
order to cover as much ground as possible in their survey of
European church conditions, Professor Youngert and Pastor Fan-
drey set out instead for Finland, by way of Sweden.
Their presence as relief commissioners on Paderewski’s train
was quite appropriate, for practically the entire cargo of baggage
consisted of medical supplies, and many of the other passengers
were doctors and nurses on missions of mercy at the Premier’s
request. After thay had reached Warsaw and made their first sur-
veys of the conditions there, the commissioners felt that their
coming had been providentially directed. Indeed, during the next
thirteen months the Church in Poland was to receive more financial
aid from the American commissioners than any other church in
Europe. Conditions were critical. The country had been devastated
by three armies, More than 100,000 Lutheran men, and subse-
quently their wives and children, had been exiled to Russia by
the Russian army in 1915. Some had returned to destroyed homes
and farms, and some had not returned at all, Disease was ram-
pant, malnutrition prevalent.
When the commissioners assembled at Copenhagen in the mid-
dle of August, 1919, Morehead recommended that $100,000 be
sent immediately to Poland, to fulfill a specified list of needs.
Heading the list was the urgent plea for 5,000 Bibles and 50,000
New Testaments in Polish, but also dollars to rebuild 205 ruined
or damaged church properties.
Moved by Morehead’s stirring appeals, the newly-organized Lu-
theran Bureau in New York, under the able direction of Dr. O. H.
Pannkoke, launched a full-scale Polish Relief Drive, establishing
an organizational and promotional pattern that was to become
standard for years ahead. Every congregation was encouraged to
4 As Between Brothers
participate, with its own men’s and women’s groups leading the
way. State chairmen were appointed, central relief committees
operated in every Lutheran center, the secular press and the
church press were enlisted, speakers were scheduled, and thou-
sands of pieces of printed literature were distributed. Important
as it was that more than one million pounds of clothing were gath-
ered for Poland and another 500,000 for other European coun-
tries, and that funds were raised to ship these goods to needy
people, it was even more important that the lines were being laid
for a mighty program of continuing support of world-wide inter-
church aid, Dr. Pannkoke observed with prophetic insight, “Indi-
cations are that the Lutheran Church of America will be called
upon to do relief work for some time.” To this end, he urged the
National Lutheran Council to establish its promotional agency
permanently and to declare itself ready to “bring relief to Lu-
therans in need wherever its officials uncover such need.”
Present at the Copenhagen meeting were also Dr. G. T. Rygh
and Reverend H. J. Schuh, whose departure from New York had
been delayed until July 25. From Copenhagen the commissioners
spread out further over eastern Europe—Youngert and Rygh visit-
ing Finland and the Baltic States, while Schuh, Fandrey, and
Morehead moved into Hungary, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, and Ger-
many. In all these areas they found great needs, and recommended
specific projects to the National Lutheran Council for action. Sub-
sequent general meetings were held in Leipzig in September and
in Berlin in October, before the entire Commission was summoned
back to New York to report to the National Lutheran Council
in December.
REPORT FROM EUROPE

On December 18, 1919, Dr. Morehead and his colleagues met
with the National Lutheran Council. “Perhaps for the first time
in the history of the Christian Church,” the Council was told,
“immediately at the close of a war of five years duration, a large
ageregation of Christian people in one nation made bold to go
on a mission of mercy and Christian helpfulness to those of the
same faith in many nations, whether allies or enemies.” It had
not been an easy task, Dr. Morehead reported, even to secure
access to these countries in the midst of military travel restrictions,
but no avenue had been left unexplored, and the survey had
been about two-thirds completed. Only Rumania, Russia, and the
Ukraine remained. Not only were the physical problems severe,
but national sensitivities made the visit of a relief representative
from a victor nation somewhat delicate. To one belligerent chal-
lenge to argument on such a theme, Dr. Morehead tactfully de-
murred, pointing out that only in common repentance before God
could real unity be fostered, and he himself stood ready to acknowl-
edge his own guilty involvement in the tragedy of war and its
aftermath. The Commission found more serious than the poverty
and famine and loss of life the spiritual depression and laxity of
the great masses of people in Europe.
Still another great problem of the church in Germany was that
of the orphaned missions, which had been cut off from their home
societies and from the sources of financial support. To the rescue
of these missions Morehead summoned the National Lutheran
Council in an action which was to presage a long history of con-
tinued assistance, even to the present time. The entire Commission
brought a recommendation that the National Lutheran Council
raise a sum of $5,000,000 in three annual installments. Of the first
$1,800,000 to be gathered immediately, $300,000 was to go to Ger-
man missions.
Of far greater importance for the long-range development of
world Lutheranism, however, was another recommendation which
the Commission had agreed upon in its Berlin meeting in October
and which was now presented to the Council. Unanimously, these
five envoys to Europe urged the National Lutheran Council to con-
sider steps leading to the formation of a Lutheran World Federa-
tion. Although after discussion the word “federation” was altered
to “conference” and the question was referred to a subcommittee
for study, this was the first formal suggestion of an organization
bearing the name of the present family of world Lutheranism. The

fact that the suggestion was made in direct connection with, and
through the direct stimulus of, a mission of mercy to the Lutheran
churches of Europe following the end of the war, tied up inex-
tricably the idea of a federation with the “Gospel of the Inasmuch,”
The tragic physical and spiritual ruins of two wars stimulated a
wave of Christian compassion which not only fed, clothed, and
sheltered persons in need, but also drew the Lutheran churches
of the world together toward a permanent program of mutual aid,
understanding and cooperation.
AID FOR THE CHURCH'S EASTERN FRONT

Meanwhile, the National Lutheran Council accepted the com-
missioners’ recommendations for a $5,000,000 campaign and moved
to lay plans for an immediate appeal for $1,800,000. Dr. Walton
H. Greever was elected campaign chairman, assisted by Dr. Pann-
koke and Dr. Lynn Kieffer of the Lutheran Bureau. The Council
——<— =
also asked Dr. Morehead to accept the office of permanent chair-

man of the European Commission. Although this was not an easy
decision for him, involving as it did the necessity of his resignation
as president of Roanoke College, this pioneer in interchurch aid
accepted the great challenge, and in less than a month was again
on the high seas, hurrying to Danzig in order to supervise the
distribution of clothing for Poland. Already an elaborate plan had
been set up in cooperation with Superintendent Bursche, with pas-
tors and laymen in charge of various distribution districts through-
out Poland, But there were transportation problems, and both
stringent weather and passport difficulties hindered the many visits
which had to be made to facilitate the distribution.
Throughout the first half of 1920, Morehead worked incessantly,
not only in supervising food and clothing distribution, but in
establishing loan funds to enable farmers returning from exile in
Russia to purchase seed or livestock and thus to help themselves.
During 1920 more than $150,000 was made available through parish
loan associations or through banks, and 10,000 Lutheran families
in 500 villages in Poland were aided in rebuilding their homes and
their farms. During the course of 1920, a total of $800,000 was dis-
tributed in 15 European countries. Morehead was always careful in
utilizing the existing ecclesiastical channels, though in some in-
stances it was necessary for the churches to organize special com-
mittees to work out specific plans for the use of money and supplies
after the first emergency grants had been given. This was true in
Hungary, where a committee of laymen and pastors developed a
long-range plan for distribution and received grants on the basis
of their requests. In Germany, which was in the throes of a separa-
tion between church and state, the channels of the Inner Mission
were used, and three grants totaling $204,848 were made during
the year 1920. Since there was little actual war damage in Germany,
these grants were for the strengthening of the church’s own pro-
gram of spiritual and material aid through the Inner Mission and
_ its institutions,
On the eastern front, from Finland south to the Ukraine, the
Lutheran church had suffered more than anywhere else in Europe.
Not only had there been destruction of churches, institutions, and
homes—not only the decimation of human resources—but the po-
litical and governmental structures of every one of these Eastern
countries had been convulsed, and in many cases simply wiped out.
The old empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia had
been broken up, and new nations had arisen. Finland, Poland, the
Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Czecho-Slovakia,
and Yugoslavia, each with a considerable Lutheran population, had
been created, and the churches in these countries had to be reor-
ganized in the midst of a ruined economy and, in many cases, in
the midst of a radical revolutionary political atmosphere. These
churches, wrote Morehead, needed help in the support of Christian
education, the practical training of pastors, the maintenance of
the church press, and the encouragement of the “new cause of
evangelization.” “The future of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

as a world power for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and
the service of Christ is at stake.” He wondered what the response
of the Lutheran churches of America would be in terms of financial
support.
THOUGHTS ON LUTHERAN UNITY

Back in New York in December, 1920, it became apparent at
the annual meeting of the National Lutheran Council that the
impulse to Lutheran aid for Europe was making constantly stronger
the desire for closer permanent relations within world Lutheranism.
Dr. Lauritz Larsen concluded his report as Executive Director of
the Council with an eloquent plea. The value of the work done by
the commissioners in Europe cannot be measured in dollars, he
said. A spiritual service has been rendered the church. The faith
of the faithful has been strengthened. The personal relations es-
=
tablished with so many Lutherans “has necessarily awakened and

eee
°
developed in our minds the thought of world Lutheranism and the

alle
earnest desire for the establishment of closer relationships between

ee eee
the various branches of our church.” Dr. Larsen regretted that the
ee
tn
ee
s
largest Protestant church in the world had not exerted its propor-
7»
tionate influence in the world, and urged that in the presence of

so many other denominational witnesses on a world scale, the Lu-
. as
theran church ought to lead the way. He disclaimed any ulterior

motives in the American Lutheran effort to aid in Europe. Only
the ideal of service and of love for Christ and the brethren had
motivated it, and God had blessed the work.
Europe, too, he asserted, was hungry for this closer contact. Not
only our physical aid was desired there. The entire Commission,
said Larsen, believes that “we cannot stop now. We cannot fail
those who are hungering for closer contact, for more intimate re-
lationships.” “A fuller national Lutheran consciousness has grown
out of this work, and with it a new Lutheran world consciousness.”
Larsen’s plea found a sympathetic ear in the Council, The sugges-
tion of the previous year was presented for action, approved, and
a committee was appointed to begin arrangements for an interna-
tional Lutheran convention to be held in August, 1922, Dr. C. M.
Jacobs was made chairman of this committee. The purpose of this
convention was to promote clearer understanding among groups
represented, with a view to strengthening present cooperation
among Lutherans throughout the world. It was suggested that a
proper meeting place would be in The Hague in the Netherlands,
a neutral country. The call for the meeting was to be issued jointly
by the National Lutheran Council in the United States and by two
German cooperative organizations, the Luther Bund and the All-
gemeine Lutherische Konferenz. This latter organization had been
in operation since 1867, and had expanded its activities from Ger-
many to Scandinavia and elsewhere, even to the Lutheran General
Council in America. A meeting in Uppsala in 1911 had given great
promise of further cooperation among world Lutherans, and plans
were even made at that time for a meeting of the Conference in
America, but the war had intervened.
Dr. Morehead was instructed by the Council to approach these
two German Lutheran groups. Both of them expressed their inter-
est, and the larger Allgemeine Konferenz agreed to sign the invita-
tion with the National Lutheran Council and to name members to
a Joint Committee on Arrangements.
Meanwhile the ministry of mercy continued. As Morehead re-
turned again to Europe, the National Lutheran Council moved
into the second phase of its Lutheran World Service ingathering.
$1,460,000 of the $1,800,000 goal for 1920 had been received from
Lutheran congregations in all synods in America, and 1,500,000
pounds of clothing had been received at the New York warehouses.
The prospect that it would soon be possible to send aid to the
stricken Lutheran church of Russia became the basis of the new
appeal for $1,250,000 during 1921, but in this year the response
was measurably less enthusiastic, yielding only $535,000 and 93,000
pounds of clothing.
Because of the lagging enthusiasm for European relief in Amer-
ica, Dr. Morehead was recalled from Europe in July, 1921, and
for two months he traveled from city to city, sometimes speaking
three times in a single day.
RELIEF FOR RUSSIA

Weighing very heavily on Dr. Morehead’s mind was that portion
of the European survey which his Commission had never been able
to complete, namely, Russia. During 1921 reports came to his atten-
tion concerning refugees from Russia who had found their way to
Constantinople. Remnants of Wrangel’s army, among whom were
many Lutherans, were still in the camps at Gallipoli. To help these
stranded people, including many former Russian army officers, a
travel fund of $8000 was set up, and resettlement opportunities
were sought out for as many as possible. One Russian army doctor
was resettled in a Yugoslavian town of five thousand, which had
no doctor at all.
Although the revolutionary conditions within Russia had pre-
vented any direct visitation or aid up to this time, it was known
that a very extensive Lutheran church had existed in imperial Rus-
sia. Great parts of this church had been located in the western
portions of the empire, which had been incorporated within Poland
and the Baltic states, but there were still more than 1,500,000 Lu-
therans within Russia in 1921. Their leading clergyman was Super-
intendent Theophilus Meyer, pastor of the Lutheran Church of St.
Peter and St. Paul in Moscow, and the church had been strong
enough in 1917 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Reforma-
tion by publishing a handsome illustrated volume entitled Luther's
Inheritance in Russia. There were also Lutheran congregations in
the Lake Baikal area in the Far East, and several congregations in
the Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, in the Cau-
casus. But the most pressing area of need was in the valley of the
Volga, where great colonies of German settlers had located at the
invitation of Catherine II.
The outbreak of a serious epidemic of disease, together with
famine conditions in this area, first moved the Soviet Government
to relax its prohibitions against organized foreign aid and to invite
the American Relief Administration to come to Moscow to help stem
the crisis. As a representative of the National Lutheran Council
Dr. Morehead traveled aboard a special train bringing relief rep-
resentatives from Riga, Latvia, to the Russian capital in December,
1921. As they crossed the seemingly endless wastes of drifted snow
on the way to Moscow, and watched the frigid sun traversing its
meager arc above the horizon before it descended again into the
wintry night, Dr. Morehead wondered how the people on the Volga
were surviving. Before leaving Riga, he had already put forty-three
bales of clothing on a train bound for the stricken area. At one
station he counted twenty-one freightcars loaded with food and
marked “American Relief Administration.” Sixty thousand children
were being fed a meal a day by the same organization in different
parts of Russia, and Morehead was grateful that the National Lu-
theran Council had authorization to purchase food from newly-es-
tablished warehouses for the program of relief it proposed to carry
on in the Volga region.
After clearances in Moscow had been accomplished, Morehead
traveled to the valley of the Volga to begin his mission of mercy
on behalf of the American Lutherans. Here, in sixteen-degrees-
below-zero weather, Morehead visited the great refugee barracks,
whither starving people had come to receive rations. Typhus had
broken out, and people were dying by the hundreds. In the Lu-
theran village of Krasni-jar Morehead visited a home where he
found the father had been gone for three days in Saranov, looking
for work. The mother rose to receive the guests, but sank back into
a chair from sheer weakness. One of the three children lay dead
upon a cot, and another was prostrated with fever.
With the $10,000 per month which the National Lutheran Coun-
ceil appropriated, 15,000 children could be fed in an organized pro-
gram, and in addition $20,000 for food was provided for needy
families. Likewise, further south, in Odessa and Kharkov, pastors
and people were given food packages and clothing from American
Lutherans.
Not until he himself collapsed physically under the severe strain

did Dr. Morehead turn back from his task of mercy in Russia.
When he visited the weary ambassador in a Baden-Baden hospital
in August, 1921, Dr. Lauritz Larsen, president of the National Lu-
theran Council, found him cheerful and hopeful but “indescribably
tired and exceedingly nervous.” Yet two months later the indomita-
ble Morehead was back in America, laying the cause of his suffer-
ing fellow Lutherans before the convention of the United Lutheran
Church of America in an address on “The Lutheran Church in the
Present Crisis.”
Dr. Larsen stayed in Europe while Dr. Morehead was on fur-
lough in the United States. With youthful vigor he plunged into
the task of visitation and supervision in Russia and other eastern
European countries, consulting with committees and listening to
new appeals, Returning home on December 9, 1922, he launched
out on a speaking tour to rekindle the zeal for giving, which had
noticeably cooled in American congregations. On January 18, 1923,
he appeared before the National Lutheran Council in Cleveland
and presented a brilliant account of his work in Russia. Questioned
by members of the Council concerning the personal risks involved,
Dr. Larsen replied, “I want to say that I have never been so
gripped by anything as by this, and I expect it will follow me all
my life, and I am ready to give my life for it if it requires. . . . Any
man going into Russia on relief work must be willing to sacrifice his
life for that work or he has no right to go there.”
Ten days later Dr. Lauritz Larsen was called upon for this very
sacrifice. Exhausted from his heavy exertions in Europe and suffer-
ing from an infection which he had picked up in Russia, he was
forced to enter a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, and there died of
pneumonia on January 28, 1923, at the age of forty. A martyr to
the cause of interchurch aid, and one of the driving forces behind
the movement toward American and world Lutheran unity, Dr.
Lauritz Larsen, despite his brief career, deserves one of the hon-
ored positions in Lutheran church history in the twentieth century.
The access to Russia achieved by Dr. Morehead also provided
a channel for aid from European Lutherans to their needy brethren
in Russia. His approaches to the Allgemeine Lutherische Konferenz
regarding an international Lutheran convention had aroused con-
fidence in him and a sense of common purpose which moved this
German Lutheran group to transmit the sum of 700,000 German
marks through him for Russian relief. The Evangelicals of Spain
gave $1,000 for the same purpose. Polish Lutherans, remember-
ing the help that had come to them, gathered 7,000,000 Polish
marks. The German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latvia gave
36,000 lats; the Lutheran Society of Alsace in France gave 14,000
francs, and the Paris Synod 2,000 francs. Not only was this the
manifestation of beautiful Christian love, Morehead exulted, but
these gifts “illustrate the growing consciousness of unity that exists
as the result of the extending acquaintance among Lutheran
groups.”
In this first postwar period there were many other examples of
Lutheran church relief. Sweden sent material and financial help
to German pastors. The “Laymen’s Help” in Denmark was sent
to Lutherans in many different countries. Splendid aid was given
by all the Scandinavian countries to the undernourished children
in Austria and in Germany. Independent synods in North and South
America and in Australia assisted in various ways, but the diversity
of these actions makes it impossible to give more definite informa-
tion about them.
With the death of Dr. Lauritz Larsen in January, 1923, the Na-
tional Lutheran Council asked Dr. Morehead to assume the office
of Executive Director of the Council in addition to his duties as
European Commissioner. Although the work of relief was still far
from completed, and Dr. Morehead was to set out again almost
immediately for Europe for a short period, his election to a joint
position indicates that the main American Lutheran postwar effort
was coming to an end. Contributions had been declining. The
country was experiencing an economic depression. Within the
Council itself voices were being raised, expressing the fear that
if other areas of service within the United States were not found,
the Council would break up for lack of a unifying cause when the
needs of Europe could no longer find a sustained response.*
WORLD LUTHERANISM AT EISENACH

Fortunately, however, the impulse which had originated with
the European Commission had already issued in the formal call
for the first Lutheran World Convention, to be held at Eisenach,
Germany, beginning August 20, 1923. Part of the purpose of Dr.
Morehead’s visit to Europe in March was to consult with European
churchmen on the final plans for this meeting. Thus the ending of
this period of general emergency relief in Europe coincided with
the beginning of a new era of world Lutheran cooperation.
During the spring and early summer months of 1923 one church
after another in all parts of the world responded to the call, and
when the 147 delegates and visitors assembled in Eisenach in the
dignified old Church of St. George on Sunday, August 19, twenty-
two countries were represented, President H. G. Stub of the United
Norwegian Lutheran Church in America preached the opening
sermon, and the following day the Convention was formally wel-
comed by Bishop Ludwig Ihmels of Saxony, who expressed grate-
ful thanks to God that in spite of the divisions and strifes of nations,
it was possible for fellow-Christians from all over the world to
gather in a common bond of faith and in the spirit of unity, Out
of the richness of his ecumenical experience, Archbishop Nathan
Sdéderblom, primate of the Church of Sweden, thanked God for
his Lutheran heritage, but reminded his colleagues in the faith of
*From February 16, 1919, to August 31, 1925, the National Lutheran Council gathered
and distributed cash and goods for European relief in the amount of $6,731,892.09. Of
this amount, $2,701,373.13 represented cash contributions. The value of the relief goods
was $3,825.780 (3,060,544 Ibs. at $1.25 per pound), and $204,738.96 was raised to cover
the cost of shipping these goods. In addition, $536,351.59 was contributed for aid to
foreign mission fields orphaned during the war. Osborne Hauge, Lutherans Working Together
(New York: National Lutheran Council, 1945), page 48.
Luther’s warning that “proud spirited saints do more harm than
any other people on earth.”
In the various expressions of Eisenach, however, there seemed
little danger that world Lutheranism, returning for the first time as
a family after 400 years to one of its most revered shrines, would
indulge in unseemly self-glorification. Rather, the prevalent mood
was that of thankfulness and of determination that those who had
found their way together at last should now go forward in common
service to God. More than at any other point this unity of en-
deavor had been concretely expressed in the help which had been
channeled to the suffering brethren in Russia during the famine
years of 1921-23 by Lutheran churches both in Europe and Amer-
ica. Superintendent Theophilus Meyer of Moscow, referring to the
Eisenach meeting as “an hour of unparalleled significance in the
history of the church,” gave eloquent thanks for this aid to his peo-
ple, and rejoiced “that brotherly love has not grown cold in the
Lutheran Church.”
This was essentially the theme developed by Dr. Morehead in
the address he delivered to the Convention. Following the examples
and the exhortations of the New Testament to mutual assistance
among Christians, Dr. Morehead suggested as the key to future
endeavors the theme, “We want to help one another.” What he
believed to be involved in this many-sided mutual assistance Dr.
Morehead set forth in seven concrete suggestions at the close of
his address. It was clear that his thinking had been in great measure
determined by his experiences of the past four years, during which
he had often pointed out the need for some central coordinating
agency for emergency relief, for church reconstruction, for the fur-
therance of common efforts in foreign missions, for the spiritual
care of immigrants, and for the exchange of persons and informa-
tion, Basic to all of this, of course, would be a common confession
expressing unity in faith, but Morehead moved on quickly to stress
his program of “practical helpfulness.”
Quite another viewpoint on the purposes of the Lutheran World
Convention was expressed by the Swedish Archbishop Séderblom.

“We have not come together to organize ourselves, but to edify one
another and to strengthen one another in our common faith. Within
Christianity as a whole, it is our special mission as Lutherans to
cultivate the strength of the inner life.” The emphasis in the lectures
and discussions of the Eisenach meeting—ranging from the ecu-
menical significance of the Lutheran church and the confessions as
“the indispensable foundation of the Lutheran church” to the im-
portance of unity, world missions, and the care of Lutheran minori-
ties throughout the world—reflected a strong concern for the inne1
life of the Lutheran family of faith.
Before the Eisenach Convention adjourned, the delegates made
provision for a continuing Executive Committee of six members
to carry out its work and to prepare for the next meeting of the
Convention. The naming of Dr. John A. Morehead as first chairman
of this committee was a recognition of his leading role in the crea-
tion of the Lutheran World Convention. Other members were
Bishop Ihmels of Saxony, Baron von Pechmann of Munich, Pro-
fessor A. Theodore J¢rgensen of Copenhagen, Bishop Lundgren of
Sweden, and Dr. L. W. Boe of the United States. The tasks of the
Executive Committee re-enunciated Dr. Morehead’s platform of
action: works of mercy, aid to foreign missions, and the care of
migrating Lutherans, Other resolutions set forth the confessional
basis of the Lutheran World Convention and emphasized the need
of sound Christian education, expressed the gratitude of all who
had been aided during the postwar years of suffering, and called
upon the Lutheran churches of the world not to become weary
in their well-doing.
As the 147 delegates left the Luther city of Eisenach, they could
count as their main achievement the creation of a framework with-
in which Lutherans of all the world might learn to know each other
better. As John Morehead was to learn in the remaining years of
his life, the first impulses to Lutheran world unity might be given
through interchurch missions of mercy, but much more than this
would have to take place before a common ground of fellowship and
understanding could be fully reached. The fortress of the Wartburg
had, after all, witnessed the passage of four centuries between 1521
and 1923, and not all those who bore the name of Luther had been
cast in the same mold.
MOREHEAD AND LUTHERAN WORLD

SERVICE
Since the Eisenach convention had not established any general
secretariat for carrying out the objectives it had outlined, Dr. More-
head’s office as Executive Secretary of the National Lutheran Coun-
cil in New York was called upon to render such services as might
be necessary. Needless to say, Morehead himself felt a deep sense
of urgency for the continued growth of the movement he had
helped begin. Not least was this true because of the persistence of
need and of weakness in many areas of the Lutheran church in
Europe and on the mission fields. The first message which More-
head transmitted to New York while on his way to Eisenach as
a delegate to the Convention was a cable from Berlin dated Au-
gust 14: “Rush all available clothing Germany. Collapse of mark
means starvation at the doors of one thousand parsonages. Urge
congregations to give at once.”
During the winter of 1923-24 there were 5,250,000 unemployed
in Germany, and about one-third of the total population suffered
from undernourishment. To relieve this need, the National Luther-
an Council drew upon its accumulated resources to send $100,000
in cash and $73,600 in food to Germany as a Christmas gift in
1923. This was used largely for the support of the Inner Mission’s
widespread “church free table” system, through which the unem-
ployed and needy were fed in the institutions of the church. An-
other $253,000 followed in 1924, though the situation had now be-
gun to improve and unemployment had dropped to one million.
This was the final sizable American gift to European relief after
World War I. From this time on the Lutheran World Service ap-
peals of the National Lutheran Council maintained a very modest
level, and were geared in with the over-all annual program worked
out by the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion under Dr. Morehead’s guidance. Part of this decline in Ameri-

can giving was doubtless due to the ending of the postwar emer-
gency in Europe, but also in part to the economic recession and
the growing American isolationism of the middle twenties.
At its annual meeting in Budapest in 1927 the Executive Com-
mittee of the Lutheran World Convention set up a program of
Lutheran World Service in the amount of $60,000, of which $25,000
was earmarked for Russia. Of the total amount, the Committee
expected to receive $15,000 from the Lutheran churches of Europe
and the rest from the United States. The report that Lutheran
churches in fourteen countries were sharing in Russian interchurch
aid and relief elicited a warm expression of gratitude from the
National Lutheran Council that the Lutheran World Convention
was making real progress in “quickening the sense of responsibility
among Lutherans everywhere for the relief of their needy
brethren.”
Although the primary concern of Lutheran World Service con-
tinued to be Russian relief, orphaned German foreign missions,
sponsored by the Lutheran Foreign. Missions Conference, also be-
came a major annual item on its list of needs, Between 1920 and
1927 more than $600,000 was given to the Berlin Mission, the Brek-
lum China Mission, the Finnish China Mission, the Gossner Mission
in India, and the Hermannsburg South Africa Mission. In the wake
of the internal political convulsions in Russia and the famine of
1921-23, the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of Russia had
reorganized, and even established a theological seminary at Len-
ingrad in September, 1925. Provision of an annual subsidy for this
struggling church and for its seminary was one of Morehead’s most
urgent desires, and for more than six years the contributions of the
Lutheran World Convention kept the Leningrad Seminary in op-
eration, until the Soviet Government finally closed its doors.
FROM COPENHAGEN TO PARIS

The most acute postwar needs of the Lutheran churches of Eu-
rope had receded into the background as the second Lutheran
Prof. i. J.
Stolee, about to bo
the Premier'. Spec ard
ial re.
lief train to Pol
and
in 1919.
Second Lutheran World Convention in session at Copenhagen, Denmark, 1929.
Members of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Convention, at Gothenburg,

Sweden, in 1926. Front row, left to right: Baron von Pechmann, Dr. John A. Morehead,
Bishop Ludwig Ihmels; back row, left to right: Dr. A. Theodore Jargensen, Dr. Pehr
Pehrsson, Dr. L. W. Boe.
Forerunner to the Lutheran World Federation was the Lutheran World Convention, shown
outside the historic Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Germany, where the organization
meeting was held in 1923.
Bishop Anders Nygren of

Lund, Sweden, first President
of the Lutheran World
Federation (center), with
Bishop Hans Meiser of
Munich (left), and Prof. Ernst
Sommerlath of Leipzig, Ger-
many (right), members of the
Executive Commitee of the
Lutheran World Federation,
at Tutzing, Germany, in 1950.
Dr. and Mrs. S. C.
Michelfelder on board ship
leaving New York for Europe.
el
Oe ibs tebe,
es
en gg «ail,
enero
Bishop Hanns
we
Lilje, President of
fe
the Lutheran World Federation,

together with Mrs. Lilje, in their
home in Hannover.
ge
oewe
ty
7-9
——
World Convention began its sessions in the thriving city of Copen-
hagen, Denmark, on the morning of June 21, 1929. A royal proces-
sion, headed by the Bishop of Copenhagen and His Majesty King
Christian X, led the 180 delegates and 800 visitors into the Cathe-
dral where the Bishop delivered the opening sermon. During the
succeeding ten days of the Convention, presided over by Dr. More-
head, no new direction markers were erected, but the principles
of unity enunciated at Eisenach were reaffirmed. Needy churches,
“regardless of race, language, or political alignment,” should re-
ceive further assistance, and the member churches were summoned
to more intensive activity in the solution of the social problems of
the day.
Although Dr. Morehead felt that the Copenhagen resolutions on
continued cooperation for the relief and strengthening of endan-
gered Lutheran churches were adopted with heartfelt enthusiasm,
he had to admit to the National Lutheran Council that the appeal
of mere physical relief, growing out of the distress following the
first World War, had “ceased to grip the people.” But “fruitful
Christian work always appeals,” he declared, and went on to stress
the new opportunities and responsibilities which were opening to
the Lutheran World Convention “for Christian work along the lines
of true inner missions for saving and strengthening the Lutheran
Church as a whole throughout the entire world.”
To this end Morehead believed that the Lutheran World Con-
vention should be on the budget of every Lutheran church in the
world. Copenhagen, however, made it clear that the European Lu-
therans were not yet ready for a fixed organization, and Morehead
turned to the National Lutheran Council with the question: “Is
American Lutheranism willing, in a quiet, self-effacing, and self-
forgetful way, but with increasing vigor, to fill the gap effectively
for the nurture and development of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion movement during the next six years?”
The Americans expressed their willingness. Morehead resigned
as Executive Director of the National Lutheran Council and pre-
pared to devote his full time to realizing his dream of a vigorous
and organized world Lutheranism. Other members of the Conven-
tion continued to support the assistance program of Lutheran

World Service, but the National Lutheran Council paid in addition
the salary and New York office expenses for the president of the
Lutheran World Convention's executive committee.
Beginning in 1929 with the ascendency of left-wing Stalinism in
the Soviet Union, the church in Russia became increasingly subject
to open persecution through the agency of the party-approved
Society of the Godless. The membership of this organization in
Russia grew from 465,498 in 1929 to 5,500,000 at the end of 1931,
and extended its influence through every conceivable channel of
Russian life. To strengthen the church in the face of this frontal
attack, Lutheran World Service designated $38,645 of the $53,626
it received in 1930 from the participating Lutheran churches in
Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland,
the United States, and Sweden.
In 1931 the dramatic plight of more than four hundred Russian
Lutherans stimulated their brethren of the Lutheran World Con-
vention to a special effort. Under the grim pressure of persecution
thousands of people were either exiled to labor camps in Siberia,
or managed to make a timely escape across the borders into Europe.
One group, who had been dispossessed of their farms in the Volga
district and sent to Siberian camps, managed to make their way
across the border into Manchuria. In the city of Harbin they found
refuge, but no employment. Through a German Lutheran pastor
there, their plight was brought to the attention of the Lutheran
World Convention and relief was provided. However, in 1931, after
two years in Harbin, the refugees were notified by the Manchurian
government that they must leave the country. After extensive in-
vestigation of resettlement possibilities in Canada, Australia, and
Paraguay, Dr. Morehead was able to make arrangements for these
people to enter Brazil. With the assistance of the Nansen Office
for Refugees, connected with the League of Nations, and with the
gifts of Lutherans throughout the world, the Harbin refugees were
transported to their new homes and provided with farm equipment,
a pair of oxen, a cow, and food enough for one year. The entire
operation cost $58,000, and gifts were received from Lutherans in
a.
thirteen different countries, including such smaller churches as
—
those in Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czecho-Slovakia, France, and China.
The years between Copenhagen and the Third Assembly at
eS
Paris were years of general economic depression throughout the
world, and the struggling Lutheran World Convention also felt its
effects. Financially, the lowest ebb was reached in 1933, when a
total contribution of about two thousand dollars for Lutheran
World Service was gathered by the American Section. Nevertheless,
one hundred church leaders from twenty-two countries convened
on October 13, 1935, in the Lutheran Church of St. Jean on the
left bank of the Seine in Paris, in what they styled “the Little World
Assembly.” After the opening services, at which Inspector Henri
Boury preached the sermon, the Convention settled down to its
projected task as a working assembly, noting as it did so the tragic
absence of any delegate from the Lutheran church of Russia. The
grim shadow of an iron curtain had already fallen across the path
of world Lutheranism.
That its delegates felt the weight of the spiritual, economic, and
political crisis-in the midst of which they were meeting was made
clear in their serious statement of basic purpose. The Lutheran
World Convention should “bring the Lutheran churches and or-
ganizations of the world into an enduring and intimate relationship
with one another in order to promote oneness of faith and confes-
sion, and to ward off antagonistic and hostile influences.” The im-
portance of a more permanent organization was also recognized by
providing for the appointment of an Executive Secretary. The six-
member Executive Committee was to meet annually, and the Con-
vention itself was to hold plenary sessions every five years. Bishop
August Marahrens of Hannover was elected President of the Execu-
tive Committee, and Dr. Morehead, retiring from active service,
was named Honorary President of the Lutheran World Convention,
UNFULFILLED HOPES
A year later, when the Executive Committee met in New York,
Dr. John Morehead was dead. At a memorial service arranged by
De nti tial
the committee in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, President Lars W.

Boe of St. Olaf College delivered a tribute to him who “became the
ear that heard the cry of those in distress and the hand stretched
forth to help,” the man in whose heart and mind “the agony and
suffering and sorrow of wartime were transmuted into world vision
and world service.”
“It was Dr. Morehead’s hope and prayer that the Lutherans
might be so organized that the strength of the Church could easily
and quickly be swung to the weaker portions so that the church
as a whole would not be hindered in its main work of witness-
ing. In the organization of the Lutheran World movement, relief
of suffering was ultimately to be an incidental part of the pro-
gram, its purpose to make evident to the Lutherans themselves
and to the world the solidarity and unity of the Church to which
a large opportunity had come and upon which a large responsibility
had been laid.”
Dr. Boe also had an admonishing word for the future. “To those
who come after Dr. Morehead in the Lutheran World movement
there comes the difficult task of shifting the weight of its work from
relief to more positive forms, to establish as a permanent move-
ment that which came as a fleeting impulse from the sorrows and
troubles of wartime.”
Present at that service was a young German pastor, about to be
named Executive Secretary of the Lutheran World Convention, who
would have much to do in later years with the fulfilling of the
hopes and expectations of both Dr. Morehead and Dr. Boe. This
man was Dr. Hanns Lilje of Berlin, then General Secretary of the
Student Christian Movement in Germany, and later to become
Bishop of the Church of Hannover and President of the Lutheran
World Federation,
Much was to intervene before these fulfillments could take place.
An age was to die and be buried with millions of its sons and
daughters in the rubble of a thousand shattered cities. A jugger-
naut of totalitarian statism was to ride roughshod over civil rights
and national integrity, until the nations still intact were either
Pees
forced or frightened into joint resistance. A wave of inhumanity

and bestiality was to sweep over every continent on earth with a
searing breath that would shrivel and scorch human values as it
did human bodies, And after it was past, a new age was to be born
beneath a billowing, rose-red mushroom canopy. In many ways
the birth of this new age would be more terrible than the death of
the old. For the fear of God and the love of men had not been nour-
ished in the cataclysm of war, either among victors or vanquished.
Unless these guiding values could be restored, the new age could
only be an age of greater fear and greater wrong and even more
disastrous ruin,
All this would intervene, Already the Japanese conquest of Man-
churia, the bombing of Shanghai, and the rape of Ethiopia had
served grim warning. The budget of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion for 1938 included an item of $4000 to assist the migration of
non-Aryan Christian refugees from Germany, and a $15,000 item
for the support of German foreign missions whose support was cut
off by the economic policies of the National Socialist government
in Germany. Within a year the tanks and troops of the German
army would have poured across the borders of Poland, and World
War II would have begun. And beneath its rubble the hard-won
achievements of twenty years of inter-Lutheran cooperation would
be buried. A Lutheran World Convention in 1940 in Philadelphia,
“the city of brotherly love,” would have been impossible. Yet in
that year, not far from this city in which Lutherans from all the
world should have assembled to witness of their unity in faith and
love, the National Lutheran Council was to adopt a resolution
paving the way for a new ministry of mercy for emergencies which
might arise through the war. “Christians of the world cannot sepa-
rate themselves from the problems of the world,” they said. “Above
all, it is their responsibility to help lighten the world’s tragic bur-
den.” Relief of suffering in the name of Christ was not to be, as
Dr. John Morehead had thought, an “incidental” part of the pro-
gram of Lutheran world cooperation. It had become instead a
foundation stone, and now would be added another, equally rough,
but equally substantial, and upon these an even firmer structure
of Lutheran unity would eventually be built.
CHAPTER TWO
A Man Sent
From God
When Dr. Sylvester Clarence Michelfelder boarded the troop-

ship Mariposa at Boston on July 3, 1945, bound for LeHavre in
France, he was very nearly re-enacting a chapter of Lutheran
church history written twenty-seven years earlier. Just as Dr. John
A. Morehead and his colleagues had boarded the Lorraine at New
York on June 5, 1919, bearing the instructions of the Lutheran
churches of America to investigate the postwar needs of their sister
churches in Europe with a view to offering physical and spiritual
assistance, so now Dr. Michelfelder set forth as the eyes and ears
of American Lutheranism. That such a mission of investigation was
once more necessary was a tragic commentary upon the complete
severance of inter-Lutheran ties caused by the frightful war which
less than two months earlier had ground to its bitter end in Europe.
Contacts with German Lutheran leaders were nonexistent. Brief
conversations with Scandinavian church leaders earlier in the
spring of 1945 had revealed little enthusiasm over any efforts to
revive the virtually defunct Lutheran World Convention. Dr. Mi-
chelfelder, therefore, had to begin his task under much the same
circumstances as had Dr. Morehead.
There was, however, one great difference. Out of the ecumenical
conferences on Faith and Order and Life and Work, held at Ox-
24
A Man Sent From God 25
ford and Edinburgh in 1937, had come the decision to form a

World Council of Churches, At Utrecht in 1938 a Provisional Com-
mittee had been set up to make the necessary preparations for
organization. The committee, with Dr. W. A. Visser Hooft as Gen-
eral Secretary, had established itself in Geneva, Switzerland, and
maintained a modest staff throughout the war, concerning itself
largely with a study program. This emphasis was felt by Dr. Visser
t Hooft to be of primary importance, but in 1944, under the impact
of the wartime distress of the churches, he called Dr. J. Hutchinson
Cockburn from Scotland to become head of a new Department of
Church Reconstruction. In the spring of 1945, after they had made
a visit in Sweden, Dr. Ralph Long and Dr. P. O. Bersell of the Na-
tional Lutheran Council and Dr. Lawrence Meyer of the Missouri
Synod met with the World Council staff in Geneva and reached an
agreement that all Lutheran reconstruction, interchurch aid, and re-
nian
lief for the stricken churches of Europe should be coordinated with
ea
ek
the new department. To facilitate this coordination, it was agreed
that a Lutheran representative should be invited to establish an
office in Geneva.
i
ee
When Dr. Long returned from Europe in the spring of 1945, he
lost no time in approaching the man he thought ideally suited for
the position, namely, his lifelong friend, Dr. S. C. Michelfelder,
i
pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Toledo, Ohio. “You must
i
go to Geneva,” Dr. Long told him. Shortly thereafter, the American
i
i
Section of the Lutheran World Convention extended the official
invitation, and on the basis of a one-year’s leave of absence from
his congregation, Dr. Michelfelder accepted the appointment as
Special Commissioner to Europe for the American Section of the
Lutheran World Convention. He was instructed to study the needs
of the churches of Europe and to find a way of coordinating relief
and interchurch aid through the Reconstruction Department of the
World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. Thus, when
Dr. Michelfelder boarded the Mariposa on July 8, he at least had
a destination and an office, although the outlines of his work were
far from clear.
On board the ship, which had just brought 6300 veterans of
European combat back to their home shores, were Dr. Stewart

Herman, also on his way to Geneva to join the staff of the World
Council, a few diplomats who had attended the United Nations
Conference in San Francisco, and several representatives of the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. This was the
first sizable civilian group to sail for Europe after the termination
of hostilities, and Dr. Michelfelder found it entirely appropriate
that the church should be among the first to go on such a mission
of mercy. After a seven-day voyage, the Mariposa literally “landed”
its passengers at LeHavre. There were no docks. Prisoners of war
loaded baggage onto landing barges, and the passengers stepped
ashore on the beach, to be transported to the railway station by
army trucks. “Chaos is the only way to describe it,” wrote Michel-
felder of the port city. “The populace looks dazed and forlorn.” A
jangling merry-go-round in a vacant lot seemed to him an inade-
quate means of cheering people whose homes had been blown to
bits, .
After an all-night ride on a crowded train, Michelfelder was met
in Paris by Clayton Williams, the pastor of the American Church,
and in his first few hours learned something of the needs of the
French Lutherans in the midst of the general economic prostra-
tion of all of France. On July 17 he reached Geneva, where he was
met by Dr. Cockburn and Dr. Visser t'Hooft, assigned his hotel,
and equipped with enough ration tickets to last him six days.
The following day Dr. Michelfelder was assigned a desk in the
World Council headquarters, and at the four o'clock informal tea
in the garden, which has since become an ecumenical institution,
met the staff members for the first time. The next few days were
days of orientation, days which in retrospect must have seemed
unbelievably quiet and placid. He had time to buy his own second-
hand typewriter, to shop for office supplies, to attend evening con-
certs, and even to scale the hills surrounding Geneva and look
down upon the flowing waters of its rivers and the shining surface
of its idyllic Lac Leman, One evening Mont Blanc was visible in
the clear sky, and Michelfelder was thrilled by its cameo-like face
as the setting sun turned the ice and snow into “pastel shades of
pink and gold.”
BREAD FIRST—CATECHISMS LATER

The quiet interlude, however, was soon over. Staff discussions
and reports began to sketch in the grim black lines of Europe's
plight. Stewart Herman left immediately for Germany. Michelfel-
der tried also to enter and was rebuffed. While his application was
being shunted from State Department to Army and back again, he
canvassed every possible channel for information concerning the
conditions of the churches and their people behind these formidable
barriers of military security, On the first of August, at a special
meeting of the Council, the German relief situation was discussed,
and it was made clear that the most pressing immediate problem
of the German people was not church reconstruction, but food and
shelter and clothing in the face of oncoming winter.
This was a new idea for Michelfelder, who had come to Geneva
as an envoy of interchurch aid, and not as a relief administrator.
The presence on the Mariposa of UNRRA representatives was
symbolic of the delegation of responsibility for feeding and clothing
the millions of needy to the newly-created United Nations organ-
ization, Such a task, most people felt, would have been far too
ambitious for the churches to undertake. But the United Nations
mandate did not extend to the conquered peoples of Europe, and
certainly not to Germany. Among the victorious Allies there was
indeed very little thought given to the relief of suffering in Ger-
many. Far more important in Allied policy at this time was the
carrying out of the Morgenthau Plan for the reduction of Germany
to the status of an agricultural nation, and the removal of all in-
dustrial war potential. In fact, during these months the nutrition
standards in some Allied prisoner of war camps in France were
kept at what appeared to be an intentional minimum.
Under these circumstances it was clear, as one observer put it,

that the church could not minister to the greatest needs of starv-
ing people with cases full of catechisms, important as those would
be later on. The first need would be physical relief.
Although Allied policy at this time was not concerned about
assisting the Germans, there seems to have been official encourage-
ment given to German efforts to help themselves. In June, 1945,
American military units released Eugen Gerstenmaier from the
prison in Bayreuth where he had been confined because of his
identification with the unsuccessful assassination plot against Hitler
on July 20, 1944. Even during his days of imprisonment in Berlin-
Tegel this energetic layman, later to become President of the
Lower House of the German Parliament, had been preparing plans
for an all-German relief organization to minister to the needs of
the German people after the collapse of the Nazi regime and the
end of the war. After a few weeks of recuperation in a hospital in
Bayreuth, Gerstenmaier was picked up by a Red Cross vehicle
and, with the permission of the American military authorities,
traveled to Geneva to discuss his plans for a German Hilfswerk
with the staff of the World Council of Churches. With an initial
gift of $20,000 in hand as a token of the ecumenical support for
his program of self-help, Gerstenmaier hurried back to Germany.
Equipped with an American army jeep and a GI driver named
Harry, Gerstenmaier now began his travels from one provincial
church to the other, seeking dependable people to work with him
and enlisting the support of the German Protestant churches for
his staggering task.
REOPENING THE ROAD TO GERMANY

Meanwhile, the churches themselves were trying to pick up
the pieces, both physically and spiritually, after the end of their
destructive bout with National Socialism and war since 19383.
Pastors of the Confessing Church, the resistance movement which
had been outlawed by the Nazis, now emerged to take over the
official positions in provincial churches, many of which had been
controlled by the so-called German Christians who had com-

promised themselves for the sake of political approval. Theophil
Wurm, Lutheran Bishop of Wiirttemberg, who had managed to
preserve both his integrity and that of his church against Nazi
assault, was recognized generally as the dean of the Evangelical
Church leaders, though Martin Niemoeller, the fiery pastor of
Berlin-Dahlem, was the organizer of the Pastors’ Emergency
League which led the ecclesiastical resistance movement against
i
the Nazis. To replace the broken-down church organization which
a
Hitler had imposed, Bishop Wurm now summoned all the provin-
cial churches to send representatives to the little Hessian town of
Treysa from August 27-September 1, 1945. At this historic meet-
ing odious ties with the past were severed and there emerged the
new Evangelical Church in Germany, a limited federation of all
the independent provincial churches of Germany. A Council of
Twelve stood at the head of this new organization, with Bishop
Wurm as titular president.
In addition to the organizational decisions, two other important
events took place at the Treysa Conference. The first was the
acceptance of the plans of Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier for the set-
a
ting up of the Hilfswerk of the Evangelical Church in Germany

and the consequent launching of this great German self-help ven-
ture with ecclesiastical blessing. In each of the member churches
——
————————>—>S—$>—S
of the new German federation, a corresponding Hilfswerk was

organized, and the people of the congregations were mobilized
to contribute food and clothing and money for the relief of the
suffering brethren in their midst and elsewhere in Germany. The
record of achievements in the midst of need and destruction is
almost incredible, yet it was reported at the first general Hilfs-
werk meeting in Wiesbaden in January, 1946, that in five months
20,000,000 Reichmarks had been gathered for relief. One-third of
this sum was designated for use in the Russian Zone, where home-
lessness and hunger were even more acute than in the West. In
addition to the cash gifts, more than 18,000 tons of food and 500
tons of clothing were gathered before the end of January, 1946.
In the ensuing weeks the amount of clothing rose to 1,600 tons,
and 100 refugee homes and reception camps were added to the
prodigious number of church homes and institutions already open
to the homeless, the sick, and the orphaned. By the end of Feb-
ruary an additional 10,000,000 marks had been gathered, and
260,000 marks worth of medicines had been bought or given to
the Protestant hospitals and homes by German sources.
These figures in no sense reflect a prosperous economy. They do
represent the local response to physical need through a church-
sponsored program, Since the Nazis had closely controlled every
welfare appeal since 1933, this was the first opportunity the Ger-
man church people had had in many years to give to a general
relief effort sponsored by the church. They gave of the limited
supplies they had, knowing full well that most of what they gave
could not be replaced. In the coming months and years, most of
these people who had given would find it necessary to receive
gifts from fellow-Christians and friends in other lands. When that
time should come, it would also be the Evangelical Hilfswerk which
would be the distributor of such gifts from abroad. The presence
from the earliest postwar days of this well-organized and effective
distribution system of the church has been one of the most sig-
nificant factors in both the volume and the duration of the pro-
gram of material assistance to Germany.
The second matter of importance was the receipt of a letter by
Bishop Wurm, written on behalf of the American Section of the
Lutheran World Convention by Dr. S. C. Michelfelder in Geneva.
Wurm had invited Michelfelder to be present at Treysa, but mili-
tary clearances had not been secured in time. Hence, this letter
represents the first official contact of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion with the German churches after the war. It began, signif-
icantly, with an apostolic greeting: “Grace and Peace in Christ
Jesus Our Lord,” and the salutation, “Dear Brethren.”
Your Lutheran brethren in America realize how the devastations and

horrors of war have come to you. We are aware that the destruction of
your homes, your churches and cities has obliterated much which is
dear and sacred to you. We know that sickness, famine and death are
stalking through your land. Our hearts go out to you in sincere sym-
|
eee

Se
pathy. Our prayers ascend to the Throne of God for you all, not only
in public worship, but in private devotions.
Your Lutheran brethren in America seek to find the best means to
help you. Now we are limited by the authorities of the armies of occupa-
tion. For the present there are many things we would like to do but
can’t. The Lutheran World Convention, American Section, which I rep-
resent, has elaborate plans for coming to your aid. Millions of dollars
will be forthcoming if we can reawaken that kinship in the faith which
once was so strong,
Dr. Michelfelder went on to express the hope that he might

soon be able to visit the churches in Germany personally. In a
reference to the martyrs of the struggle against National Social-
ism, he expressed the hope that a stronger church would emerge
from the past trials. Those who had erred in judgment and trusted
eee
in deceitful leaders he exhorted to repentance, acknowledging at

the same time that “before the throne of God all of us have sinned
and gone astray.” The letter closed with a plea for a common
rededication to the Lord of the Church, who has graciously assured
us of His Presence “even unto the end of the world,”
Stewart Herman, the only American in attendance at Treysa,
later reported that when the Bishop read Michelfelder’s letter to
the assembly, “it was like opening the window and letting in a
ray of light and a breath of fresh air. This was a note which had
not been heard in Germany before. It changed the complexion of
the meeting completely. The knowledge that American Lutherans
cared made the difference.”
ea
The Bishop himself responded immediately to Michelfelder’s

letter, expressing the hope that a personal visit would soon be
possible. For the brotherly aid of the American Lutherans he was
deeply grateful, and also for their strengthening of the Recon-
ie
struction Department of the World Council of Churches. Singled

out for special mention was the aid given to Lutheran churches
a
and pastors in other lands where German help could no longer

go. Both this work of orphaned missions and the ministry among
gee.
the German prisoners of war, which Wurm also acknowledged,

+. #..e
—
had constituted parts of the wartime activities of the American

Section of the Lutheran World Convention.
At its Treysa meeting the Evangelical Church in Germany had
also constituted a National Reconstruction Committee for Ger-
many, and through this committee the first request for assistance
was channeled to the World Council of Churches. Though there
was a clear statement in this document that the church was grate-
ful that movements were in process to provide material relief and
medical aid for Germany, its main burden was that of the spiritual
needs of the church. Bibles and catechisms were badly needed.
Paper supplies for religious publishing houses in Germany would
render the double service of providing the books needed and
encouraging the future publication of religious literature. There
was evident a deep desire to break away from the long years of
isolation and to send theological students abroad on scholarships,
and to enable weary pastors and professors to gain some rest and
rehabilitation. The committee expressed concern that an office be
established within Germany to help reunite lost members of fam-
ilies.
Of the material needs that were mentioned, those of medicines,
hospital supplies, bed linens, and uniforms for the deaconesses took
first rank. Food and clothing were also included, but it seems
apparent that the newly-organized Hilfswerk intended to supply
as much of those as possible from local sources.
Back in Geneva the machinery was already being put in motion.
Immediately after the staff meeting on August 1, at which the
German situation had been discussed, Michelfelder wrote to Dr
Ralph Long in New York, urging him to press the needs of starv-
ing people in Germany upon the President and the Secretary of
State, and to urge the removal of restrictions in order that material
aid could be sent by private organizations. On August 7, as Dr.
Michelfelder sat calculating a tentative’s year’s budget for requests
to the American Section, he switched on his newly-acquired sec-
ondhand radio. The first news he heard came from London, report-
ing that Russia had declared war on Japan and that the first
atomic bomb had destroyed a great Japanese city, “If man can
also develop a conscience,” wrote Michelfelder, “then there is

some hope for the survival of humanity. If not, then the end of
the world is very near. I cannot feel otherwise than that my com-
ing to Europe is timed with the last chance that the church will
get to bring Christ to a dying world.”
Within a few days Stewart Herman was back in Geneva after
his first visit in Germany. He had been in Berlin on the day Michel-
felder had heard the London report, and while the bombs that had
fallen there had produced no mushroom-shaped clouds, he had
seen destruction enough to make him wonder if that great city
of four million inhabitants would ever again be rebuilt. Moving
through the gaunt alleys and rubble-cluttered streets of this ghost
city, he had also seen hundreds of thousands of homeless people,
many of them refugees from other ghost cities further east. These
were the nomads produced by the actions of Poland, Hungary,
Czecho-Slovakia, and other East European Governments, expelling
from their borders all persons of German nationality or back-
ground,
These movements had begun before the Potsdam Conference,
but were confirmed by the agreement of the three signatories that
such population transfers should be carried out in an “orderly
and humane manner.” The Polish government also interpreted the
Potsdam Agreement as an authorization to expel several million
additional Germans from the provinces east of the Oder-Neisse
line, placed under Polish administration. Not until the winter of
1945-46 would the three western zones of occupation begin to feel
the effects of these expulsions, but eastern Germany and Berlin
were choked with refugees almost as soon as the terms of the Pots-
dam Agreement had been approved on August 2, 1945. Stewart
|
Herman described it as “a Tolstoyan pageant of human pathos,
encompassing all the states of man from premature birth to over-
due death.” The countless figures of this grim parade, he wrote,
|
“move on foot, by cart, by train, by boat; the only quiet ones
are those lying for the last time where they dropped or were
dropped.” Graves and crosses were the road markers of the re-
fugees!
Dette
A PLEA FOR HUMAN LIVES

It was under the impact of such reports that Michelfelder chafed
for the opportunity to send physical relief into Germany, urged
upon his colleagues the issuance of a joint appeal for American
aid, and pled with government officials for the relaxation of
military regulations to permit the saving of thousands of human
lives in Germany.
The purchase of $2,500 worth of medicine and bandages in the
face of this avalanche of need must have seemed like a drop in
the bucket, but when Michelfelder put them aboard a Red Cross
caravan bound for Frankfurt and Berlin, he at least had the satis-
faction of knowing that the movement had begun. According to
his own diary these medicines constituted “the first real relief sent
to Germany,” and they were purchased with money contributed
by American Lutherans.
As the reports of need all over Europe flowed into Geneva, the
Reconstruction Committee met more and more frequently. Hol-
land was in need of fifty new churches. Austria needed food and
clothing and medicaments. In Vienna the infant mortality rate was
the highest in forty years. Thirty-five thousand Lutheran refugees
from Transylvania had crowded into Austria and were in dire need.
Conditions in Hungary were reported as deplorable. Norway and
Finland needed help. In Yugoslavia were half a million orphans;
in Poland 400,000 full-orphans and 700,000 half-orphans. Such
utter destruction, wrote Michelfelder to a friend in America, “no
man has even seen in the days of Sodom and Gomorrha. .. . In
the Eastern part of Germany there are no children under two
years old, for they have all died. It is like Rachel weeping for her
children in Bethlehem.”
The Reconstruction Committee did what it could with its limited
funds. Dr. W. Robbins Barstow of the Federal Council of Churches
in America cabled $85,000 in late September, and before the end
of the year Michelfelder was able to distribute Lutheran aid to
prisoners, refugees, and churches in Germany, Finland, France,
Holland, Norway, and Italy in the amount of $144,171. Never had
aD
he worked so hard, or tried so hard, he wrote to a friend, to do

something worthwhile for “the millions who are being driven from
place to place.” “Sometimes,” he said, “I feel like a man on a raft
in the middle of the ocean, crying for help, and I never know if
anyone hears me.”
That the cry might at least be raised clearly and distinctly
Michelfelder now urged upon the international relief agencies in
Geneva the issuance of a strongly-worded joint appeal for material
relief before winter should close in. Such a plea, he hoped, broad-
cast particularly in the American press, would marshal public
opinion and force officials to do something. On October 5, 1945,
the appeal was issued, written by Dr, Michelfelder, and signed by
the various international relief agencies.
“Children by the millions are in imminent danger of starving
and freezing as winter comes to Europe,” it declared, “unless im-
mediate help comes from the countries which have food, clothing,
vitamins and medicines. Helpless children cannot survive much
longer unless there is a united effort to save them. Every official,
humanitarian, and religious agency must come to the rescue im-
mediately or it will be too late, .. . We who have seen these condi-
tions and heard these cries for help must lay it on the consciences
of all to share to the limit of their money and goods now.” The
agencies pledged themselves “to work together in meeting the
needs without regard to nationality, race or creed.”
Michelfelder followed this appeal with a personal visit into Ger-
many, his first since arriving in Europe. He was appalled by the
total destruction he found in cities such as Stuttgart, Pforzheim,
Freiburg, Frankfurt, and Berlin. “Pompeii is in a better state of
preservation than these cities,” he wrote. “Even the ruins are
ruined.” In addition to visiting the church leaders whom he had
not been able to meet at Treysa, Dr. Michelfelder was able to
reach General Dwight Eisenhower, then Supreme Allied Com-
mander, and to present to him the problem of the refugee and the
suffering civilian from the viewpoint of the churches of the world.
Unfortunately, however, the determination of American authorities
to carry through a “hard peace” blocked action which the military
authorities seemed ready to take. Under no circumstances were

the German people to receive a higher ration of food than people
in countries which had been victimized by German occupation.
Although an average American daily diet contained 3,000 calories,
a ration of 1,550 calories was established as the official civilian diet
for the American-occupied zone in Germany. Even to maintain
this minimum, the Army had to ship into Germany more than
500,000 tons of food,
British authorities, on the other hand, very quickly relaxed
restrictions to permit private shipments of relief supplies into their
zone of occupation, and before the month of October was past,
the Swedish freighters Saga, Lena, and Gladen were unloading
the first large gift shipments of potatoes, beets, and cabbage at
the British-oceupied port of Liibeck. The newly-organized Evan-
i
gelical Hilfswerk undertook the distribution of these gifts in Ger-
many, in addition to the large amounts of locally-donated food
i
te
and clothing it was administering.
AMERICA HEARS THE APPEAL

Meanwhile, back in the United States the entire Potsdam policy
was undergoing sharp and consistent attack from many humani-
tarians and church people. As early as August 15, two weeks after
the Agreement was signed, the Christian Century denied that it
ever could lead to “a just and enduring peace” as its architects
claimed it would. As time passed and the refugees began to
stream out of the eastern provinces of Germany under Polish
and Russian occupation, the criticisms mounted in intensity. An
editorial in the Christian Century on November 10 posed the
straightforward question: “Are We Murderers?”
To answer questions such as this and to provide firsthand official
information for the consciences of the church people of America,
the Federal Council of Churches in December, 1945, appointed
a commission composed of Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, Bishop
Henry Knox Sherrill, and Dr. Franklin Clark Fry to visit Ger-
many and to report to the Council on conditions as they found
them. Although certain of the sectors of gravest need in the Ba-

varian back country and in Berlin were slighted because of im-
portant engagements with officials at the Victory Guest House in
Frankfurt and the Harnack House in Berlin, the members of the
committee were personally confronted with hundreds of examples
of bitterest human suffering. The only possible explanation of their
incredible report that there would be “no need or opportunity for
the churches or individuals to contribute food, or money to pur-
chase food” for Germany during the coming winter is that the
committee believed what they heard from “official sources” in the
Victory Guest House rather than what they saw in the squalid
barracks at Hof or the gloomy hostels of East Berlin.
One member of the committee, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, took
violent exception to this report and made use of a huge rally in
Chicago on January 20, at the opening of a nationwide Lutheran
appeal for ten million dollars for relief, to denounce it publicly.
The only way to get the ban on private relief shipments into the
American Zone of Germany lifted, he declared, was to write to
Congress and the President and to mobilize public opinion against
the use of “starvation as an instrument of foreign policy.” Chris-
tian forces must be permitted to minister to human wants wher-
ever existent, “whether those of ally or former enemy.”
Prodded by the rising volume of criticism from church and
humanitarian agencies in the United States, official Washington
gave clearance for a special committee of representatives of the
American Council of Voluntary Agencies to visit Germany in Jan-
uary, 1946. Their report, made in Berlin on January 30, stated
flatly that the condition of millions in Germany was desperate,
and recommended an immediate modification of American official
policy. At the same time General Lucius Clay, head of the Ameri-
can Military Government in Germany, assured the committee orally
that the desired changes would be made. Yet it was March 1
before an official order from President Truman opened the way
for private relief agencies, under a special license of the United
States Government, to ship each month a combined total of 2,000
tons of foods, clothing, and medicines into the American Zone.
In any event, a brilliant victory had been registered by an aroused

and compassionate public opinion,
From this point on matters moved quickly and smoothly, with
the fullest cooperation and even the enthusiastic backing of the
President and government officials. Authorized voluntary agencies
met to organize the Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate
in Germany, CRALOG, which would be their official contact with
the United States Government both in Washington and overseas.
Among the organizations included in CRALOG was Lutheran
World Relief, established in October, 1945, and recognized by the
National Lutheran Council as its official organ for the gathering
of material relief.
As one of the major groups participating in CRALOG, Lutheran
World Relief was asked to appoint an overseas representative to
supervise the handling and distribution of privately contributed
relief supplies in Germany. The Reverend Carl Schaffnit, Director
of Lutheran Charities in Detroit, Michigan, was nominated, and
he arrived in Munich in April, 1946, as the first American Lutheran
representative to be stationed in Germany after the end of the war.
But before he had even reached Europe, Lutheran World Relief had
already dispatched to Germany 10,000 bales of used clothing and
bedding, which had been accumulating in the warehouses from
the spontaneous gifts of congregations. Twenty-five hundred bales
had also gone to Finland, 500 to Poland, 300 to Yugoslavia, 260 to
Czecho-Slovakia, and 100 each to Holland and Belgium.
“BIG BUSINESS FOR THE LORD”

In Geneva, Dr. Michelfelder wrote to a friend, things had de-
veloped so fast that he hardly knew where to turn. “It was not
so long ago,” he said, “that we thought of the Reconstruction De-
partment of the World Council of Churches as a work only of
rebuilding the church by providing wooden church halls, pastors’
stipends, scholarships, Bibles, catechisms, hymnals, perhaps _bi-
cycles, or even motor transportation. Those were the days when
we dreamed that the great international organizations, with bil-
lions of dollars in hand, would care for all the physical wants of
the people in Europe. We were almost lulled to sleep by the great
promises of those who ought to know. Then there came a cry for
help from hungry, freezing people.”
Under the compulsion of this stark awakening, the World Coun-
cil of Churches asked Dr. Michelfelder in November, 1945, to
organize the Division of Material Aid as a part of the work of the
Department of Reconstruction and Interchurch Aid. Michelfelder
thus became the coordinator, not only of the Lutheran gifts, but
of all material relief which was channeled through the World
Council. On the wall of his office he placed maps of Europe,
showing the occupation lines of the four armies which had con-
aaa
quered Europe and also the number of deportees and refugees,
lili cian
running into the millions. On another map he circled the key
places in central Europe to which information lines must be kept
open, From Geneva in the center, lines reached out to Paris,
sete
ai
Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Oslo, Turku, Warsaw, Budapest,
Vienna, and Prague. From the World’s YMCA Michelfelder leased
a warehouse at the “Free Port” of Geneva, and into this center
flowed every conceivable commodity to alleviate human need. At
one random inspection there were 27,000 cartons of rolled oats,
$50,000 worth of dried milk powder, 12,000 surplus army blankets,
ai ei
20,000 pairs of shoes, 23,000 yards of muslin, scores of sewing
machines, and almost before the totals had been spoken, they
were obsolete because the goods had been shipped out to the
=
area of greatest need. It was indeed, as Michelfelder put it, “big
business for the Lord.”
MICHELFELDER'S “CHALLENGE OF A
LIFETIME”
In the midst of all this activity came a very significant develop-
ment within the family of world Lutheranism. The first tentative
efforts to revive the broken relationships within the Lutheran World
Convention after the war had been made by Dr. Ralph Long and
Dr. P. O. Bersell when they visited London and Stockholm in
the early spring of 1945. As a result of this visit a Liaison Com-

mittee had been set up, with Archbishop Erling Eidem of Sweden
as honorary chairman, to handle reconstruction questions until the
Executive Committee could begin to function again. As the war
ended, there was a marked coolness among Scandinavian church-
men toward the resumption of any relations with the Germans,
and efforts to reactivate the Executive Committee met with no
success. Once again, reminiscent of the days of 1919, the impulse
came from the American Section of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion. This committee had maintained its identity without lapse
throughout the war years, and even before the war ended had
at its disposal a Church Rehabilitation Fund of $200,000, drawn
from the Lutheran World Action appeals of the National Lutheran
Council in anticipation of the great needs which would be revealed
when the war was over.
In the fall of 1945 the American Section decided to send a dele-
gation of three men—Drs. Long, Fry, and Aasgaard—to Europe
with the double purpose of investigating conditions among the
churches and of reassembling the Executive Committee of the Lu-
theran World Convention. Undaunted by the failure of one attempt
to bring a complete Scandinavian delegation to an earlier Euro-
pean Lutheran World Convention meeting in Copenhagen in Au-
gust, the Americans arranged for a second Copenhagen attempt
in December, following their visit in Geneva and their tour of
Germany. Again Scandinavian representation was small, but cer-
tain significant steps were taken nevertheless. Anticipating the
resignation of Bishop Marahrens of Hannover both as president
and as a member of the Executive Committee, this temporary
Liaison Committee asked Archbishop Erling Eidem to serve as
Acting President and Dr. S. C. Michelfelder as Secretary, Arrange-
ments were made for an official meeting of the Executive Com-
mittee at Uppsala, Sweden, in July, 1946.
Although he was not present when the Liaison Committee met
in Copenhagen, Dr. Michelfelder was duly informed concerning
the additional responsibilities which were now to devolve upon
him. When he left his parish in Toledo, Ohio, it had been with
A Man Sent From God Ad
the understanding that he would return after one year in Europe.
Increasingly, however, it had become clear to him that such an
early return would be impossible in view of the mounting respon-
sibilities. Members of his congregation urged him to come back,
and he himself felt keenly the tug of personal and pastoral ties.
But the crying needs of the present and the great expectations
he held for world Lutheranism in the future compelled him to
stay at his post. From his natural, inner self, wrote Dr. Michel-
lel
felder, came the word, “Go back to Toledo, where things are well
organized, to the congregation which is a preacher's dream, leave
the inconveniences, the difficulties and the worries and the heart-
aches and the rubble and the broken lives of Europe, and return
to your congregation in Toledo,” But his soul answered, “You must
obey God rather than man.”
en
To his congregation he wrote the decisive letter on January 14,
eer ae
1946. “My call to duty seems clear. I have wrestled for weeks
with my conscience and I have finally surrendered to what has be-
wee 4B
come increasingly clear as a call from God to serve Him in this
important capacity in Europe. I feel that under the providence of
God the Lutheran Church has been called upon to do a great
work in the reconstruction of that which has been destroyed.” This
-
«-—--—.)
work, which he felt with deepest conviction might be the “last
chance” of the church, he was willing to undertake in what he,
at the age of fifty-six, was pleased to call “the greatest challenge
—_
of my life.”
It is quite significant that this decision of Michelfelder was
made within the framework of the ecumenical movement. Twenty-
seven years earlier, when American Lutheran commissioners came
to Europe for their postwar survey, there was no ecumenical
center to which they could relate their relief efforts. This time,
although it was certainly not geared for such a service, there was
a “World Council in process of formation,” and it was with the
Reconstruction Department of this new organization in Geneva in
1945 that Drs. Long, Bersell, and Meyer had made the agreement
to coordinate the relief efforts of the Lutherans of America. Euro-
pean Lutherans such as Bishop Séderblom had long been leaders
in the growing ecumenical movement, and even the small “con-

tinuation staff” set up by Dr. Visser tHooft in Geneva had in-
cluded two Lutherans, Dr. Nils Ehrenstrom and Dr. Hans Schén-
feld, in the Study Department. But prior to this agreement in 1945
in Geneva there had been very limited official connections be-
tween the World Council movement and traditionally conservative
American Lutheranism, Dr. Michelfelder’s appointment to serve
as European Commissioner, with offices in the Department of Re-
construction, implemented this agreement, and in due course at
least partially determined the location of the future headquarters
of the Lutheran World Federation. Although other considerations
were also important, the fact that Dr. Michelfelder was already
located in his office in the “gate house” at 17 Route de Malagnou
Neer
as Material Aid Director for the World Council made the final
enna
decision much easier.

The close relation of the Lutheran World Federation to the
World Council of Churches has been symbolized very well by
their life together on the same campus ever since 1947. From
the beginning there has been the closest cooperation and a strong
Lutheran support of the World Council program, both financially
and otherwise. But in keeping with their conviction that only as
representatives of their own theological tradition could they make
their best contribution to the ecumenical movement, the Lutheran
churches have in addition maintained a separate organization to
strengthen and to serve their own confessional family.
Dr. Michelfelder’s own deep personal involvement in ecumenical
obligations is reflected in the letter which he wrote to the president
of St. Paul’s Congregation explaining his decision to remain in
Europe. Although his mounting responsibilities as Commissioner of
the American Section of the Lutheran World Convention, partic-
ularly in view of the ten-million-dollar appeal which was being
undertaken by the Lutherans in the United States, might well have
been the decisive factor for him, he laid primary stress upon the
urgency of his tasks as Director of the new Division of Material
Aid which he had been asked to organize for the World Council.
The other great assignment which had been laid upon him in
connection with the reorganization of the Lutheran World Con-

vention would subsequently dominate both his time and _ his
thought, but in January, 1946, he had not yet been officially named
Executive Secretary, nor had any decision been made concerning
a world Lutheran assembly.
Meanwhile, with the blessing of the American Section, which
agreed to share his services with the World Council, Michelfelder
moved with zest and vigor further into his overwhelming task of
administering material relief. Both his own enthusiasm and some-
thing of the complexity of the operation he was conducting were
reflected in a letter he wrote in early April:
J am buying $5000 worth of wheat and flax seed for Hungary, for
sowing immediately, I hope to find it in Switzerland. I have had a tele-
phone offer of 500 tons of sugar—think of it!—in a country which is short
of sugar. I have also had an offer of 50 tons of honey from South Amer-
ica. . . . I am preparing a cargo of stuff—including material aid and
textbooks—for Roumania, together with a truck, which will be shipped
by sea from Marseilles to Constanza. Dr. Cockburn just handed me a
letter from the “Institute of Orthodox Theology” in Paris, asking for the
purchase of about one thousand dollars worth of furniture, including
beds, chairs, and tables. So, you see, we get theology and furniture all
mixed up in the same letter.
Additional staff obviously had to be recruited, and in early 1946

this was no easy matter. But by March 1, Michelfelder wrote that
he could “begin to see over the top.” He had secured an adminis-
trative secretary, a traffic manager to direct the huge warehouse,
a personal secretary to handle Lutheran World Convention affairs,
and by early April a business manager to relieve him of office
details,
Not only was it necessary to have a smoothly operating clearing
house for material relief in Europe, but also close personal liaison
had to be maintained with both contributing and receiving coun-
tries and churches, and with other relief agencies, both govern-
mental and private. Such trips in Europe in 1946 were strenuous
but absolutely essential to intelligent service and of incalculable im-
portance in the strengthening of interchurch ties. Michelfelder told
eS
of returning from one such mission to Sweden, feeling weary and

out-of-sorts. But when he learned that 84-year-old Dr. John R.
Mott had just completed a three-weeks tour of England, Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, and Germany, he felt ashamed
of himself “for even looking woofed.”
PREPARING FOR LUND

iii eee
One of the additional supports given during these months by the

American Section of the Lutheran World Convention was the
appointment of Rev, Clifford Ansgar Nelson, pastor of Gloria
Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, as special commis-
sioner to assist Michelfelder by making visitation trips into Poland,
Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria. Michelfelder hailed Nel-
son’s acceptance of this six-month assignment as the “rising of the
sun on a new day.” Not only was he delighted at the prospect of
some assistance in the overwhelming tasks which he faced, but he
regarded the appointment as an official recognition on the part of
the American Lutherans of their responsibility to do more than
as
collect money and supplies and send them to stricken peoples and
Ss eer Riser
churches. The most effective kind of interchurch aid, he felt, was

that which was channeled through living personalities. Only in
=a
this way could the church outgrow its isolationism, deepen its
spiritual life, and increase its vitality.
ES
That Nelson shared Michelfelder’s sense of urgency was shown

in his readiness to take leave of his congregation even in the midst
of a Lenten season. The flaming dawn which was breaking over
Europe as his plane approached Geneva on the Saturday before
Easter reminded him that this broken continent was “in His hands
who once made a resurrection day after the tragedy of Good
Friday.”
After a few days of orientation in Geneva, the new commissioner
left for Prague on the first of a series of extremely significant visita-
tions in Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, and Austria. On the basis of
these surveys the American Section was able to direct its earliest
measures of interchurch aid in eastern and central Europe. In the
400,000-member Slovakian Lutheran Church were ample evidences
—
of physical destruction and human suffering—entire villages de-
stroyed and churches in shambles—but even more important than
physical relief to these people was the visible assurance given by
a personal visit that there were Lutherans elsewhere in the world
who prayed for them and remembered them as brothers in the
faith. From Bratislava Nelson wrote to Dr. Fry, “I think I know
now for sure why I am here, and I shall pursue my vocation to
the best of my ability.” From his facile pen flowed a steady stream
of letters and reports and articles, many of which found their way
into church papers in both Sweden and the United States and
gave added impulse to the rising will to help among the Lutherans
of these lands.
No sooner had he returned from Czecho-Slovakia than he hur-
ried north to Germany where he and Dr. Michelfelder made the
first survey of camps for Baltic refugees under the jurisdiction of
the United Nations, on the basis of which the Lutheran World
Federation’s program of spiritual ministry to “Displaced Persons”
was to be undertaken.
In the cathedral city of Uppsala, Sweden, the long-delayed meet-
ing of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion finally was convened on the 28rd of July by Archbishop Erling
Eidem, Acting President. In one sense this meeting expressed a
continuity of organization now to be resumed after an unhappy
six-year interlude of war. It was in this spirit that the suggestion
was made to adopt the same theme for the next world assembly
as had been planned for the ill-starred Philadelphia Convention
of 1940: “The Lutheran Church in the World Today.”
But as Dr. Michelfelder pointed out, even if the same theme
were to be adopted, “today’s world” was quite different from that
of 1940, and the men who would meet to discuss that theme
would also be different men. In this sense the Uppsala meeting
represented a new beginning. In keeping with this viewpoint, a
completely new constitution was proposed, and a new name as
well, The name “Convention” had carried the implication of peri-
odic assemblies rather than that of an on-going program. Much
more desirable would be a name suggesting a closer fellowship

of churches, engaged in a program of mutual strengthening and
assistance.
The committee’s selection of the name Lutheran World Federa-
tion represented an unspoken tribute to Dr. John A. Morehead,
who twenty-seven years earlier had sensed the need among the Lu-
therans of the world for just such a fellowship of faith and had
recommended to his American colleagues the creation of an organi-
zation bearing precisely that name. It, was, moreover, entirely
appropriate that the committee named as its Executive Secretary
Dr. S. C. Michelfelder, the man whose character and activity had
already made him the World War II counterpart of Dr. Morehead.
On his shoulders the Executive Committee laid the responsibility
for the planning of the First World Assembly of the Lutheran
World Federation, which at the invitation of the newly-elected
President, Archbishop Eidem, would be held at Lund, Sweden,
from June 30 to July 6, 1947.
Of the four German members of the Executive Committee, only
Bishop Meiser of Bavaria was able to be present at Uppsala, and
he arrived only in time for the closing session. Dr. Ihmels and
Dr. Sommerlath of Leipzig were both detained and arrived in
Stockholm after the meetings were over. One of the most dramatic
moments of the entire meeting occurred, however, as Bishop Meiser
entered the room and was greeted by Archbishop Eidem. Re-
sponding to Meiser’s moving acknowledgment of the guilt of his
people in the tragedy of the past years and his joy at being received
again into the family of fellow believers, the archbishop replied
that in our Christian faith we have learned that “nothing can
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
In its official message to the Lutheran churches of the world, the
Executive Committee acknowledged the sufferings and terrors of
the past war as the judgment of God upon a whole generation
which had turned its back upon Him, “None of us can stand aside
as though he were not a part of it. Its sin and need are our sin
and need.” But, as people and as churches under the judgment of
God, we have been granted the grace “to be members in Christ,
~
and to share in His life” and in His love. Holding fast to “Him
who is the Head,” the Lutheran churches of the world must pro-
claim the Gospel vigorously to a world which has been alienated
from God and submerged in suffering. In merciful love they must
“undergird one another with spiritual and material aid.” The mo-
tivation to closer fellowship among Lutherans in the world is the
need for mutual strengthening in the task of bringing the Gospel
in word and deed to a world under the judgment of God.
MORE MEN IN THE FIELD

Not quite one year was to elapse before the World Assembly
planned by the Executive Committee would take place in Lund.
These were to be months in which the message from Uppsala
would be documented in dramatic form. Evidences of the judgment
of God upon the people of the world were often clearer in the
aftermath of the war than in the war itself. Though no more bombs
were falling, there were millions of homeless people wandering
through gutted cities and along frozen country roads. Under-
nourishment and exposure snuffed out the lives of thousands dur-
ing that bitterest of bitter winters, 1946-1947. Wives sought their
husbands, and children their parents, in a thousand hopeless and
forbidding camps. Spiritual hunger vied with physical hunger,
and the shattered churches of Europe tried to minister to both.
But into this darkness the love of God had begun to shine,
through the acts of compassion and mercy from Christians all
over the world. After a brief furlough in the United States, which
he filled to capacity with speaking engagements in support of his
church’s great ten-million-dollar appeal, Dr. Michelfelder returned
to Geneva, and from his central location there continued to coordi-
nate both the material aid program for the World Council of
Churches and the flow of money for church reconstruction which
came in increasing amount from the Lutherans of America. Only
by increasing his staff of assistants could he possibly manage both
of these great tasks, and in addition direct the preparations for the
Lund Assembly.
Clifford Nelson continued to perform valuable services among

the churches of eastern Europe, and immediately following the
Uppsala meeting made the first of several visits into Poland. Among
the Lutherans of Mazuria in the former Polish Corridor he found
such hunger and such physical and spiritual devastation as he
had found nowhere else in Europe. In Warsaw, “the most de-
stroyed city of Europe,” where 700,000 had died and 85 per cent
of the housing had been reduced to rubble, he found “no begin-
ning and no end to the ruins.” The main street, “Jerosalimska,”
reminded him of a “wild west” scene, with its sidewalk shops and
its street-hawkers dispensing tobacco, jewelry, and household goods,
in the hope of securing a little money for the exorbitantly high-
priced food. In the shattered shell of Trinity Church, once able
to accommodate five thousand worshippers, he knelt on the bare
earth with Bishop Szeruda and his congregation for communion,
and wondered if the unsmiling faces about him would ever be
brightened again.
In Poland Nelson came in contact with one portion of the ex-
tensive and varied relief efforts of the Lutheran people of Sweden
in the person of Pastor Daniel Cederberg, treasurer of the Swedish
Section of the Lutheran World Convention. As a former sea-
men’s pastor in Gdynia, Cederberg knew the Polish situation well,
and was engaged in making a survey of need on which to base
recommendations for material assistance from his Swedish com-
mittee. Long before the Lutheran World Federation undertook its
program of aid to the Baltic Lutherans in Germany, the Swedish
church had extended the warm hand of welcome to thousands of
Estonian Lutherans who had sought refuge in Sweden, and had
given financial assistance to Estonian pastors,
Swedish shipments of food had been among the first to enter
British-occupied Germany in 1945. The channels through which
assistance flowed from Sweden to the areas of need in Europe were
so diverse that it is difficult to measure the volume accurately.
Total gifts, however, compared proportionately very favorably with
those which came from American Lutherans during the years of
greatest need. Nelson’s close associations with the Swedish church
el
during these next few months led him to feel strongly the need for
greater coordination with their committees in the planning of inter-
church aid and material relief programs for Europe. Both this pur-
—e———S
pose and that of assisting in the preparations for the World Assem-
bly he felt could well be served by the stationing of a Lutheran
World Federation representative in Sweden.
Early in November, 1946, Dr. Clifford Nelson, recently honored
by the Slovakian University of Bratislava with an honorary doc-
torate, returned to the United States on furlough. His six-month
term in Europe had been packed with extremely strenuous travel
and visitation in the eastern countries, and with vivid and often
heart-rending personal confrontations of human suffering and
need. He had just agreed to return to Geneva in February as a
permanent member of the staff and had submitted his resignation -
to his congregation in St. Paul, when he collapsed during a ‘Christ-
mas communion service in his own church. Medical advisers diag-
nosed his ailment as “battle fatigue” and, to his great disappoint-
ment, advised strongly against his return to Europe. In a very real
sense Dr. Nelson had become a casualty of the terrific struggle of
soul and body in the church of postwar Europe.
Meanwhile, other American representatives had arrived in Eu-
rope to assist Michelfelder. Professor Julius Bodensieck, president
of Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, arrived in
time to attend the Uppsala meeting before taking over his duties as
Commissioner to Germany for the American Section of the Lutheran
World Convention. From the time of his arrival until his final de-
parture from Germany in 1953, few Americans have enjoyed such
wholehearted confidence or been so beloved by the German church
as he. His wife, too, quickly became associated in her own right with
assistance to Displaced Persons, and went on to serve in several
other capacities in Germany as well. During the course of 1946
three American Lutheran CRALOG representatives came to Ger-
many to supervise the distribution of food and clothing shipments
of Lutheran World Relief. These men, though not in the strictest
sense attached to Dr. Michelfelder’s office, were instructed to advise
with him concerning the disposition of their supplies and to make
eon
whatever contacts with the German Lutheran churches their relief

activities would permit.
Since the CRALOG men were officially attached to the Military
Government in Germany, such direct contacts were at first restrict-
ed by the non-fraternization regulations of the Army. By early
1947 these barriers were removed, and it was one of these repre-
sentatives, Dr. John Scherzer, then stationed in Munich, who ac-
companied the German delegation to the Lund Assembly, and to-
gether with Professor Theodore Tappert facilitated for them what
might otherwise have been difficult currency and travel arrange-
ments.
THE LUND ASSEMBLY

Following the Second World War a little more than two years
were required to lay new groundwork and bring representatives
together for the First World Assembly of the Lutheran World Fed-
eration. As in 1919-23 the initiative was provided by the Lutheran
leaders of the United States, whose role as bearers of assistance to
their stricken brethren of Europe thrust them into a position of
leadership. The only other Lutheran church which might have
taken the lead was that of Sweden, which also played a leading
role as a bearer of gifts. It was hindered, however, by political
tensions within Scandinavia and by the broad ecumenical con-
sciousness fostered in Sweden under Nathan Sdéderblom’s leadership,
which inclined some Swedish Lutherans toward ecumenical rather
than primarily confessional loyalty. Anglican influence in Scandi-
navia after the war was also very strong, as dramatized by the
London presentation of the Lambeth Cross to Bishop Berggrav of
Norway by the Archbishop of Canterbury in October, 1945.
For these reasons, and because of the general tenseness toward
the Germans after the war, the gathering of 184 delegates from
22 different countries for a World Lutheran Assembly on June 30,
1947, was an occasion for special rejoicing and for humble grati-
tude to God. One could scarcely imagine a more appropriate word
of Scripture under which to assemble at that moment in history
than that which Archbishop Eidem selected from the Letter to the
Colossians as his text at the opening communion service in the
Lund Cathedral:
“Put on, therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of
compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbear-
ing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a com-
plaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye:
and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of per-
fectness. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the
which also ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful.”
As had been demonstrated in the decades following World War
I, the mere coming together of Lutherans did not produce unity,
nor did it convince everyone of the desirability of a continuing
organization. There was therefore ample reason for Dr. Ralph
Long, the Executive Director of the National Lutheran Council in
New York, to deliver an eloquent keynote address on “The Place
of the Lutheran World Federation in the World Today.”
Pointing out that the Federation was to be a “free association of
Lutheran churches,” with the same doctrinal basis as that adopted
at Eisenach in 1923, Dr. Long based his address upon the purposes
of the Federation as set forth in the proposed new Constitution:
“To bear united witness before the world to the gospel of Jesus Christ
as the power of God for salvation.”
“To cultivate unity of faith and confession among Lutheran churches
of the world.”
—@ +
“To promote fellowship and cooperation in study among Lutherans.”
“To foster Lutheran Eee in ecumenical movements.”
“To develop a united Lutheran approach to responsibilities in mis-
sions and education.”
“To support Lutheran groups in need of spiritual or material aid.”
“The primary task of the Lutheran Church today,” said Dr. Long,
“is to arise and to stand united as brethren of a common faith” to
meet the issues of the hour heroically. “Because Lutherans need
each other so desperately, it is imperative that an organization such
as the Lutheran World Federation be created and supported.”
Something of the complexity of the tasks to be faced was sug-
gested in the breakdown of the somewhat prosaic general theme

of the Assembly: “The Lutheran Church in the World Today.” The
first section of delegates concentrated on the theological aspects
of the theme, discussing the need of “confessing the Truth in a
confused world.” Section Two viewed the Lutheran church “per-
forming her mission in a devastated world” through evangelism,
missions, stewardship, and interchurch aid. The third section cen-
tered its work about “Facing the Problems in a Troubled World,”
and singled out the struggle for human freedom and international]
understanding, and the practical problem of the refugee.
Over the entire Assembly brooded a sense of sober urgency. The
atmosphere of the cathedral city of Lund was peaceful and quiet,
but every delegate was aware of what terrible spiritual and physical
devastation lay just beyond the horizon. In a very real sense the
Christian faith was on trial, and countless thousands in rags and
tatters were judge and jury. “The enemy does not rest,” warned
Lajos Ordass, Lutheran Bishop of Budapest. “He is always at work
... and how eagerly he works.” But at the command of the Lord
of the Church, every Christian must also work. By the grace of God
“man can have a new beginning.” “Tell it to all your co-laborers
who begin to despair, Let us declare it here and now. It is a bright
day which God gives us, and . . . ‘We must work while it is day.’”
Not all of the problems of a troubled world could be affected
by the resolutions of the Lund Assembly. But one of them,
that of the wanderer on the face of the earth, was frighteningly
accessible. The report of Section Three showed that the brooding
urgency of the hour was not to be pent up or stifled. At its sugges-
tion the delegates approved a series of statements which gave dis-
tinction to the Lund Assembly far beyond its historic character as
the First World Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation.
“Moved by the grave material and spiritual distress in which more
than 40 million homeless and displaced persons and refugees find
themselves at the present time,” the Federation expressed its desire
to take all possible steps in cooperation with ecumenical and inter-
national relief organizations to alleviate the suffering of these dis-
placed persons.
Not only were the member churches urged to petition their re-
spective governments to aid refugees without regard to origin,
language, nationality, or status, but the officers of the Federation
were requested to intercede with those governments and with the
United Nations. Even more significantly, the churches themselves
were urged to fulfill their own responsibility toward these people
by prayer and by generous giving to support programs of material
and spiritual aid. The Executive Committee of the Lutheran World
Federation was also asked to devise emigration and resettlement
plans for Lutheran refugees and to safeguard the religious life of
Lutheran displaced persons. Thus in the Assembly at Lund was
born the widespread program of Services to Refugees, which in the
years that followed brought new hope and new homes to thousands
of Lutheran exiles.
Having elected Professor Anders Nygren of Lund as the first
president of the Lutheran World Federation and Dr. §. C. Michel-
felder as its first executive secretary, the Lund Assembly closed on
July 6 with greetings to Christian congregations and assemblies in
all the world. Its message spoke gratefully of the achievement of
a federation of forty-six Lutheran churches in twenty-six countries.
“Based on solid scriptural foundations, it has been formed in
Christian faith and love.” Yet it was not established with any pre-
tention of providing an easy remedy for the ills of the world. It
grew out of the desire for a unified witness and a better medium
for Lutheran cooperation and mutual assistance. In a broken world,
fellow-believers had been summoned to a community of suffering,
but also a fellowship of blessing.
CHAPTER THREE
The Caspel
of the Inasmuch
With the signing of the new constitution at Lund, the second

chapter of the modern experiment in Lutheran world unity opened.
After auspicious beginnings at Eisenach in 1923, the Lutheran
World Convention had fallen victim to ecclesiastical conservatism,
economic depression, and war. But the impulse to help brethren
in need had not been lost, and when the cry for help was raised
again, Lutherans in all parts of the world responded. Once more
this outreach of love resulted in the forming of a world organiza-
tion, through which the churches could more effectively deal with
immediate and overwhelming needs, and also give permanence to
the brotherly ties established in the process.
The Lutheran World Convention had been established just as
the period of acute need following the first World War was coming
to an end. The Federation had the advantage of having been
founded virtually at the beginning of such a period of need.
Through its relief and reconstruction activities it became identified
in the minds of both giving and receiving churches as an effectively
functioning organization. The decisions of the delegates to the
World Assembly at Hannover in 1952 represented a vote of confi-
dence in an organization which in five years of testing had dem-
onstrated its ability to carry the emergency responsibilities thrust
54
—
eee
The Gospel of the Inasmuch 55
ne
upon it and thus to strengthen the witness of the Lutheran church
_
—_>
in the world.
In these first years, programs of concrete assistance were far
oem
more important than study programs in winning support for the
idea of a continuing Federation. Assistance was of three general
types: material aid to relieve acute physical want; the reconstruc-
tion of church properties and the strengthening of the inner life
of the churches; and the special ministry to the refugee, including
resettlement.
The story of Lutheran participation in these three great emer-
gency missions is a dramatic one, filled with both light and shadow.
Never in the history of the Christian church has there been such
an overwhelming and sustained outpouring of gifts for the relief
of suffering as this. Thousands of human lives have been saved, and
churches have been encouraged and strengthened to carry on their
Christian witness under what otherwise would have been insuper-
able difficulties. Most of this giving has been done by people who
have had little if any personal acquaintance with the recipients of
their gifts. A great portion of the giving has been directed to peo-
ple of countries which not long before had been regarded as ene-
mies, Lutherans of Norway and Denmark have actually brought
gifts to their erstwhile occupiers. Congregations postponed their
own urgently needed expansion programs in order to divert funds
to the reconstruction of church properties they had not even heard
of before. Communities busied themselves to find homes and em-
ployment for refugees from virtually unknown lands who spoke
languages they could not understand.
What motivated the members of Christian congregations in Can-
ada and Australia, in Scandinavia and America, to share their
homes and their means with these people in far-distant lands? Did
they simply give of their surplus, without much cost to themselves?
The stereotype of America as the land of millionaires, false in itself,
was certainly not applicable to the people of the church. Nor did
the thousands of women in Sweden, who came together weekly in
groups to sew baby clothes for the needy children of Germany,
give of their wealth, Only those who themselves have packed boxes
of clothing or food and accompanied them with postage and prayer

across the seas fully understand the amount of planning and time
and effort that have been expended in such a ministry of love.
When one realizes that in one month in 1953 the West German
post office counted 2,500,000 individual parcels being sent to the
eastern provinces from West Germany alone, it becomes clear that
the volume of such private giving on an international scale over a
period of ten years must have been astronomical. No statistics on
this phase of postwar aid will ever be assembled. But it is thereby
at least made clear that the callousness and brutality of war are
not able to crush the good impulses in men to share with those
in need,
When this period of sharing began, the Lutheran churches of the
world knew very little about one another. Well-organized cam-
paigns to bring information concerning the needs of the people
and the churches were undertaken, and while not all the giving
that resulted was “informed giving,” there is no doubt that in the
process genuine bonds of understanding and brotherhood were
forged. This was not simply a humanitarian appeal, but an appeal
in the name of Christ to share the blessings which God had en-
trusted. A triple blessing thus resulted: needs were fulfilled; Chris-
tian stewardship was developed; and the bond of faith between
churches and between Christians was strengthened and enriched.
This was the intention of the World Assembly at Lund, when it
summoned Lutherans around the world to accept the responsibili-
ties of a “community of suffering” and a “fellowship in blessing.”
Such an ideal was not easily reached, even in the area of material
relief where the apostolic injunction could be literally applied: “Tf
thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink.”
Even some Christians, in the tense days following the capitulation
of Germany, felt that repentance ought to precede relief. Most peo-
ple, however, felt that the task of administering physical aid to
prostrate Europe was so overwhelming that only an international
organization of the scope of the United Nations Relief and Rehabil-
itation Administration could possibly handle it. Designed originally
to bring help to areas and peoples liberated by the Allied nations,
The Gospel of the Inasmuch o7
UNRRA had been set up on November 9, 1948, through a 44-na-
tion agreement, more than a year before the formal organization
of the United Nations at San Francisco in 1945. Financed by contri-
butions from member nations in the amount of one percent of their
national incomes, this huge organization poured literally hundreds
of millions of dollars into liberated areas during its four years of
existence, |
A real problem arose when it became clear that none of this
vast amount of money would be available for the relief of suffer-
ing people within Germany or any of the nations associated with
oe
her, including Finland. Moreover, as previously mentioned, the
Morgenthau policy toward conquered Germany—never officially
adopted, but actually followed for many months—was so vengeful
that near-starvation of even the civilian population in the American
Zone was not only tolerated but insisted upon. This became espe-
cially critical when millions of expellees crowded into the Russian
Zone of Germany and began to spill over into the western zones in
late 1945 following the Potsdam Agreement. Only after an aroused
public opinion exerted heavy pressure upon the United States Goy-
ernment were private agencies permitted to send relief goods into
these critical areas.
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF CROSSES

THE OCEAN
Among Lutherans in the United States the first organized effort
to gather supplies for eventual shipment to areas ineligible for
UNRRA aid came in October, 1945, with the organization of Lu-
theran World Relief. To permit freer movement in the purchasing
and shipping of goods and in dealings with the Government, Lu-
theran World Relief was incorporated as an agency separate from
the National Lutheran Council. Its first officers were Dr. Franklin
Clark Fry, chairman; Dr. Ralph Long, secretary; and Mr. S. Fred-
erick Telleen, treasurer. As Executive Secretary of the Division of
Welfare of the National Lutheran Council, Dr. Clarence E. Krumb-
holz assumed administrative responsibility and secured as admin-
istrative assistant a young man named Luther Kirsch. No sooner

was the corporation registered with the President’s War Relief Con-
trol Board and authorized to operate in Europe than gifts from
Lutheran congregations in the United States and Canada began
to arrive. To store these items and to prepare them for shipment, a
warehouse was hurriedly secured at Easton, Pennsylvania, and de-
tailed shipping instructions were sent to every pastor of the Na-
tional Lutheran Council, In February, 1946, the first shipments of
clothing left the United States bound for Finland and Holland.
Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Germany were added to
the list in succeeding weeks.
Lutheran World Relief was recognized from the beginning as
the official agency of the National Lutheran Council for the han-
dling of material relief, and was therefore able to coordinate its
appeals to the churches with the regular Lutheran World Action
appeals of the Council. The organized effort to secure a change
in official government policy toward Germany, in which Lutheran
World Relief participated, also served to dramatize the need for
material relief in Europe. The result was that within the first six
months of 1946 more than 2,500,000 pounds of food and clothing
were gathered and shipped. These first shipments included two tons
of supplies gathered by Lutherans in the Hawaiian Islands and
shipped 5,000 miles to the warehouse in Easton for processing and
baling.
When the United States Government finally opened the way for
private relief goods to enter the American Zone of Germany, it
called upon the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for For-
eign Service to form a special organization of agencies licensed for
this service. This new agency, the Council of Relief Agencies Li-
censed to Operate in Germany, was to be the official channel for
negotiations with the United States Government both in this coun-
try and overseas. CRALOG, as it was popularly known, was allo-
cated military space and tonnage on ships bound for Germany,
and in turn allocated the space to the various accredited agencies.
The larger agencies were also authorized to have a certain num-
ber of official CRALOG representatives stationed in Germany for
the purpose of supervising the handling and distribution of ship-
ments. These men were accredited to the military government au-
thorities in Berlin and accorded full logistic support by the United
States Army, although their salaries were paid by their home or-
ganizations. By November, 1946, Lutheran World Relief had men
in each of the three western zones of Germany. The Reverend Car]
Schaffnit had been in Munich in the American Zone since April,
1946, but was about to undertake a new assignment, ministering
to the Lutheran refugees in the DP camps. He was replaced by
the Reverend John Scherzer of San Antonio, Texas. The Reverend
Frank Brown, former army chaplain, was located in Bremen for
the British Zone, and the Reverend Dr. Owen J. C. Norem, former
United States Minister to Lithuania, was at Baden-Baden in the
French Zone.
Before these men left the United States, they were given specific
instructions containing basic policies of relief distribution. The men
were to be first of all official representatives of Lutheran World
Relief, supervising the distribution of goods shipped to Germany
and reporting periodically on the needs as they observed them. As
CRALOG representatives they were to maintain close liaison with
the Evangelical Hilfswerk, the relief agency of the German Protes-
tant churches, which was to distribute the supplies within Germany.
American Lutherans thus considered the sending of such material
relief as a type of interchurch aid. It was never their intent to carry
out an independent relief operation within the territory of a church,
but rather to work through the existing church channels, thereby
strengthening the church in the performance of its own responsi-
bilities. On behalf of both the provincial and the free churches of
Germany the Evangelical Hilfswerk performed this emergency
ministry of material relief in an admirable way.
The Lutheran World Relief representatives had no formal man-
date to the churches of Germany, but they were encouraged to
contact church officials and institutions to assure them of the broth-

erly interest of American Lutherans and to interpret to them the
motivations behind American giving. They were also instructed to
establish close relations with Dr. Michelfelder, the chief European
Commissioner of the American Section of the Lutheran World
Convention, whose work as material aid director for the World
Council of Churches gave him a broad view of the relief needs of
the entire European continent.
The CRALOG men were among the first field representatives of
the American Lutheran churches in Germany after the war. The
experience of one of these men, the Reverend John Scherzer, sta-
tioned in Munich from November, 1946, to November, 1947, is
fairly typical of them all. Even the assistance of the United States
Army could not always simplify travel and communication in these
early months. When Scherzer stepped off his commercial plane in
London, it was left largely to his own ingenuity to complete his
journey to Frankfurt and Berlin. He virtually hitchhiked his way
—
to Frankfurt on a military plane and secured overnight accommo-

dations in the American Press Center there by showing a copy of
OE
the Lutheran Standard which he happened to have in his suitcase.

Only then was he able to make telephone contact with the Military
.
Government Headquarters in Berlin where he was expected to

report, As he walked from the Rhine-Main Airport, for lack of bus
transportation, a German civilian offered to help him carry his two
heavy suitcases and his brief case into Frankfurt. After walking
some distance with the heavy burden, the man stopped to take off
his overcoat. Scherzer noted in the lining of the coat the label: San
AA
Antonio, Texas, the city from which he had just come. Lutheran
A ELL
World Relief, it would appear, had already laid down some direct
LC I
lines!
Having secured his proper credentials in Berlin, Scherzer trav-
eled to Munich in southern Germany. His first report to Dr, Krumb-
ee ge
holz, following a field trip to Niirnberg, left no doubt either of the

need or the importance of the relief operation he had undertaken.
el
“Life is precariously balanced continually on the brink of a crisis,”
he wrote. “A 1500 or 1600 calorie diet is insufficient, and yet that
is the best standard.” Sometimes even that standard was maintained
only on paper. “Please shout it to the churches,” he pleaded. “Rolled
oats, corn meal, flour of all kinds, powdered milk and eggs, any
such staple items that are without frills and fancy are needed in
quantity.”
Clothing, too, was needed desperately. Most people he met were
wearing the only clothes they possessed, with sleeves and elbows
frayed and mended. Charitable institutions of the Inner Mission
did what they could to cope with the problem, but the never-ending
stream of refugees and returning prisoners of war from the East
almost overwhelmed them. Of all the misery he saw, wrote Scher-
zer, these returning prisoners were “the sorriest sight on God’s
earth.” More than half of them returned as human derelicts, walk-
ing like haunted ghosts. Some of them found their families again;
others were not so fortunate. In either event, said Scherzer, “their
suffering is unfathomed.,”
The plight of the youth weighed especially heavily upon his
mind, and he repeatedly urged upon the churches of America some
effort to strengthen the Youth Department of the German church
and help them set up a program of occupational training. “We need
equipment,” he pleaded, “. . . leather, nails, raw cotton, and raw
wool. Hilfswerk could use a hundred bales of raw cotton, and that
would do more to provide infant clothing and hospital bedding than
anything else.” This would save money for everyone and would also
give the demoralized German youth something to do.
These same young people, and thousands of children besides,
were desperately in need of supplementary food rations. Through
CRALOG the Hilfswerk was given thousands of pounds of food
to enrich the diet at summer camps operated by the church and by
the YMCA. The American Section of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion allocated $235,000 of its $500,000 child-feeding program to
Germany, and CRALOG representatives assisted in the distribu-
tion of these supplies in Berlin and throughout western Germany.

Even theological books and clerical robes for the destitute pas-
tors were shipped in and distributed as soon as the list of items
permitted to enter Germany under the CRALOG agreement was
expanded to include cultural, religious, and recreational supplies.
Had it not been for the World Council of Churches and the Ameri-
can churches, wrote Scherzer, the desolation would have been
greater than anything actually experienced. “The love which has
come with the voluntary relief goods from the churches has satis-
i
fied a hunger which bread alone cannot still.” “If, by the grace of
God,” it were possible to “keep up this race between despair and
hope for the next few months,” a major victory would be won.
The services rendered by these early ambassadors of Christian
love and good will are difficult to overestimate. They came to Ger-
many under an official mandate to distribute their bounties on the
basis of greatest need, without regard to race or color or creed. But
because they came in this spirit, ways were also opened to them to
serve their own Lutheran church. Scherzer established contact almost
immediately with Bishop Meiser of the Bavarian Lutheran Church
and was able to assist him and his church in many ways. As he
became acquainted within church circles during the course of the
year, he was asked to preach in the churches, and thus for entire
congregations became the embodiment of the brotherly Christian
concern with which they were being surrounded by their fellow
Lutherans across the seas. He preached four times in Niirnberg on
a single Sunday, and on New Year’s Eve more than 2500 people
gathered by the light of a single light bulb in the shattered Church
of St. Lawrence to listen to him explain the workings of the program
of Lutheran World Relief.
Beginning with Carl Schaffnit, a long series of CRALOG repre-
sentatives administered programs of material relief and interchurch
aid among the churches of Germany. Earl Rogers came to Munich
after Scherzer returned to his congregation in San Antonio. When
Dr. Norem moved to Berlin in 1948, Dr. N. M. Ylvisaker succeeded
him in Baden-Baden. John Deutschlander and Justine Bodensieck
also served CRALOG in Berlin. Carl Yeager succeeded Frank
Brown in Hannover, and was in turn replaced by Carl Mau who,
at the time of his return to the United States in March, 1957, was
serving as Field Director of all CRALOG operations in Germany.
Since its first shipment in May, 1946, through December, 1956, Lu-
theran World Relief sent a total of 119,600,639 pounds of relief
supplies to Germany, with a value of $37,602,176.
“NAKED AND YE CLOTHED ME”

The fact that more than $22,000,000 of this ten-year total repre-
sents direct contributions from members of Lutheran congregations
reflects the seriousness with which individual Christians in the
United States received the appeals of men such as Dr. Michelfel-
der and Dr. Scherzer. It also reflects some imaginative and deter-
mined planning and organization on the part of Lutheran leader-
ship in America. Since 1946 a great part of this responsibility for
Lutheran World Relief has been carried by Bernard A. Confer, a
Lutheran layman who brought with him into the program both
public welfare experience and a mature understanding of the prin-
ciples of Christian stewardship.
Taking its cue from the clothing appeals which were so success-
fully carried out in the years following World War I, Lutheran
World Relief depended from the beginning primarily upon the
initiative of local congregations and their pastors for the gathering
of supplies. Publicity was coordinated with that prepared by the
National Lutheran Council for its Lutheran World Action appeals
under the direction of Dr. Paul Empie. This meant that specially
edited and prepared brochures, bulletins, and films, including in-
formation concerning the needs for food and clothing, were made
available to every pastor of the Council. Pastors in turn recruited
the cooperation of organizations within their congregations. As
new ideas for local drives were developed, Lutheran World Relief
passed them on through the monthly Lutheran World Action Bul-
letin to Lutheran congregations all over the United States. Women’s
groups prepared baby layettes; children assembled “Kiddies’ Kits,”
containing crayons and writing materials, soap, toothpaste, and
chocolate; one Luther League gathered 425 articles of clothing in

_a “scavenger hunt” in one evening. Lutheran student groups all
over the country announced their readiness to do the necessary
“leg work” to gather up clothing in the congregations near their
campuses. A Michigan pastor reported success in visiting a dry
cleaning establishment to ask for the donation of unclaimed dresses
and suits.
When in spite of these ingenious devices the supply of goods in
the warehouse seemed to be dipping too low in the face of the
approaching winter, Lutheran World Relief announced its first
nationwide Clothing Appeal during Thanksgiving week, November
20 to 27, 1949. “Fill a boxcar,” became the rallying cry of the cam-
paign, and the response was thrilling. From a Gettysburg, Pennsyl-
vania, pastor came the good news that he had had to engage two
trucks to transport clothing which was still coming in after two
boxcars had been filled and dispatched. In Minnesota the Lutheran
Welfare Society headed a drive which in one month gathered 200,-
000 pounds. By Christmas a total of 800,000 pounds of clothing
had been received at the Easton warehouse and prepared for
overseas shipment, From Bishop Dibelius on Christmas Eve, 1949,
came a radio message of thanks for this concrete assurance that
“love and good will and readiness to help” was replacing hatred
and hostility in international life.
From this time on the Thanksgiving drive became an annual fea-
ture, and in the spring of 1950 a Lenten appeal was also conducted.
Lutheran World Relief offered to pay the freight on full carload
shipments to Easton, and smaller amounts were sent to specially
arranged collecting points at Minneapolis, Nappanee, Indiana, Se-
attle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.
Year after year the members of Lutheran parishes across the
country responded to these appeals, based upon the needs of peo-
ple in Europe, in Palestine, in Korea, or in Hong Kong. Each year
the number of loaded boxcars which converged on New York or
San Francisco increased in number, till in 1953 an 88-car train,
three-quarters of a mile long, would have been needed to transport
the record in-gathering of 2,622,288 pounds. One might be tempted
to conclude that the Clothing Appeals simply functioned automati-
cally, except for reports such as one which came from an area
chairman in South Dakota in December, 1958. As he and his col-
leagues worked in the midst of a whirling blizzard to load ten tons
of clothing into a boxcar, they begrudged neither time nor discom-
fort, because they were convinced that their offerings would benefit
many who were perhaps colder than they were at the time.
BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS

Fully as important as the gathering of clothing was the Christian
Rural Overseas Program. CROP, as it was more familiarly known
by the farmers who supported it, was set up in 1947 by the Luther-
an World Relief and Church World Service as a joint promotional
program, with each partner receiving what was contributed by his
group and sharing the non-designated gifts proportionately. A year
later the National Catholic Rural Life Conference asked to be in-
cluded and a three-man cabinet was established, with the Reverend
Carl Schaffnit as the Lutheran representative. He was replaced a
short time later by Mr. Clifford Dahlin, who remained with CROP
as long as the program lasted.
The purpose of this organization was to extend to all farmers,
regardless of church affiliation, the opportunity to participate in a
“program of sharing” on a Christian or humanitarian basis. Each
participating church group named its own members to state and
county CROP committees, which also included representatives of
the farm organizations. Appeals were made to the farmers for con-
tributions of various kinds of farm products and livestock. Perish-
able goods were normally exchanged for staples or sold for cash.
Fractional carloads were also sold, and corn was usually turned
over to processors who manufactured corn syrup or cereal from it.
Wheat carloads were shipped just as they came, and it seemed
that this fundamental food of man carried with it a special signi-
ficance to those who received it. Early in 1948 a freighter called
American Veteran slipped up to the docks in Bremen to unload
5000 tons of wheat which had been donated by American Christians
through the CROP program. This unprocessed grain was to be

turned over to the Hilfswerk, to be milled in Bremen and Mann-
heim and eventually to be distributed solely on the basis of need
throughout Germany. As he stood on the bridge of the freighter
and accepted the gift on behalf of the Evangelical Hilfswerk, Pas-
tor Bodo Heyne pointed out this special significance. “Grain and
bread are our most important means of subsistence,” he said. “They
are to us holy symbols of our bodily and spiritual life. When our
brothers in America send us wheat, they are thus breaking bread
for us, and we are, as it were, with them as their guests. Thus is
your hand extended to us in the community of Christian thought
and action.”
In some of the states the CROP committees used promotional
devices to interest the farmers in the program of sharing. Wiscon-
sin’s “Badger Train” in 1948 carried more than 130 tons of pow-
dered milk and eggs eastward for trans-shipment abroad. Not to
be outdone, other states followed suit with special trains carrying
wheat or other staples. In 1951 many farmers gave the produce of
designated “Friendship Acres,” and a special freighter was launched
from the port of Chicago carrying this “Friendship Food” to needy
areas of Europe. Western farmers also responded heartily to CROP
livestock projects.
Wheat gathered under the CROP appeal was shipped in the
summer of 1951 to famine-ridden India by Lutheran World Relief.
More than 4900 bushels were sent to the Gossner Lutheran Church,
one of the member churches of the Lutheran World Federation,
and 40,000 bushels were dispatched jointly by the Protestant agen-
cies cooperating in the CROP appeal. Returning Ambassador Ches-
ter A. Bowles warmly commended Lutheran World Relief for its
especially timely action demonstrating that “individuals in America
care about India and Indians.”
Until the termination of the joint agreement in February, 1952,
Lutheran World Relief had received a total of 21,250,777 pounds
of supplies from CROP, valued at $1,436,282. In addition, the cash
proceeds from CROP had enabled Lutheran World Relief to ship
9,881,869 pounds of government-donated surplus commodities,
valued at $1,114,499. Pointing out that the liquidation of the joint
CROP program had been due to rising administrative costs rather
than the cessation of need abroad, leaders of Lutheran World Relief
promptly launched an All-Lutheran Food Appeal to replace CROP.
Beginning in 1953 the Board of World Relief of the Missouri Syn-
od also cooperated in this effort to feed the hungry. Only in Janu-
ary, 1956, when the United States Government decided to include
wheat, corn, rice, and beans among surplus commodities it was
donating to voluntary relief agencies for overseas shipment, was the
ALFA program discontinued. During its three years of operation
under the direction of Dr. John Scherzer and the Reverend Ove R.
Nielsen, ALFA had received more than $1,500,000 in food gifts
from Lutheran farmers for overseas relief.
The efforts of Lutheran World Relief had been substantially
aided by the United States Government since 1948 in two ways:
through the reimbursement of overseas freight costs and through
the donation of certain food stocks designated by the Government
as surplus commodities. In the former instance, the United States
Government viewed the private relief work of voluntary agencies
as an effective complement to its program of economic aid, and
therefore reimbursed agencies such as Lutheran World Relief for
shipments to certain designated areas.
Beginning in 1948 shipments to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, ©
and Trieste received such treatment, and the list was later expand-
ed to include Yugoslavia, Korea, Formosa, Hong Kong, India, and
Jordan. Each year this has meant a substantial contribution to the
material relief program, particularly in recent years, when the
United States Government has not only donated large amounts of
surplus commodities to the voluntary relief organizations, but has
transported them overseas free of charge. Since 1948 Lutheran
World Relief has received a total of $8,371,718 from the United
States Government as reimbursement for freight charges.
The United Nations has also paid $152,186 since 1951 for the
eost of shipping relief clothing to the Palestinian refugees in the
Near East. In the case of countries such as France and Germany,
which have demonstrated increasing economic strength, the United
poy
States Government has progressively withdrawn this assistance. Be-

ginning on April 1, 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany has
been paying the ocean freight on Lutheran World Relief shipments
to its ports, as well as the cost of inland freight to major points of
distribution within Germany.
In 1950 the United States Government announced that it would
make available to authorized voluntary relief agencies certain sup-
plies of surplus dairy products which it had stored in order to main-
tain national price levels. Although the program was suspended a
little more than a year later, Lutheran World Relief received and
shipped in one year more than $2,500,000 worth of powdered eggs,
milk, butter, and cheese as a supplement to its large annual ship-
ment of privately donated food, used clothing, and medicines. The
Government presently reinstated its surplus food policy, and even
expanded the list of commodities to include cottonseed oil, short-
ening, assorted packages of foods, and finally wheat and corn.
From the beginning of this program to the end of 1956, Lutheran
World Relief received from the United States Government 140,221,-
540 pounds of these commodities, valued at $26,757,888, and
shipped them to needy people in thirteen different countries: Aus-
tria, Formosa, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iraq, Italy,
Japan, Jordan, Korea, Trieste, and Yugoslavia.
The only conditions laid down by the United States Government
were that the food should be distributed without cost to the recipi-
ent, on the basis of greatest need, and that the receiving agencies
should provide for adequate supervision to be sure that these con-
ditions were observed. By far the largest amount went to Germany,
where the facilities of the Evangelical Hilfswerk provided the most
effective channel of distribution in any country of the world. Yugo-
slavia, Austria, Jordan, and Hong Kong also received larger
amounts, Naturally, there were some administrative costs in con-
nection with such a tremendous operation, but these were met
through the annual appropriation given to Lutheran World Relief
from the funds gathered through Lutheran World Action. Insofar
as the surplus commodities were concerned, it was estimated that
for every dollar Lutheran World Relief spent in handling and ad-
ministering, thirty dollars’ worth of food reached hungry people
in foreign lands. As Lutheran World Relief concluded its eleventh
complete year of service on December 31, 1956, it noted that a
grand total of 221,233,670 pounds of relief supplies valued at $62,-
370,473 had been shipped to twenty-eight different countries, from
Finland to Formosa and from Indonesia to the Holy Land. Bread
had indeed been cast upon the waters.
Lutherans in Canada had also taken seriously their responsibili-
ties to “feed the hungry” and “clothe the naked.” Just a few months
after its American counterpart, Canadian Lutheran World Relief
was organized in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, on March
14, 1946. Moving quickly to establish warehouses in Winnipeg and
Montreal, CLWR addressed its first appeal to congregations
throughout the whole of Canada, and shortly thereafter dispatched
its first shipments of food and used clothing to Germany. At Dr.
Michelfelder’s suggestions, the Canadians also sent money for the
purchase of foods in nearby Sweden for immediate transfer to
Germany. Between 1946 and 1950 Canadian Lutherans contributed
$413,933 for foodstuffs, partly in actual shipments and partly in
cash contributions. More than 714,000 pounds of used clothing,
blankets, and layettes were gathered in Canadian Lutheran con-
gregations between 1946 and 1956, and sent in large part to Ger-
many for distribution through the Evangelical Hilfswerk. However,
since 1952 Canadian aid has also been directed to the Arab refu-
gees in the Near East and to Korea.
Particularly in the earliest years of postwar need, food, clothing,
medicines, and raw materials poured into Europe from all parts
of the world. By no means all of the privately gathered relief goods
came from church groups, but the list of seventeen countries from
which the Evangelical Hilfswerk in Germany received shipments
during its first three years of activity reflects a world-wide sympathy
on the part of church groups with Europe’s suffering. Because of
the myriads of organizations and individuals who participated in
this vast gesture of brotherly help, it is impossible to ascertain the
ee
origin or the destination of a large part of the gifts, but it seems

ee
clear that the largest volume of material assistance from church

a
groups originated in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and

Switzerland. Among the Protestants the Lutherans were by far
the leaders, and their gifts came from as widely-separated countries
as Australia, South Africa, and Chile.
The small 33,000-member United Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Australia reported that during the first five years after the war
its members had sent $110,000 in cash gifts for material relief in
Germany, Korea, and Palestine. These funds had been used to buy
blankets, food, and clothing, and had been augmented by a con-
siderable amount of used clothing and gift parcels packed and sent
by individual church members. From Australia to the Evangelical
Hilfswerk in Germany alone came a total of more than one million
pounds of relief supplies between 1946 and 1955.
GOOD NEIGHBORS IN THE NORTH

As a wartime neutral, Sweden was in a much better position than
most other European countries to administer aid to the needy. In
ee eee
fact, during the Winter War of 1939-1940 private sources in Swe-

den gathered substantial sums for relief purposes in Finland. As
ee
soon as World War II was over, additional funds for relief purposes
ee
were sent into both Finland and Norway by the Swedish Section
eS
of the Lutheran World Convention and by a church relief organ

known as Till Bréders Hjalp. Holland, Austria, and Germany re-
ceived cash gifts for emergency food and clothing. Following a
visit in the ravaged Mazurian area of Poland by Pastor Daniel
Cederberg, the Swedish Section initiated a special collection to
relieve the conditions of near-starvation which he found there.
Three hundred food parcels were sent to Austria by a group in
Stockholm, and through the mediation of the Danish Section of
the Lutheran World Convention in Copenhagen $3500 in food par-
cels were directed to Hungary.
Material relief, both in cash and in goods, continued to flow from
Swedish sources to needy areas in Europe and later to both the
Near East and the Far East through a variety of channels. The
Swedish Government sponsored a program called Svenska Europa-
The Gospel of the Inasmuch a
hjalpen (Swedish Aid to Europe), which called upon individuals
for relief contributions. Both bishops and church organizations gave
active support to the appeals of Svenska Europahjalpen by provid-
ing leadership for about 60 percent of the collecting groups. Dur-
ing the period from 1947 to 1951 this organization collected $11,159,-
096 in cash and 28,160,000 pounds of food and clothing, valued at
more than $15,000,000, or a total of $26,459,609.
Several distinctively church-oriented organizations also conduct-
ed independent relief appeals and collected both money and goods.
Local chapters of the historic Gustav Adolf Society, in Gothenburg,
Stockholm, and Lund, and the Swedish National Committee of the
Lutheran World Federation had been in existence before the war
and were prepared to participate in relief efforts at the earliest pos-
sible moment. Others, such as Kommittén fér Kristen Efterkriegs-
_ hjalp (Committee for Christian Postwar Relief), Kommittén for
Efterkriegshjalp (Committee for Postwar Relief), and the West
Coast Fish Collection, were established following the end of the
war. These latter organizations, largely local in character, con-
tributed $1,541,570 in cash and relief supplies in the four years
following 1947. At the same time an independent relief organization
supported by the free churches in Sweden and called the Inner
European Mission contributed $6,427,859 to its various relief proj-
ects on the continent.
It is impossible to enumerate all of the organized humanitarian
efforts which sprang up in Sweden after the war, each motivated
by compassion for people in need. One of the most colorful was an
organization known as Hjailpkommittén for Tysklands Barn (Com-
mittee for Aid to German Children), led by Countess Lily Hamil-
ton. Though not a church organization, this committee became the
channel through which the first relief shipments from Lutherans in
Chile, Argentina, and South Africa gained access to Germany. Un-
able to ship directly to German ports in 1945, Pastor Friedrich Karle
of Santiago, Chile, secured the aid of this Swedish committee, and
for six years thereafter a steady stream of honey, oatmeal, rice, peas,
and beans flowed into Germany by way of the Swedish port of
Gothenburg. From Argentina came fats and oils and used clothing,
and from South Africa the German-African Aid Committee (DAHA)

shipped valuable cargoes of raw caracul wool. The cost of trans-
shipping the goods from Gothenburg to Liibeck, where they were
turned over to the Hilfswerk of the Evangelical Church in Ger-
many, was paid by the Swedish committee. In view of the fact
that these indirect shipments continued for six years, until the fall
of 1951, these payments amounted to a substantial sum.
At a time when shortages of both food and clothing still existed
in Norway, and when gift packages from America and Canada were
still being welcomed in many parts of the country, organized Nor-
wegian relief efforts for central Europe had already begun. One of
the first appeals came in the fall of 1947, when the Norwegian
Europahjelpen called upon the people for funds to support a
child-and-student-feeding program in the French Zone of Ger-
many, aimed at reaching 16,000 undernourished children and youth
with health-building rations of cod-liver oil and one substantial
warm meal per week. Just a few weeks later, in November, the first
general letter to pastors and congregations went out from Kirkens
Nodhjelp, the newly-formed Church Committee for Emergency
Aid, which owed its beginning at least in part to the stimulation of
the historic Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation held
shortly before at Lund, Sweden.
The initial response to this letter brought in more than $43,000,
which was divided between the supplementary feeding program of
the Europahjelpen and the children’s aid program of the United
Nations. In the following fall Kirkens Nédhjelp launched an inde-
pendent appeal through nine diocesan committees throughout Nor-
way, each headed by a bishop, with representation from the con-
gregational councils. Eight pastors and secretaries traveled through-
out the country; printed material explaining the needs was sent to
each parish; the cooperation of the local press was enlisted; and a
special film was made available for use in congregational meetings.
The results were astonishing. More than $77,000 was given in the
congregations, and eight and one-half tons of used clothing were
dispatched to Germany to be distributed through the Evangelical
Hilfswerk. When Andreas Grasmo, who had led the campaign,
presented his report in January, 1949, he wrote, “It has been a
great joy for us to undertake this work as an expression of Chris-
tian love to our neighbors.”
a
As the most acute needs in Germany passed, Kirkens N¢dhjelp
=
directed its assistance more specifically to refugee programs, aid-
ing in the construction of twenty-five centers in Germany and
in Austria between 1949 and 1953, and then following up these
gifts with many tons of used clothing and shoes and the ever-
valuable barrels of cod-liver oil. A special collection in 1953 brought
more than 400,000 pounds for West Berlin alone, where the refugee
center called Scandiaheim has been consistently staffed by Nor-
wegian personnel paid by Kirkens N¢dhjelp. Individual packages
of food and clothing have been sent regularly to 7,500 individuals
and families whose addresses had been assembled by the energetic
leaders of Kirkens Ngdhjelp. Since 1951, in cooperation with the
YMCA, West German refugee children have been transported to
Norway for vacations, and similar opportunities for Austrian young-
sters have been provided through the Lutheran World Federation.
The material relief program of the Norwegian Lutherans has
reached far beyond central Europe. Flood victims in the Po Valley
of northern Italy were aided in February, 1953. An attractive
brochure entitled “Is It Really True?” circulated in 40,000 copies
in the spring of 1954, told the story of needs in Syria, Jordan, and
Lebanon, and brought both a generous cash response and a ship-
ment of seventeen tons of clothing to be distributed among the
Arab refugees. Hong Kong was also included in 1954.
The ten years of Kirkens Ngdhjelp in Norway have been a fine
demonstration of the original intention of its founders to distribute
material assistance in the name of Christ to needy persons without
-
regard to race, nationality, or political persuasions. There has been

a7 -
an imaginative effort on the part of the leadership to enlist the

-_—
support of individuals and of congregations in Norway through

organization and publicity. Press, film, and the spoken word have
been effectively utilized, and the result has been an informed and
enthusiastic participation in the church’s program and a total con-
tribution of almost $500,000. Itself a victim of war and occupation,
Norway has been able to bring healing and strength and a witness
to the love of Christ to thousands of needy in both Europe and
Asia.
SELF-HELP THROUGH HILFSWERK

In recounting the story and the statistics of this world-wide
Good Samaritan venture by the churches of the world it is easy
to create the mistaken notion that the receiving churches either
were not able or did not take steps to help themselves. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Our main concern in these pages
has been the interchurch aspect of this vast program of brotherly
help, but within each of the countries to which aid was sent the
Christians were also being called upon to help their nearest neigh-
bors.
Thus, even during the first three bitter years following the end
of the war, the Evangelical Hilfswerk in Germany gathered and
distributed just as much food and clothing and medicine from
local sources in Germany as it received from churches in foreign
countries. As early as 1945 pastors and church members in Wiirt-
temberg were making house-to-house visitations, pulling their little
hand-wagons and filling baskets with gifts of food and clothing
ee ee
from their own people to be distributed through Hilfswerk in areas

of greater need. At the same time more than 180,000,000 Reichs-
marks were being gathered among the congregations. Dr. Eugen
Gerstenmaier, founder of the Hilfswerk, repeatedly stressed the
fact that this emergency service of the church must stand or fall
upon the living faith of the congregations and their readiness to
express that faith in acts of love to their fellowmen. In August,
1945, at the very depth of the need in Germany, Bishop Theophil
Wurm, the first president of the Hilfswerk, issued a “Manifesto of
Christian Love,” wherein he called upon the Protestant Christians
of Germany to respond to the need in their own midst. “Hunger
knocks at our doors,” he wrote. “Disaster strides through houses
and cities. Homeless, friendless, and despairing people are calling
for help, . . . Lazarus lies at the door!”
Into the individual congregations went the Manifesto from the
Bishop, eloquent in its appeal to the fundamental impulses of
Christian charity. External difficulties would have to be overcome,
he warned, but even more serious would be the inner spiritual
inertia. “Unbelief encases our souls in pride and says to us: Keep
what little you have. Giving will make you poor! But Christ tells
us: God is rich! Whoever devotes himself to the service of God’s
love will participate in His blessing. Therefore thrust out of your
souls the fear that parting from some precious possession may
leave you impoverished. He that has faith shall not be disap-
pointed. And he that possesses little can nevertheless do much.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has said: “Whosoever shall give to drink
unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name
of a disciple, verily, I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his
reward.’ A cheerful giver is a blessed man. Therefore let us take
up our work, believing, praying, and sacrificing!”
Not only were the gifts from German congregations and from
churches overseas distributed directly to needy people in the
parishes and in the institutions of the Inner Mission, but the Hilfs-
werk undertook in 1946 an ambitious and imaginative program of
self-help involving the use of raw materials shipped into Germany.
A combination of circumstances made this idea especially attractive.
That there was a tremendous need of blankets and clothing, bed
linens, shoes, and certain processed foodstuffs was beyond ques-
tion. Facilities did exist in Germany for the manufacture of many
of these items, but the lack of raw materials due to the collapse
of foreign trade made it impossible for these small factories to
operate. Workers, in large part returning soldiers, remained unem-
ployed, and needs remained unfulfilled. As early as 1945 alert lead-
ers of the Hilfswerk suggested to friends abroad that they would
welcome shipments of raw cotton, raw leather, raw wool, or cellu-
lose, which they would then turn over to processors in Germany
to be made into bed sheets, shoes, blankets, and paper for books.
The first actual effort to combine foreign aid with self-help in
this way came in 1946 when the American churches offered to send
ee
more than one million Bibles and hymnbooks to Germany as part

(CF
——
of an interchurch aid effort. Hilfswerk asked whether it would be

possible, instead of finished books, to send the cellulose, which
Oe
would then be processed into paper and eventually printed in Ger-

man publishing houses. In this way not only could the number of
Bibles and hymnbooks be multiplied, but other devotional and
instructional materials could also be provided. Hilfswerk estimated
that the cellulose needed for the printing of 100,000 books for
school children would cost about the same on the world market as
to print 5,000 complete books in America. Church gifts could thus
be increased in value twenty times.
At the close of 1946 the first carload of raw cotton arrived at the
main railway station in Stuttgart, consigned to the Evangelical
Hilfswerk as a gift from the Hilfswerk of the Church of Switzer-
land. On the day following a very much surprised textile factory
owner in Wiirttemberg received a request from a Hilfswerk rep-
resentative concerning the arrangements he could make to manu-
facture this carload of cotton into bed sheets for the institutions of
the Inner Mission, This marked the beginning of a long series of
commercial transactions which aided the recovery of German small
rer
industry, provided employment for many German workers, sup-

plied critical physical and spiritual needs both for individuals and
for institutions of mercy, and at the same time multiplied the actual
cash value of foreign gifts.
It would be impossible to detail even a small part of these opera-
tions, but shipments of wool from South Africa and Switzerland
were turned into pastors’ robes, men’s suits and socks, deaconess
garbs, blankets, and yard goods. Cotton from America reappeared
as bed sheets, baby diapers, bandages, clothing, and curtains. Wheat
was milled into flour. Argentinian hides became shoes for deacon-
esses and pastors. Eleven million books were printed from cellulose
gifts from America, Sweden, and elsewhere. A grant from the Mis-
souri Synod was multiplied ten-fold in value, and at the same time
helped to provide the tungsten filaments badly needed by German
factories to meet the shortage of electric light bulbs.
In the handling of this huge volume of emergency aid the Hilfs-
werk operated through a far-reaching system of offices and local
distribution centers, which included every parsonage and parish
house in Germany. Caseworkers both of the Hilfswerk and the
Inner Mission dealt with the most serious cases of physical need,
and every pastor was regarded as a local representative.
For more than a hundred years the well-established institutional
ministry of the Inner Mission, originating with the work of Johan
Hinrich Wichern in Hamburg, had been carried on, maintaining
hundreds of hospitals, children’s homes, old people’s homes, and
schools throughout Germany. Naturally the burden placed upon
these institutions, many of which had been severely damaged or
destroyed by bombs, was greatly increased by the general poverty
and acute need of the German people as a whole, and much of the
material assistance which the Hilfswerk was able to gather from
—
abroad was dispensed through their facilities. In the early postwar
years more than 2700 such institutions were provided with bed
—_
——&m—a—<_«__
linens, blankets, mattresses, kitchen equipment, tables and chairs,
and other necessities, through the Hilfswerk.
——————————— el
The care and feeding of children were likewise primary neces-
sities in the early years after 1945, A survey conducted by the Hilfs-
werk in 1946 indicated that about twelve million of the fifteen mil-
ee
lion children in Germany were suffering from undernourishment.
es
For this reason about 50 percent of all the foreign food gifts at this
0i
time were directed into child-feeding programs, and Hilfswerk was
thus enabled to provide regular supplementary feedings for three
million children from 1946 to 1948, In addition, foreign church
groups, such as the La Plata Synod with headquarters in Buenos
Aires, and the German-African Aid Committee in South Africa,
undertook to sponsor individual children’s homes or to send indi-
vidual packages on the basis of lists provided by the Hilfswerk.
Special supplementary feeding programs were arranged by the
Hilfswerk in the many youth camps sponsored by the YMCA, the
Evangelical Youth, and other organizations seeking to minister to
the confused and disillusioned younger generation in Germany.
University students likewise often lived under the most primitive
conditions in the first months after the courses of study were re-
sumed, and for both of these groups foreign churches made special
grants of money and food to enable Hilfswerk to establish supple-

mentary rations. Fourteen thousand students in eighty-nine uni-
versities and institutions of higher learning were thus aided in
1948 alone, and more than 500,000 young people in 10,000 summer
youth camps participated in feeding programs of the Hilfswerk
between 1946 and 1948.
Although the economic recovery following the currency reform
of 1948 made it possible gradually to overcome the most critical
needs among the population of western Germany, certain sub-
standard areas still remained, particularly among the large groups
of refugees in Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein. The Russian Zone
remained in a critical condition for a much longer time, but with
a few minor exceptions, government authorities there permitted no
bulk relief shipments whatever to enter. Nevertheless a lively
traffic of individual packages from family to family, from pastor
to pastor, or from person to person has continued even to the pres-
ent time, in one of the finest manifestations of Christian persever-
ance and solidarity of the entire postwar period. Even beyond its
important role in supporting the physical endurance of the East
Zone people, this action has cemented a spiritual unity between
the churches of East and West Germany that has been able to defy
every political effort at separation.
West Germany and West Berlin have continued to receive mate-
rial aid from abroad, largely on the ground that although the
general prosperity of the country was rising rapidly, need still pre-
vailed among a refugee population which was being augmented
at the astonishing and consistent rate of 700-800 persons per day.
Most of these refugees make their way to the West by way of
Berlin, and few would question the special situation of need exist-
ing there, but the shipments to western Germany may be expected
to taper off sharply and discontinue completely within the near
future.
Oddly enough, the volume of relief shipments being received
currently by the Evangelical Hilfswerk from overseas sources is
higher than in any of the earlier years of postwar crisis. The reason
for this is that since 1950 the United States Government has been
making increasingly large amounts of surplus food commodities
available to authorized American voluntary relief agencies without
cost, stipulating only that they be distributed to areas of need.
Two factors have influenced Lutheran World Relief to maintain
its large volume of shipments to Germany. Since the commodities
are available, Lutheran World Relief has felt they should be used
for a good purpose. German distribution channels are the most
effective of any in the world, and the German church welfare agen-
cies have annually requested Lutheran World Relief and Church
World Service to send large amounts. A special program has been
worked out in Germany whereby many of the institutions of the
Inner Mission receive these surplus commodities from the Hilfswerk
and make use of the milk, the cheese, and the oils to enrich the
diets offered to their residents. This plan has been approved by
the United States Government, on condition that its foods are not
exchanged for money and that they do not replace other foods
being used by the institutions, Although it is true that there are
great numbers of refugees residing in these institutions of the In-
ner Mission, it seems clear that the institutional aid program of
Lutheran World Relief and Hilfswerk is no longer of an emergency
character, but is rather a cooperative church-government program
for the improvement of health standards among the residents of
Inner Mission institutions in Germany. In 1956 this represented a
subsidy of almost five million dollars to the German church agen-
cies through Lutheran World Relief alone, but at best only a very
obscure contribution to the development of Christian stewardship
in either American or German Lutheran churches.
STRENGTHENING THE MINORITY CHURCHES

During the years since 1945 the member churches of the Luther-
an World Federation and their agencies have shipped relief supplies
to every European country where privation existed and where
political conditions have permitted outside aid. Even when the
amounts have not been large, they have always carried with them
an assurance of brotherly love and concern. One of the first ship-
ments of any kind from Lutheran World Relief in New York in

1946 was directed to Holland, and when the storms of 1953 smashed
the dikes along the Zeeland coast and inundated dozens of Dutch
towns and thousands of acres of land, emergency supplies to aid
the homeless were rushed to stricken areas. One of the first formal
gestures of outside aid to be made by the Lutheran churches of
Germany after the war came in response to the needs of these flood-
stricken communities. Beds and mattresses and cash gifts amount-
ing to DM 40,000 were sent by the newly-formed German Commit-
tee for Lutheran World Service.
The small and scattered Lutheran church of Austria, numbering
about 400,000 people and struggling to minister to the needs of
about 70,000 additional Lutheran refugees who came from eastern
Europe, has also received considerable amounts of material aid
from Scandinavia and from America. Up to the end of 1956 more
than 16,000,000 pounds of food, clothing, and supplies valued at
more than $5,500,000 had been received by the Austrian Hilfswerk
for general distribution. For several years the Lutheran World Fed-
eration’s Service to Refugees operated summer camps for under-
privileged children in Austria, to which Norway made generous
contributions, both of leadership personnel and crucial shipments
of cod-liver oil and supplementary food. Not only did these gifts
to Austria save many lives during the critical postwar years, but
they gave a much-needed moral and spiritual support to a minority
Lutheran church struggling to maintain its identity in the face of
an overwhelming Roman Catholic majority.
The Lutheran churches of Italy and France also received material
assistance in addition to financial aid for the strengthening of their
congregational programs. Food and clothing distributed through
Lutheran channels supplied some of the special needs of refugees
in Trieste during their long months of waiting for resettlement.
——
Shipments to the countries of eastern Europe have been limited

SS
and in many cases rendered impossible by political conditions.

Poland and Hungary were under Communist control virtually from
the end of the war in 1945, but it was still possible for several years
a
to send in relief supplies from the United States, Norway, and

=
Sweden. Czecho-Slovakia received shipments of food and clothing
valued at $125,000 from Lutheran World Relief before the Com-
munist coup of February, 1948, led to increased restrictions and
finally closed the doors to further aid in 1949. After the unjustified
arrest and imprisonment of Lutheran Bishop Lajos Ordass by the
Communist authorities in Budapest in 1948, and his deposition by
a subservient church organization, all formal aid through the Lu-
theran World Federation to Hungary was discontinued.
In 1951 further relief shipments to Lutherans in Poland were cut
off by action of the Polish Government. Thereafter to both of these
countries as well as to Yugoslavia only a meager flow of individual
parcels was continued. However, from within Germany a special
Committee for Eastern Churches stimulated and directed a more
extensive package program, both for the material and the spiritual
strengthening of brethren in the faith in practically every country
behind the iron curtain.
The peculiar political development in Yugoslavia in 1948, fol-
lowing Marshal Tito’s break with the Kremlin, opened unexpected
channels for material assistance to the 150,000 Lutherans scattered
throughout this land, Some assistance had been possible even before
this through the diligence of a Croatian Lutheran pastor on the
staff of the National Lutheran Council in New York, the Reverend
Louis Sanjek, who gathered the addresses of all the pastors in
Yugoslavia and supplied them with packages from the stocks of
Lutheran World Relief. During the seven years from 1946 to 1953
Pastor Sanjek personally supervised the packing and mailing of
more than 2700 such gift parcels, many of which contained medi-
cines otherwise unavailable in Yugoslavia.
Because of the critical situation following a drought in 1950,
Lutheran World Relief was permitted to send in its first large bulk
shipment of relief supplies. The following year, with certain areas
so hard hit that they had neither corn nor wheat for seed, the Yugo-
slavian government even offered to pay overseas freight charges,
and Lutheran World Relief responded with large quantities of
Government-donated surplus foods. Disaster struck again in De-
cember, 1952. Following a second drought, hail and floods ravaged
Bosnia and Serbia, destroying 5000 houses and causing $8,400,000

damage. Thousands of people lost everything they had, and the
scarcity of food and clothing became critical. It was, moreover,
practically impossible to buy clothing at inflated prices, which re-
quired a half-month’s salary to pay for a pair of shoes and well
over a month’s salary for a man’s suit.
Even in the face of these disasters the Government of Yugo-
slavia made it very difficult for those who wanted to help. Exorbi-
tant duties were charged on gift parcels, charges of unfair distri-
bution of relief supplies were directed at the church officials, and
finally the churches were prohibited from engaging in any relief
activities whatever. The result was that a special delegation from
Lutheran World Relief visited Yugoslavia and discussed the prob-
lem personally with Marshal Tito. Agreement was reached that
supplies entering Yugoslavia should be received and distributed
has
by the National Red Cross, according to greatest need, but in areas
..
6 —. _
in which there were larger concentrations of Lutheran population.
Each successive year thereafter sizable relief shipments have gone
a.
to Yugoslavia, totaling more than $6,500,000 by the end of 1956
— -
BEYOND THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH
Lutheran shipments of material relief supplies since 1945 have
by no means been limited to Europe, although by far the largest
amounts have been sent to supply the needs there. It is not our
purpose here to calculate the material and financial support that
has flowed from individual mission boards and societies to the
various Lutheran mission fields in Asia, Africa, and South America.
But with the close cooperation of the Department of World Service
in Geneva, emergency material relief supplies have been sent by
Lutheran churches and agencies to Japan, Korea, India, Palestine,
Formosa, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. Lutheran World Relief has
been a member of LARA, an organization similar to CRALOG,
which has facilitated its shipments to Japan. As one of the Licensed
Agencies for Relief in Asia, Lutheran World Relief has been able
to ship supplies to Japan, and the American Government has paid
the cost of overseas freight. Canned baby foods, powdered milk,
used clothing, and bedding—valued at $600,000—have been sent by
Lutheran World Relief for distribution in nurseries, hospitals, chil-
dren’s homes, and schools.
Wheat was sent to famine-stricken India in 1951. Tons of food
and clothing were rushed from Lutheran World Federation’s Near
East offices in Jerusalem and Beirut when a half-million people
were left homeless in 1954 by the swollen tides of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers in Iraq. Under the supervision of an Arab Chris-
tian, these gifts were distributed in Baghdad simply as an act of
Christian charity to people in need. Officials of the Iraq government
expressed their gratitude both in personal letters and in radio
broadcasts.
In the wake of the tragedy of Korea in 1950-51 aid began to flow
into that devastated country. Since there were no Lutheran agen-
cies in Korea, Lutheran World Relief shipments were distributed
by Korea Church World Service, an agency related to the National
Christian Council of Korea, and also through United Nations
channels. As in the case of Japan, the United States Government
reimbursed Lutheran World Relief for overseas freight costs. In
1955 Lutheran World Relief sent its own representative, the Rev.
James Claypool, to Korea as a member of the staff of Korea Church
World Service to supervise what, by the end of 1956, had become
a $3,360,000 relief operation.
As the only remaining non-Communist foothold on the China
mainland coast, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, has be-
come a congested haven for refugees. Embracing in 1950 a popu-
lation of 2,360,000 people within its scant 391 square miles of terri-
tory, this city has sought to find additional room for more than
700,000 Chinese refugees. For several years the Lutheran World
Federation cooperated with the World Council of Churches in an
effort to resettle European refugees from Hong Kong, but in 1954,
under the leadership of Karl Ludwig Stumpf, a German national
formerly of Shanghai, the Federation’s Department of World Sery-
ice launched a vigorous medical aid and material relief program
for the Chinese refugees. Many of these people are living in rude
shelters built of scrap metal or packing boxes or, if less fortunate,

under bridges, on rooftops, or simply in the alleys and gutters. It
is the hope of Mr. Stumpf that ten thousand refugees may be
helped by this new medical program. Artificial limbs, dentures, and
spectacles have been provided to many needy patients, and emer-
gency treatments to hundreds of others. Shipments of food and
clothing from several member churches of the Lutheran World
Federation have already bolstered the substantial cash contributions
being made through the Department of World Service.
One of the needy areas of the world which has most fired the
imaginations of Lutheran people has been the land of Palestine.
Since the early nineteenth century German Lutheran mission so-
cieties have been at work in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and by the
time the second World War broke out they had built churches,
schools, and orphanages which were among the finest institutions
in the Holy Land. The graceful tower of the Lutheran Church of
the Redeemer, just a few steps away from the tomb of our Lord,
dominates the entire skyline of the Holy City, while on the shoulder
of the Mount of Olives rises the massive bulk of the Augusta Vic-
toria Hospital, built originally as a church hospice by the German
Kaiser.
Not far away, but at present virtually inaccessible from Jordanian
territory, are the imposing buildings of the Syrian Orphanage, built
by the famous German missionaries, Johann and Theodor Schneller.
Valued at several millions of dollars, these buildings were taken over
by the Government of Israel to be used as military installations,
shortly after the truce of 1948 partitioned the Holy Land between
the newly-formed Israeli state and the Hashemite Kingdom of the
Jordan. Officials of the Lutheran World Federation, acting as trus-
tees for the German mission properties, did all they could to save
these buildings, but succeeded only in securing a partial indemnity
for them from the Israeli Government. On the Jordanian side, how-
ever, they were able to preserve the entire complex of institutions
and properties in Lutheran hands.
Dr. Edwin Moll, the Near East representative of the Lutheran
World Federation, remained in Jerusalem throughout the civil war
i
ELLs...
which preceded the partition of Palestine. To his fearless and de-
termined efforts belongs a great deal of the credit for the retention
of the mission properties of the Holy Land, and also for the in-
auguration of the extensive program of material relief among the
Arab refugees after the war.
When the new Israeli Government was established, about 900,-
000 Arabs fled into the neighboring Arab countries of Jordan, Syria,
Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip. Four hundred fifty thousand of them
a”
crowded into the barren hills and fields of Jordan, where they
found refuge in mud huts and caves and such tents as the United
Nations could make available to them. In a land already impov-
erished and lacking in economic opportunity, these refugees simply
became public charges. The same situation prevailed in Lebanon,
Syria, and Gaza, where the United Nations established vast camps
of tents and huts and supplied the refugees with a subsistence ra-
tion of 1500 calories per day.
It was among these Arabs in Jordan that Dr. Moll launched an
emergency relief program in 1948. Appealing to his fellow Luther-
ans solely on the basis of Christian compassion for needy human
beings, he asked for shipments of food and clothing and medical
supplies. The United Nations, which was underwriting the opera-
tion of the 385-bed Augusta Victoria Hospital for Arab refugees,
asked the Lutheran World Federation to assume responsibility for
it and promised a monthly subsidy of $15,000, This hospital, with
its staff of eleven doctors and 130 nurses, is now the largest hospi-
tal in western Asia, and in 1955 admitted 11,300 patients. In addi-
tion, the Lutheran World Federation medical staff treated more en
than 100,000 patients in its six polyclinics in and about Jerusalem.

More than $6,000,000 in cash and in relief supplies have been
Ce
spent for the Lutheran World Federation work among refugees

in Jordan since 1948, and more than two million pieces of clothing
have been distributed. Mr. Chris Christiansen, a Dane, who suc-
ceeded Dr. Moll as director of Lutheran World Federation work
ae
in the Near East, estimated that every single refugee in Jordan has
at some time or other received a gift of clothing from Lutheran
So
World Federation. Twelve milk centers are maintained in the vil-

laa
_..
lages along the Israel-Jordan border, where approximately 18,000

people receive a daily ration of fluid milk. Lutheran World Fed-
eration operates soup kitchens in several towns, and in addition
aids both Orthodox and Moslem relief stations with regular food
donations. About 85 to 90 percent of all who receive aid from the
Lutheran World Federation in Jordan are of the Moslem faith,
Ever since 1948 this Good Samaritan ministry, as well as the
similar one in Syria which began in 1952, has been receiving in-
creasing support from the member churches of Lutheran World
Federation. Lutheran World Relief sent its first shipment in 1948
and has continued every year, with a total of almost $5,000,000
worth of supplies having been sent by the end of 1955. The United
States Government pays for the ocean freight on some surplus
foods, and the United Nations covers the cost of clothing ship-
ments. Norway has responded with large shipments of food and
clothing and cod-liver oil. Denmark has felt a special responsibility,
with one of its own men in charge of the operation and another
Dane in charge of the Augusta Victoria Hospital, and has shipped
all kinds of relief goods. Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the Lu-
theran churches of Germany have made the Arab refugee a regular
part of their world service programs.
In the midst of one of the troubled regions of the world, where
far more selfishness than love has been displayed by representa-
tives of countries of Christian tradition, the witness of simple
Christian compassion for human suffering has made a profound
impression upon formerly hostile hearts. “We have saved many,
many lives,” wrote Dr. Moll in 1949. “We have relieved so infinitely
much suffering and misery—and we are doing it always in His be-
loved name and for His sake. Some day some one will reap the
harvest of the seeds we now sow.”
This is the basic motivation in the entire program of material
and physical relief which has been carried on by the member
churches of the Lutheran World Federation. There is no doubt that
it has performed a variety of other functions. It has been a power-
ful factor in strengthening the Lutheran churches of the world,
both through the gathering and the using of the gifts. It has been
the means of spreading valuable information concerning other lands
and other peoples. In this way it has promoted international under-
standing and good will. But all of these have been by-products.
The main purpose has been the meeting of human need with sincere
Christian compassion born of gratitude to Him who commended
His love toward us in that while we were yet His enemies He died
for us.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rebuilding the
Walls of Zion
When the curtain of war clanked down upon Europe in Septem-

ber, 1939, only a few fields of world Lutheran activity were left
intact. The Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion maintained a nominal existence, but did not meet again till
1946. The Executive Secretary, Dr. Lilje, was soon enmeshed in
the bitter local struggle against National Socialism in Germany
which eventually brought him into prison. The Central Section of
the Lutheran World Convention, in which the German churches
were the leading group, was paralyzed by the same forces. The
Northern Section went into eclipse as both Norway and Denmark
were overrun by hostile armies. Only the American and the Swedish
Sections remained, together with a few other scattered groups in
various parts of the world, to carry on inter-Lutheran cooperation
and aid.
Even before the outbreak of war there had been refugees stream-
ing from central Europe to all parts of the world. Lutheran Chris-
tians of Jewish blood and others who had resisted the rise of to-
talitarianism found a haven in Scandinavia, North America, and
elsewhere. The Winter War between Russia and Finland in 1939-
40 was the stimulus to a splendid relief action by Scandinavian and
American Lutherans on behalf of their Finnish brethren. The Na-
88
Rebuilding the Walls of Zion 89
tional Lutheran Council in 1948 for the first time placed an item
of $15,000 on its Lutheran World Action budget for the care of
prisoners of war. A special Lutheran Commission, including rep-
resentation from the Missouri Synod, was established, with Dr.
S. C. Michelfelder as chairman, which arranged church services in
camps, conducted either by German-speaking American chaplains
and pastors, or by the one hundred German pastors who themselves .
were prisoners of war in the United States.
The Reverend Louis Sanjek directed the work of a Lutheran
Book Depository in New York which continued to operate until
1950. In its seven years of activity this office sent more than one
million volumes of religious and theological literature to 410 differ-
ent camps in nine countries. In one camp in Egypt a theological
seminary was established with the help of these books, and several
candidates of theology were prepared for assignment in German
churches immediately following their discharge from camp.
By far the largest and most far-reaching expression of world
Lutheran cooperation during the war years was the joint support
of the thirty-eight Lutheran mission fields which were cut off from
their home societies in Germany, Finland, Denmark, and Norway,
More than two thousand missionaries were at work on these fields
in China, New Guinea, India, Palestine, Madagascar, Tanganyika,
Sudan, Nigeria, South and Southwest Africa, and Sumatra, and
over a million members were counted within the mission churches.
By virtue of their favorable situation churches in Sweden, the
United States, Australia, and Canada were able to take the lead
in providing regular support for these Lutheran outposts. Dr. Ralph
Long arranged an agreement that the National Lutheran Council,
together with the Church of Sweden, would undertake responsibili-
ty for all Lutheran orphaned missions of the world if the Inter-
national Missionary Council would care for the rest. From 1940
to 1950 more than $8,000,000 was contributed by Lutheran churches
throughout the world in answer to this modern Macedonian call.
As is so often true in God’s economy, the church reaped unexpect-
ed blessings through its honest effort to face a crisis. The mission
fields were saved, and at the same time a process of maturing took
r3Oos—ese=.sarr——"ws
place which resulted in the formation of a whole new group of self-

determining Lutheran churches in Africa and Asia. These churches,
closely identified from the beginning with world Lutheranism, have
both broadened the base of the Lutheran World Federation and
are constantly adding distinctive contributions to the witness of the
Lutheran church in the modern world.
THE CROSS AND THE ARM: LUTHERAN

WORLD ACTION
In the fall of 1940, when the scope and devastation of World
War II had become tragically clear to everyone, Dr. Ralph Long,
Executive Director of the National Lutheran Council, summoned
a group of churchmen together in Chicago to begin laying plans
for large-scale relief operations. In his keynote address to the as-
sembly, Dr. Lars W. Boe, member of the Executive Committee of
the Lutheran World Convention, observed prophetically that while
the relief of missions was at that moment the burning necessity,
there would come later the even greater task of rehabilitating the
war-torn lands and their churches.
°
As a result of this meeting the National Lutheran Council

o-
launched an organized appeal for money which it called Lutheran

World Action and which became an annual feature of American
ee
Lutheran church life during the war years. Largely through the
work of Dr. Ralph Long, and of Dr. Paul Empie, who served the
ee
National Lutheran Council on a part-time basis in 1940, organiza-

tion and techniques were developed through which more than $6,-
500,000 were to be contributed in six years.
Meanwhile the Lutheran churches of North America were sum-
moned to face other stern responsibilities as their own nations were
drawn into the world conflict. Following the attack on Pearl Har-
bor, thousands of Lutheran young men and women entered mili-
tary service, and the church determined to follow them with the
ministry of the Gospel. Funds for this purpose, as well as for the
support of orphaned missions, were given through the voluntary
contributions of individual church members.
Rebuilding the Walls of Zion 9]
In this way the preparations were made so that when the war was
over, Lutheran World Action could simply be expanded to include
European church reconstruction and relief. The sums needed for
this task were far greater, but the leadership, the experience, and
the methods of reaching the congregations had already proved
themselves. Dr. Long’s hope, so often repeated, that we “ought to
be prepared well in advance to meet . .. promptly” the needs
which should face us at the end of the war, was effectively ful-
filled. By the end of 1944, the American Section of the Lutheran
World Convention had even been equipped with a $200,000 reserve
fund to begin its task of spiritual reconstruction.
With this capital at his disposal, Dr. S. C. Michelfelder set out
for Geneva in July, 1945, as the Commissioner of the American
Section. His task was to survey the needs of the Lutheran churches
in Europe and to coordinate American Lutheran activities with
those of the Reconstruction Department of the World Council of
Churches. Neither he nor the leaders of the World Council nor
the members of the American team which had visited Stockholm,
London, and Geneva in February, 1945, had any idea that simple
material and physical relief of suffering people would be thrust
upon the churches as their first responsibility. This they had as-
sumed would be handled by international or by governmental
agencies.
For this reason the greeting from the National Lutheran Council
which was carried by Dr. P. O. Bersell to the Relief Committee of
the Lutheran World Convention in January, 1946, made no men-
tion of the physical suffering of the people in Europe, but referred
ETE
instead to the “love-gift” about to be gathered by the eight member

RE
churches of the National Lutheran Council “for the upbuilding of

the Lutheran Church of the world.” “Our sole request,” declared
eR
the message, “is that all the far-flung churches of the Augsburg
een
Confession will join with us in a firm resolution to preserve the

heritage of our Lutheran faith from many cross-currents which
confuse. Let us strive together to tighten the bonds which link us
as one fellowship in the Lutheran World Convention.”
At the same time a committee of the Council, reporting in Chi-
cago, spoke eloquently concerning the motivations of the impend-

ing appeal for ten million dollars, but left no doubt that the main
concern was the spiritual reconstruction of the churches in Europe.
“We do pledge that we shall come to the succor of our brethren
in the faith in the war-ravaged countries where churches have been
destroyed and . . . where the church and worship life has been
weakened or paralyzed... . We will send our emissaries to the ends
of the earth, laden with our gifts of love, to hearten the weak, to
cheer the despairing, to strengthen the Gospel ministry, upborne
by our prayers that the church life and activities may be restored
and the word of God have free course.”
Lutheran World Action, the instrument through which this ap-
peal was to be made to the congregations of the United States and
Canada, has become in the meanwhile virtually a household word.
Under the symbols of the Cross and the Arm it has brought the
needs of world Lutheranism before the eyes of people in North
America so successfully that far more is known of it among the
congregations than is known of either the National Lutheran Coun-
cil or the Lutheran World Federation.
Through the course of years after 1940 a general pattern evolved,
according to which the giving strength of the American Lutheran
parishes was mobilized. Each year a goal was set in advance by the
National Lutheran Council. Within this goal each of the special
causes, such as orphaned missions, European church reconstruction,
ministry to service men, and refugee resettlement, was allocated a
certain amount of money. On the basis of the size of its member-
ship, each of the participating bodies of the Council was then as- i
signed a proportionate share of the total goal. The Council pro-

vided the necessary information and the promotional materials, but
each church and subdivision of a church appointed its own direc-
tor of Lutheran World Action to cooperate with the National Lu-
theran Council staff in promoting the appeal. Most Lutheran World
Action gifts were placed in offering envelopes at the worship serv-
ices of local congregations.
In addition to providing the stimulus for the gathering of large
sums of money for the special missions of the churches both at
home and overseas, Lutheran World Action has been the means
of spreading volumes of valuable information concerning the
churches and peoples of the world. This task has been achieved
through the use of every possible means of publicity and educa-
tion and promotion,
The campaign to raise ten million dollars during 1946-47 was
opened with a series of promotional planning meetings held in
twenty strategic centers in the United States and Canada, where
well-informed leaders gave suggestions as to how best to conduct
the appeals in the congregations. Each participating church was
asked to appoint promotional directors on the synodical level as
well as directors for each district, conference, or circuit. To each
one of these seven hundred persons the National Lutheran Council
supplied a special monthly bulletin. Key persons in every cam-
paign were the pastors themselves, and in order to keep them in
touch with fast-moving developments in the areas of need, a spe-
cial pastors’ bulletin was mailed to 8500 pastors every month.
A colorful handbook, intriguingly titled “Atoning Power for the
Atomic Age,” containing essential information on every project,
was printed in more than a million copies and spread throughout
the congregations, Every Lutheran church paper was bombarded
with news and feature stories from the News Bureau of the Na-
tional Lutheran Council. Two and one-half million pamphlets were
distributed to Sunday school children, together with literally hun-
dreds of thousands of offering envelopes. A forty-minute sound
film called “The Good Fight,” the first of a long and distinguished
Lutheran World Action series, was produced at a cost of $30,000.
Visual aid distribution centers were established in eleven cities in
the United States and Canada in order to bring films and film-
strips and radio transcriptions within easy reach of the congrega-
tions which would use them. In 1946 alone sixty selected speakers
addressed 447 Lutheran World Action rallies throughout the coun-
try, featuring in many instances firsthand accounts of the condi-
tions in the countries and churches overseas.
Each year thereafter this kind of a publicity campaign was un-
dertaken by the National Lutheran Council, though not with the
comprehensiveness of the Ten-Million-Dollar-Appeal. Every year,

however, the quotas have been set, the directors appointed, the
bulletins sent out, new promotional materials and films prepared,
and speakers scheduled. The result has been a seventeen-year
total, through 1956, of $46,387,048 in cash and $62,370,473 in con-
tributed goods, gathered through Lutheran World Action and Lu-
theran World Relief by the seven million Lutherans in the United
States and Canada.*
There is no doubt that much of the success of these appeals has
come about through well-organized promotion. Lutheran World
Action has operated on the theory that in order to raise money, it is
also necessary to spend money. Promotional costs since 1946 have
———
been about 5% percent of the total. However, if the educational
contribution of these campaigns to every Lutheran congregation in
tO
North America is taken into account, the expenditures for money-
raising alone are inconsiderable. Nor has sheer organization been
the strength of these appeals. In every case they have been mo-
tivated by an honest recognition of Christian responsibility toward
people and churches in dire need. In order to make these needs
real to seven million Lutherans scattered over the expanses of a
vast continent, living in the midst of physical abundance, virtually
untouched by war’s destruction, just such an educational program
as that of Lutheran World Action was needed. Only if properly
informed can even the most loyal of Christian hearts respond fully
to the needs of a brother. Beginning in 1948 Promotional Secretary
Rollin Shaffer has provided remarkably effective leadership in this
area,
By 1950 Lutheran World Action had reached a peculiar position.
The war had been over for five years, and it was clear that the
emergency period in Europe was past. Yet recovery was far from
complete, and in many parts of the world there were still areas
of great need; the orphaned missions were not yet ready to stand
alone; the refugee problem had not been solyed; there were many
smaller Lutheran churches still in need of assistance if their future
were to be secured. Rather than continuing the appeals on an an-
*Cumulative totals do not include Canadian gifts after 1948.
nual emergency basis, the National Lutheran Council decided to
confront the members of the congregations with a reduced, long-
term program which might well become a permanent part of each
church’s missionary enterprise. A “turn in the road” had been
reached, and the National Lutheran Council therefore recommend-
ed that after 1954 Lutheran World Action contributions become
a normal part of each church budget.
This plan was adopted, but shortly thereafter the Korean War
intervened, and all of the careful predictions of decreased Lutheran
World Action goals were shelved in the face of new emergency de-
mands. The Service Men’s Commission was hastily reactivated to
make possible a ministry to the thousands of Lutheran men and
women now inducted into the armed forces. In 1951 and in suc-
cessive years goals were increased rather than decreased, until in
1958 the churches were to be asked for $3,710,000.
In only two participating bodies was Lutheran World Action
made a part of the annual budget, all others feeling that the in-
creased goals would necessitate special appeals in the congregations
as usual. In all bodies the educational program of Lutheran World
Action continued unimpaired. The “turn in the road” had served
only to make clear to all that although it was no longer universally
regarded as an emergency program, Lutheran World Action would
remain as a significant responsibility of the churches through the
years to come. As in the past, Lutheran World Action would con-
tinue to be one of the great forces in enlarging the vision and
widening the horizons of the Lutheran churches of North America.
Beyond this, as Dr. Empie pointed out, it would open new doors
of service and make possible the achievement of objectives which
would continue to influence the course of world Lutheranism as
well.
MOBILIZING THE SWEDISH CHURCH

The methods employed in other Lutheran churches of the world
for mobilizing congregational support for overseas relief and re-
construction have not been radically different from those in Ameri-
ca. In every case an appeal has been directed to the individual

members of the church, and contributions have been of a volun-
tary character. In every instance the needs of the brethren have
been publicized through news releases, special brochures, feature
articles, and the spoken word, Christian compassion and the one-
ness of the church have been the basis of the appeals, and special
offerings have been taken either in the churches or through per-
sonal solicitation.
In Canada the churches have worked very closely with the
Lutheran World Action organization of the National Lutheran
Council, but since 1949 have conducted their own appeal
through the Canadian Lutheran Council and allocated their funds
independently. From 1940 through 1956 total Canadian contribu-
tions have amounted to $967,000, the largest part of which has
been used for overseas relief and reconstruction. Australian Lu-
therans have likewise worked through their own National Commit-
tee since 1947.
The Swedish Section of the Lutheran World Convention had
built up a reserve fund during the war years with which it was
able to begin its program of interchurch aid. Through the publica-
tion of a paper called Churches Under the Cross, edited by Pastor
Daniel Cederberg, additional interest and support among the con-
gregations were stimulated, so that from 1946 to 1954 the Swedish
Section was able to distribute more than $300,000 for relief and
reconstruction in Finland, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Austria,
and other countries in Europe. Under its new name, Lutherhjalpen,
this journal has since appeared regularly as the chief channel of
publicity for the overseas aid program of the Swedish National
Committee.
From 1945 to 1947 Till Bréders Hjalp gathered more than $600,-
000 through voluntary collections and contributed to church re-
construction projects in nine different countries. In order to coor-
dinate its work more closely with the World Council of Churches
this organization maintained Pastor Gote Hedenquist as its official
representative in Geneva.
After Till Bréders Hjalp was disbanded in 1947, church contri-
butions to relief and reconstruction in Europe were channeled
through a great variety of organizations, some specifically church-
related, others social or humanitarian. Svenska Europahjilpen, or
Swedish Aid to Europe, was by far the most inclusive of these
efforts. It was organized in February, 1946, but although supported
by both bishops and church people, it never had a specifically
church-oriented program. When it became more and more appar-
ent that no particular allocation of money would be made for
church reconstruction projects in Europe, the Swedish Bishops’
Conference felt obliged in October, 1947, to organize a specifically
church-oriented appeal. This was called Svenska Kyrkohjalpen, or
Swedish Church Relief. A special committee, with Bishop John
Cullberg as chairman and Dr. Harry Johansson as secretary, was
made responsible for publicity within the dioceses and for dis-
tribution of the funds according to allocations passed on to it by
the World Council of Churches. From 1947 to 1957, a total of
$1,100,000 was contributed through this committee.
Together with the local chapters of the Gustav Adolf Society,
the Swedish National Committee of the Lutheran World Federa-
tion and the Swedish Church Relief have been the most important
channels through which assistance has been given to church recon-
struction in Europe. For general relief and for refugee aid, how-
ever, other organizations, and especially the government-sponsored
Swedish Aid to Europe, have carried the larger responsibility,
though always with the full support and active participation of the
church. The total amount of cash raised in Sweden for relief and
church reconstruction in Europe from 1947 to 1951 was $12,549,-
096. If the 36,468,583 pounds of food, clothing, and other supplies
are added to this, the total Swedish contribution during these
years was $39,468,583, of which six specifically church-related
organizations raised $2,044,199.
WORKING THROUGH THE WORLD COUNCIL

The first Lutheran gifts for church construction in Europe after
the war were either transmitted directly to the receiving churches
or channeled through the Reconstruction Department of the World

Council of Churches in Geneva. Because of their close geographi-
cal proximity, Swedish church aid societies reached directly across
into Finland and Norway as soon as the way opened in 1945. To-
gether with a special Liberation Gift of $5,000 and $30,000 for
other purposes, Till Bréders Hjalp, in a gesture filled with sym-
bolic significance, made available to every church in Norway two
large altar candles. For its immediate use the Church of Finland
received a gift of $34,000, and the Swedish Committee of the Lu-
theran World Convention supplemented this with a gift of Bibles
for the Swedish-speaking parishes of Finland. Through Pastor
Cederberg’s close personal ties with Bishop Szeruda, the first
Swedish church reconstruction grant for Poland was given for the
rebuilding of two schools in Warsaw. The Hilfswerk in Germany
also received a direct grant of $25,000.
Interest in Sweden, however, in the newly-formed Reconstruc-
tion Department in Geneva was very much alive, as witnessed by
the appointment of Pastor Géte Hedenquist as Swedish repre-
sentative in Geneva in 1945, Moreover, several tentative allocations
of money were made by Till Bréders Hjalp for church work in
France, Holland, and Poland, on condition that more adequate in-
formation should first be secured from those countries. This infor-
mation the Swedish Committee hoped to secure through the offices
at Geneva. Support of the Reconstruction Department of the
World Council by the Swedish Section of the Lutheran World
Federation was also demonstrated through an $8,000 grant placed
at the Department's disposal in 1947.
The arrival of Dr. Michelfelder in Geneva in July, 1945, was
a clear indication that the Lutherans of the United States and
Canada likewise intended to fulfill the agreement made by Dr.
Long and Dr. Bersell early in the year to coordinate American
Lutheran reconstruction efforts through the World Council. Michel-
felder took a very active part in the work of the Reconstruction
Committee from the time he reached Geneva, and the degree of
confidence he enjoyed from Dr. J. Hutchinson Cockburn, the Di-
rector, and from Dr. Visser tHooft was reflected in their urgent
The first carload of wheat gathered for the All-Lutheran Food Appeal, dedic
Reserve, Montana, in 1953.
Refugees in the Bavarian Forest of Germany receive gifts from Lutheran World Relief,
distributed by the Evangelical Hilfswerk.
Pastor Somer from Estonia preaches to a group of his countrymen just before they leave
for America from the LWF embarkation center at Bremen.
Holy Trinity Lutheran

Church in Warsaw, Poland,
rebuilt with LWF aid.
Dedication service in
March, 1957, for Luther-
an church in Merlebach,
France, built with ae
aid.
“Gospel caravan" used to

provide religious instruction
for children in the devas-
tated areas of East Ger-
many.
Youth pastor in Salzburg, Austria,
with motor-scooter purchased with
LWEF funds to facilitate his min-
istry in scattered refugee camps.
Behind every refugee or

DP resettlement lies much
tedious paper work. Family
registration cards are here
being matched with assurances
from the U.S. by Miss
Alice Erlander.
Dedication of barracks church in Finnmark
, in northern Norway, furnished with the aid of
the Lutheran World Federation in 1947. |
eo
en
Ye ; ree
Dr. John H, Reble,
Canadian LWS representa-
tive, distributing Bibles
as to emigrants about to
embark from Bremerhaven,
Germany.
Deaconesses of the Inner

Mission in Berlin with
twin orphans.
Chipping bricks in a church re-

construction project conducted by
one of LWF's international student
work camps.
Qi
“Little Miss Refugee" enjoys food
at a refugee camp.
One of the first money

gifts from the Lutheran World
Federation to a pastor's
widow in Berlin.
Dr. J. Igor Bella, LWS Senior Rep-

resentative for Lutheran Minority
Churches, notes relief needs during a
tour of Yugoslavia in 1955.
an)
Clothing distribution by LWS in Jordan. Augusta Victoria Hospital, LWF head-

quarters on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Clothing gifts from Lutheran World Service bring smiles to the faces of Arab refugee children in Jordan.
ty aes ae - a ere P : = = a ea F :
Se raedes. , +4 ani eete

> Bee
fuer
An LWF committee quizzes a DP as to his qualifications and fitness for work. Left to right:
Dr. Howard Hong of the U.S.; Dr. Ernest Ein, Estonian; Prof. Theodor Celms, Latvian;
and Dr. O#to Stanaitis, Lithuanian.
Refugee family from East Germany, sponsored by Lutheran Refugee Service, arrives in
New York in April, 1957, on their way to St. Paul, Minnesota.
- KARL €.00a
y oa MACALESTER $7,
> PAUL Ky) MINit,
te

request that he undertake the organization of the new Division of
Material Aid within the Department only a few months after his
arrival.
One of the first major projects in church reconstruction under-
taken by the Reconstruction Department was the purchase of sixty-
one wooden barracks for use as temporary church buildings in
the destroyed cities of Germany. This decision was made late in
August, 1945, just as the historic church conference of Treysa was
being held and the Evangelical Church in Germany was being
organized. A tremendous task of church reconstruction, both phys-
ical and spiritual, confronted these delegates and the twenty-eight
provincial churches they represented. As of January 1, 1945, 1,199
churches and chapels in Germany had been either totally destroyed
or badly damaged, and 2,160 others damaged to a lesser degree.
Nine hundred eighteen parsonages, 1,159 parish houses or kinder-
gartens, and 335 institutions of the Inner Mission were either par-
tially or totally destroyed. Altogether 8,924 church-owned build-
ings had suffered through the destruction of war. These figures,
moreover, do not include the last four months of the war, during
which some of the most severe air raids took place.
These were overwhelming statistics, but the Reconstruction
Committee moved nevertheless to place temporary church struc-
tures in as many places as their limited means would permit. When
set up, these buildings would provide worship centers seventy-
one by twenty-two feet, complete with stoves and benches, at a
cost of about $5,000 each. It was agreed that the British churches
would order fifteen, the Swiss churches ten, the World Council
in America ten. Michelfelder promised to cable for $50,000 from
the American Section of the Lutheran World Convention and also
to write to the Swedish Section to see if they could supply some
buildings from Sweden for Germany. The first of the barracks,
purchased in Switzerland with Lutheran money, was designated
for the city of Freiburg, which had not a single church building
standing intact. The Swedish aid committee, Till Bréders Hjalp,
responded with funds for two barracks in Holland and one in
France.
This pattern of operation continued throughout 1946 and most

of 1947, with church reconstruction projects varying from bicycles
for pastors in Czecho-Slovakia to catechisms printed on Swedish
paper for use in Germany. In every case the Reconstruction
Committee served as a coordinating agency for the contributing
churches, sometimes suggesting projects to the churches, but more
frequently simply taking cognizance of projects being implemented
by interested churches and organizations.
Dr. Michelfelder served during these months in a dual, and
later in a triple capacity in Geneva. As Director of the Division
of Material Aid for the World Council, he handled relief supplies
for all churches. As Commissioner of the American Section of the
Lutheran World Convention, he made recommendations to the
Lutheran churches of the United States both regarding material
aid and projects of church reconstruction, always consulting with
the Reconstruction Department of the World Council on the latter.
His added duties as Executive Secretary of the Lutheran World
Federation Planning Commission after July, 1946, dealt primarily
with preparations for the first World Assembly at Lund. It was to
aid Michelfelder in his capacity as American Commissioner that
Dr. Clifford A. Nelson came to Geneva in April, 1946, and his
inspection trips into the eastern European countries were produc-
tive of a great number of recommended projects for church recon-
struction which Michelfelder then forwarded to the American Sec-
tion in New York.
FORMING THE NATIONAL COMMITTEES

With the adoption of the new constitution of the Lutheran World
Federation at Lund in July, 1947, certain organizational changes
were necessitated in the various countries represented in the Fed-
eration. Each country was expected to establish a national com-
mittee which should be the official point of contact in that coun-
try for the Lutheran World Federation. Consequently, on Octo-
ber 1, 1947, the American Section of the Lutheran World Conven-
tion went out of existence, and its functions were taken over by
at
a
-
the United States Committee of the Lutheran World Federation,
whose personnel was identical with that of the National Lutheran
Council.
Similar action was taken in Canada, in Australia, in each of
the Scandinavian countries, in Germany, and elsewhere. From this
time on, the program of Lutheran relief and reconstruction in
Europe became increasingly well-defined, as national committees
in both giving and receiving countries established their ties with
the Federation headquarters in Geneva. This development should
not be understood as a waning of interest in the World Council of
Churches, but rather as the expression of the conviction formulated
at both Uppsala and Lund that the Lutheran contribution to the
ecumenical movement could be most effectively made as a con-
fessional church. The same position would also be made clear
at the constituent assembly of the World Council of Churches at
Amsterdam in 1948.
One factor which materially strengthened the cause of confes-
sional Lutheranism in Europe and which doubtless contributed to
the auspicious beginning of the Lutheran World Federation at
Lund was the strategically-timed and eminently successful Ten-
Million-Dollar Campaign of Lutheran World Action in 1946 and
1947. The fact that the Lutherans of North America were pre-
pared to contribute within two years the sum of $6,950,000 in
cash to church reconstruction and relief in Europe was a convinc-
ing demonstration of both vitality and good will which found a
ready response both in Germany and in parts of Scandinavia.
THE UNITED STATES COMMITTEE AT WORK

Just as the United States Committee was engaged in the process
of reorganizing to facilitate the handling of its greatly expanded
program of European church reconstruction, it was deprived of
one of its key leaders. Dr. Ralph H. Long, for seventeen years
Executive Director of the National Lutheran Council, succumbed
to a heart attack in the early months of 1948. He had come to
the Council in 1933 at a time when there was serious question as
to its continuance, and had provided the dynamic leadership nec-

essary to bring it out of the years of depression and into the crucial
war years, shaping its organization to meet the heavy responsi-
bilities thrust upon it for the care of orphaned missions and for
the ministry to Lutheran service men. “These are giant days, not
tiny hours, in which we live!” Dr. Long had declared in 1940 as
the first Lutheran World Action appeal was being laid before the
congregations of North America. “High above a bleeding and
wounded world stands the Cross of Calvary with its promise of
victory over all evil. Above the din of battle and the confusion of
the world it stands as the abiding refuge for all.”
The war was not yet over when early in 1945 Dr. Long, together
with Drs. Meyer and Bersell, undertook the first mission to Europe
to lay the groundwork for an effective program of reconstruction
among the Lutheran churches and to seek a reactivation of the
Lutheran World Convention. Both the appointment of Dr. Michel-
felder as American Commissioner and the launching of the Ten-
Million-Dollar Appeal were the direct results of recommendations
made by Long and his colleagues. “In my judgment,” wrote Dr.
Long shortly after his return, “the present situation offers the
greatest opportunity for the building of the kingdom of Christ that
we have faced in a century. . . . Under God the future of the
Lutheran Church in the world depends on how we measure up
to the responsibilities and opportunities of this hour.”
Dr. Long saw the success of the Ten-Million-Dollar Appeal sim-
ply as an occasion for gratitude to God and predicted that it
would result in a “profound spiritual reflex action” in the churches
which participated. He was confident that those who gave out of
Christian love and compassion would be blessed in a measure far
out of proportion to the size of the gifts they gave.
Quite apart from the personal bereavement felt by his col-
leagues in New York and most of all by Dr. Michelfelder in Ge-
neva, who had been his close friend for more than forty years, Dr.
Long’s death left a great gap in the leadership of the National Lu-
theran Council. Fortunately Dr. Paul Empie who, as Dr. Long’s
assistant, had provided such capable and warm-hearted direction
for the Lutheran World Action program since 1940, was able to
assume the executive leadership of the Council, But even before
Dr, Long’s death efforts had been made to secure someone to
handle the European reconstruction funds and to act as liaison
with the Lutheran World Federation headquarters. Dr. John
Scherzer of San Antonio, Texas, now accepted the position as Sec-
retary of the European Desk of the National Lutheran Council,
beginning September 1, 1948.
The coming of Dr. Scherzer to New York was a part of the sec-
ond phase of American Lutheran interchurch aid to Europe, which
began with the Lund Assembly in 1947 and ended in 1953 with
the activation of the new Department of World Service of the Lu-
theran World Federation. During these years the United States
Committee conducted its own operation in Europe, headed by Dr.
Michelfelder, its chief Commissioner. He was assisted by staff mem-
bers bearing particular responsibility for areas in which the Com-
mittee supported projects. Before 1947 the American Section had
sent emissaries such as Dr, Clifford A. Nelson, Dr. Julius Boden-
sieck, the Reverend Jacob Heikkinen, and the Reverend Sigurd
Engstrom to Europe for shorter special assignments, but in that
year the Reverend Martin Dietrich came to Geneva as Michel-
felder’s assistant for the entire church reconstruction program of
the United States Committee in Europe.
It was the studied policy of the Committee during these years
of decisive help to the Lutheran churches of Europe to maintain
a minimum number of its own personnel in the field. This was
done partly to free every possible dollar for specific projects of
church reconstruction and partly to avoid any possible feeling on
the part of receiving churches that the American churches were
seeking to interfere in their internal affairs. Hence, until January,
1951, Pastor Dietrich maintained his residence in Geneva, although
after 1949 he was responsible only for the program in Germany.
Likewise, Dr. J. Igor Bella, after his expulsion from Czecho-Slovakia
by the Communists in 1949, supervised United States Committee
operations in all of Europe outside of Germany, but maintained
his office in Geneva.
There is no doubt that these motives of economy and of respect

for the integrity of the churches were considered and sincere. Over-
head costs were kept at a minimum, and church reconstruction
funds were for the most part allocated in accordance with the
recommendation of officials of the receiving churches. But while
leading personalities in the European churches regularly experi-
enced the inner-family fellowship with representatives of world
Lutheranism, parish pastors and congregations rarely saw such a
personality, except in the crowded moments of a dedicatory service
for a church or an institution. During these years, when both
spiritual isolation and physical need had opened the way for the
rooting of a deep consciousness of world Lutheran oneness within
the congregations of Europe, the number of men who could sym-
bolize and interpret that oneness was consciously kept at a mini-
mum,
In other areas of activity such as the distribution of material
relief and services to Displaced Persons, where the contacts with
the local churches were far less intimate, such rigid economy of
personnel was not observed, From the standpoint of one who had
experience in both phases of the program, Dr. Scherzer evaluated
the contributions of effective field staff as “more important and
more valuable in the long-range program of interchurch aid than
the investment of dollars or the distribution of goods.” Such invest-
ments, he felt, could only achieve their real purpose insofar as
they were “properly related to the life of the churches through
personal representatives.” Those few men who were assignd to
perform this important function did their work extremely well.
Had there been more of them, the consciousness of the work of
the Lutheran World Federation would be far more vivid among
pastors and congregations in Europe than it is today.
Certain general patterns of procedure developed for the alloca-
tion and distribution of American church reconstruction funds in
Europe. The earliest requests originated either with the World
Council of Churches or as the result of investigating trips made
into Germany, Poland, Hungary, or some other country by a rep-
resentative of the American Section. Such requests, endorsed by
Dr. Michelfelder, were forwarded to New York where they were
studied and acted upon.
Following the Lund Assembly in 1947 American Lutheran aid
was handled directly by the United States Committee, for which
Michelfelder remained as chief European representative. This be-
came particularly clear in the case of the two large grants of one
million dollars each for the churches of Norway and Finland which,
on the recommendation of Dr. J. A. Aasgaard, president of The
Evangelical Lutheran Church, were made a part of the Ten-Million-
Dollar Appeal. Both were administered from New York.
SPIRITUAL RECONSTRUCTION IN NORWAY

The Church of Norway emerged in 1945 from a period of bitter
suffering and persecution, during which both pastors and bishops
had been imprisoned and the public work and worship of the
church had been suppressed. The courageous and unyielding posi-
tion taken by Bishop Eivind Berggrav and the Norwegian Church
in resisting Nazi attack and occupation had aroused high admira-
tion, not only among the many Lutherans of Norwegian ancestry
in America, but among the American people as a whole. The sug-
gestion to extend a helping hand to this church, therefore, met
with general approval.
Since the most heavily-destroyed part of Norway lay far to
the north of the Arctic Circle in the province of Finnmark, it was
difficult to secure accurate information concerning the actual ex-
tent of church damage or of the prospect of immediate recon-
struction. Presently, however, the situation became clearer. When
the people of Finnmark returned to their former villages and settle-
ments following the withdrawal of the German occupation forces,
they found virtually every building in the entire province leveled
to the ground. Not even living quarters were available.
In such a strenuous climate as that of Finnmark it was of first
importance to provide at least temporary shelter for those who
would undertake the task of rebuilding. Piers and shipping facili-
ties, also vital to the existence of these isolated arctic communities,
had to be constructed. Both building materials and labor had to

be imported, and construction work under such severe climatic
conditions necessarily went forward very slowly. All of these fac-
tors were taken into account by Norwegian Government planning
agencies when they placed church reconstruction rather low on
the list of building priorities.
2a
With permanent rebuilding thus postponed, the Norwegian
a,
Church was forced to undertake temporary measures. With Swed-
ish and American gifts a large motorboat and several smaller boats
ee
were purchased to enable pastors to travel from one settlement
a
to another in Finnmark. Early in 1946 the Norwegian Government
i
offered Bishop Berggrav twenty-three barrack buildings formerly
tee
remit
used by the German occupation army, and the American Section
gave $50,000, for erecting and equipping them. In addition to a
chapel seating sixty or seventy people, a three-room vicarage and
a kitchen for the social needs of the parish were built into each
a
barrack. To hasten the entire reconstruction program in Finnmark,
the United States Committee purchased a bulldozer for delivery
to the Norwegian highway administration, which in turn agreed
to pay the equivalent sum in Norwegian currency to the Church
Reconstruction Committee and also to open a road to the source
of building materials for the church.
By 1948, however, only a small portion of the million dollars
had been actually put to use in Norway. Government priorities
and the scarcity of building materials and labor still stood in the
way of church reconstruction. It was, moreover, apparent that if
technical difficulties could be overcome, insurance claims and goy-
ernment indemnities for war-destroyed property would make it
possible to complete the entire program of reconstruction in Finn-
mark without exhausting the million-dollar gift.
With this information in hand representatives of the Norwegian
Reconstruction Committee met with American representatives in
Amsterdam in September, 1948, and presented a long-range plan of
church reconstruction. Pastor Conrad Bonnevie-Svendsen, the secre-
tary of the Norwegian Committee, proposed that the balance of the
million dollars be left on deposit in New York, and that from
time to time the Norwegian Committee be permitted to invest the
dollars in Norwegian Government bonds, currently selling at low
rates because of the premium on dollars. These bonds could later
be resold at par value to the Norwegian Government in Norway
and payment received in Norwegian kroner. Funds would then be
available for church reconstruction purposes when the building
restrictions in Finnmark should be lifted.
Whatever profits should accrue from this investment were to
be placed in a special fund to be administered by the Norwegian
bishops for the strengthening of the spiritual life of the Church
of Norway. From this fund would be built a training center for
lay workers in the church and a center for the education of Chris-
tian teachers, both of which would be operated and maintained
independent of state control. The plans were subsequently ap-
proved by the United States Committee, and the result has been
that the original million-dollar gift has been augmented by about
forty per cent. The church reconstruction program in Finnmark
has now been completed, with the cooperation of the Norwegian
Inner Mission Society, which was assigned a portion of the gift
money to rebuild a number of children’s and old people’s homes.
When Dr. John Scherzer and Dr. Igor Bella braved the rough
seas and the wild winds to visit Finnmark in May, 1950, they
found the building program well under way. Eleven churches, four-
teen parsonages, and twenty-two schools and institutions have since
been completed.
Church reconstruction in Norway, however, has not been con-
fined to the replacement of destroyed buildings. During the war
years when the Norwegian Church operated as a free church, de-
~~
pending only upon the private support of its people, new spiritual
OSS
resources were developed. The American Gift, therefore, and espe-

cially the part of it which could be devoted to projects for the
further development of these resources, came at a very strategic
moment in the life of the Norwegian Church. The Layman’s In-
stitute, under the direction of Rector Daehlen, seeks to reach the
eee eee
laboring groups and the young families of the church through

short courses on family and social problems given by carefully
ee
ee
wre
selected, qualified personnel within the congregations. Longer

courses as well, centering in an academy of Christian stewardship,
will eventually be developed.
The Institute of Christian Education, led by Rector Bjarne Har-
eide, which combines representation from both the diocesan coun-
cils of the state church and the voluntary Christian organizations
of Norway, prepares study materials for religious instruction in
the schools and in the Bible courses of the Layman’s Institute. The
Catechetical Institute in Trondheim, for the training of Christian
teachers, and the Institute for Ecumenical Relations in Oslo, under
the leadership of Pastor Henrik Hauge, have also received con-
siderable assistance from the American Gift. All of these new
developments in the Norwegian Church will eventually be entirely
supported by voluntary offerings of the Norwegian congregations.
There are other evidences as well that the Norwegian Church is
emerging from a period of struggle and hardship as a stronger
and more vital church. There is widespread interest in organized
parish evangelism. Active participation in programs of material and
financial aid outside of Norway began as early as 1947 through
the organization of an official church relief agency, Kirkens Ngd-
hjelp. An active part has been taken by the Norwegian Church in
the work of the Lutheran World Federation, both financially and
through personnel serving on staff and commissions. According to
Bishop Smemo of Oslo, a “new time” has arrived in Norwegian
church life. People have become interested not only in foreign
missions, but also in helping other churches and other groups that
may be in need, For many parishes and people whose interests
were once primarily local and personal, “the whole world is now
in sight.” In this resurgence of vital Christian expression in Norway
the American Gift has played a very significant role.
ONE MILLION FOR FINLAND

The plight of the Church of Finland also aroused widespread
sympathy in the United States. As the result of the Winter War
in 1939-40 the Karelian Peninsula was taken from Finland by Rus-
sia and more than 500,000 Finns had to seek homes elsewhere in
their country. Through the territorial cessions to Russia the number
of parishes in Finland was reduced from 600 to 550. Because of
her natural opposition to Russia, Finland became a partner of
Germany during World War II, and when the German troops
withdrew from Lapland in northern Finland, their scorched-earth
policy left very few churches or parsonages or church institutions
standing.
The first assistance to the Finnish Church following the end of
the war came from her near neighbors in Sweden. One of the
first shipments of Lutheran World Relief in New York also included
assistance for Finland.
On January 25, 1946, the United States Committee voted to set
aside one million dollars of the Ten-Million-Dollar Appeal as a
fund for Finnish church reconstruction. The Reverend Jacob Heik-
kinen was sent as a special representative to Finland for the pur-
pose of working out an agreement with the Church for the ex-
penditure of this fund. Five categories were agreed upon, with
40 per cent of the total allocated for the rebuilding of churches
and parsonages and 80 per cent for church high schools and dea-
coness institutions. A category designated as “Living Needs” was
to provide emergency material and financial assistance to pastors
and church workers. Scholarship funds were also established for
study, both in Europe and in America, in the fields of practical
church administration, stewardship, missions, and theology. A spe-
cial fund was set aside to foster the work of the Lutheran World
Federation in Finland, and a fund of $6,000 was established for
the exchange of church leaders between the United States and
Finland. To act as liaison between the Ecclesiastical Board of the
Church of Finland and the United States Committee, a Finnish
pastor, the Reverend Ahti Auranen, was appointed, with respon-
sibility also to supervise the plans for the construction of the church
buildings in all parts of Finland.
It was agreed that the funds should remain in New York to be
drawn upon by request of the Ecclesiastical Board for specific
projects. The Finnish Board was given freedom in determining
the manner of converting these American dollars into Finnmarks,

and demonstrated a great deal of ingenuity in arranging with the
Finnish Government for the financing of coffee imports into Fin-
land. By such means the value of the American grant in terms of
Finnmarks was increased to about $7,000,000. Through the use
of American dollars the Finns were able to purchase from Sweden
or Denmark such supplies as cement, steel, and pipes, which were
very scarce in Finland. Brick, for example, was almost impossible
to secure in 1948. But by importing other commodities which were
badly needed by the brick concerns, Pastor Auranen was able to
exchange them for generous shares of the limited construction
material.
The necessity of paying war reparations to Russia had so
taxed production facilities of Finnish industry that there was very
little material available on the Finnish market. Such a variety of
textile materials, buttons, and thread appeared in the official pur-
chase requests forwarded to New York that Dr. Michelfelder good-
naturedly suggested to the United States Committee that if they
could secure any surplus buttonholes from the Army, they might
also include those in the shipment to Finland.
When he visited this vast forest-covered, lake-studded land of
the North, both in 1950 and 1952, to bring the greetings of Ameri-
can Lutherans, Dr. J. Igor Bella found a vital, sturdy church life
among the congregations, During the course of the construction
program, which lasted from 1948 to 1952, nineteen churches, twenty-
three parsonages, eighteen church high schools, and four deaconess
institutions were built. In the case of every individual construc-
tion project the funds provided from American sources were more
than matched by the contributions of the individual congregations
and the Finnish Church.
Moreover, great care was taken to interpret the spirit in which
the gifts were given by brethren across the seas. Some of this
understanding was reflected in a quotation from the daily news-
paper in the city of Rovaniemi, far to the north on the Arctic
Circle, on the occasion of the dedication of the new church there.
“The bells of the church toll this Sunday morning for the first
time to summon the people to the temple. This is the day of her
dedication and a deep sense of gratitude fills our hearts when we
see the newborn place of worship completed after so many difficult
years. It is only through the help of God and through Him, by
the aid and assistance of our many neighbors and friends beyond
the seas, that we have been able to bring this work to an end.
And now, at long last, a new house of God stands again on a
beautiful place near the river. “Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy
name give glory. ”
In 1952, the year in which the church reconstruction program
was completed, every congregation in Finland took up a special
offering for the program of the Lutheran World Federation. Since
then the Finnish Church has regularly taken its place among the
giving churches of the Lutheran world family. Interchurch aid
has become a reality in the congregations of Finland.
—
ie.
NEW ALTARS IN GERMANY
tin.
By far the largest sums of money for church reconstruction were
o—_
designated for Germany by the United States Committee. In the

land of the Reformation there were more Lutherans than in any
other country in the world, and in the wake of the war more de-
struction of church property than anywhere else in Europe. The
knowledge of the great need which would confront the church in
Germany at the end of the war was an important factor in moy-
ing the Lutherans of America to begin their plans for relief and
reconstruction as early as 1940
Beginning with the $50,000 grant for the purchase of temporary
church barracks in 1945, the earliest gifts of the American Section
were channeled through Dr. Michelfelder in response to his written
or cabled requests. As a regular participant in the Reconstruction
Committee of the World Council, Dr. Michelfelder invariably kept
his ecumenical colleagues informed of his requests, and in many
instances the Lutheran grants were paid out through the World
Council. This was true of the huge child-feeding program in Ger-
many and the large purchases of blankets and other army surplus
materials which were dispatched early in 1946 to Finland, Czecho-

Slovakia, France, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Holland, and Poland.
For the churches of Germany, however, there were many sub-
stantial grants for spiritual reconstruction given directly by the
American Section in 1946 and 1947. Material for deaconess garbs,
paper for the printing of catechisms and Bible histories, office
supplies and equipment for the offices of the Hilfswerk, and
$95,000 for the relief of twenty Lutheran church institutions, are
random examples taken from the long list.
At the same United States Committee meeting in Amsterdam
in 1948 which approved the Norwegian Church's plan for the use
of its Million-Dollar Gift, it was also decided to make available
a similar grant to the newly-formed German National Committee
of the Lutheran World Federation. To prepare the specific requests
within this general allocation the Germans set up a Distribution
Committee headed by Bishop Hans Meiser of Bavaria and includ-
ing representatives of the National Committee and the Hilfswerk.
The United States Committee was represented by Pastor Martin
Dietrich.
Even after the million-dollar “Lutherspende” had been distrib-
uted, this committee continued to function in relation to subsequent
grants and went out of existence only with the organization of the
new German Committee for Lutheran World Service in 1952.
It is impossible to detail the individual projects of church recon-
struction between 1945 and 1952, a simple listing of which would
fill thirty-five typewritten pages. The German Distribution Com-
mittee, however, submitted its requests under five categories, and
these may serve as a convenient framework for a general view of
the program.
There were many areas in Germany immediately after the war
where not a single church building remained standing. In such
instances the primary need in spiritual reconstruction was the pro-
viding of rooms for worship. Congregations made use of every kind
of temporary facility they could find, including cellars and aban-
doned bunkers, and many who had been accustomed to worship
beneath soaring Gothic arches found they could give thanks to
_ God for life and hope with equal fervor in the close confines of a
makeshift wooden barrack.
One of the most noteworthy instances in which foreign gifts
were combined with self-help was the construction between 1947
and 1949 of forty-nine so-called “rubble churches,” thirty-one of
which were made possible through Lutheran aid from America.
Following a standard design prepared by the well-known German
architect, Professor Otto Bartning, these churches made use of brick
salvaged from omnipresent ruins, and when completed in their
strictly functional style, without even a spire or a bell-tower, they
provided a substantial though simple house of worship accom-
modating 450 persons. The $10,000 of gift money which was allo-
cated for each church was used to purchase the heavy laminated
structural supports, the roof, the doors and windows, and the
furnishings of the church, Members of the congregation wherever
possible contributed their services in the construction process. Pro-
fessor Bartning also planned nineteen parish centers of similar
design and twenty-nine chapels for newly-established refugee con-
gregations, several of which were built with reconstruction funds
from the United States Committee.
With 3,368 churches in Germany either damaged or destroyed,
it was clear that comparatively few reconstruction projects could
benefit from foreign gifts. Most of the repair and rebuilding would
have to be done by the churches and the people themselves as time
and resources permitted. Because of the limited extent of these
funds the representatives of the United States Committee stressed
repeatedly that the purpose of the outside aid was simply to under-
gird and to strengthen the local effort.
As economic conditions in West Germany improved after 1948,
the United States Committee began to follow the practice of mak-
ing loans for church reconstruction and repair, rather than outright
grants. These loans were granted on very liberal terms, interest
free for the first two years, 8% per cent for the third and fourth
years, and regular bank rates thereafter until repaid. The loans
were serviced by the Evangelical Hilfswerk. In 1952 when the.ad-
ministration of the loan fund was taken over by the German Com-
mittee for Lutheran World Service, the Hilfswerk reported that
DM 2,853,547, the equivalent of $679,416, had been distributed
since 1948, According to the decision of the United States Com-
mittee, as this money was gradually repaid, it was placed in a per-
manent revolving fund to be used in Germany for the strengthening
of church life.
The situation in eastern Germany remained critical, even after
the Distribution Committee indicated in 1951 that the West German
churches were ready to enter the ranks of “giving churches.” The
United States Committee did not, therefore, apply its loan policy
to the church reconstruction program there. However, even in
eastern Germany local resources always bore the brunt of the
financial load, with outside gifts adding the necessary extra stim-
ulus and encouragement.
STRENGTH FOR THE PRIESTS AND PROPHETS

Another major category of interchurch aid was that which sought
to strengthen and conserve the human resources of the German
churches. The suffering of the war years had exacted its toll among
pastors and lay leaders. Thousands of them had lost their lives
in battle or in bombing raids, and those who survived had to carry
on the work of their fallen colleagues in addition to their own.
The spiritual and physical needs of the congregations in the
immediate postwar months were especially acute and actually de-
manded more strength and vigor than many pastors were able
to muster. For this reason the special living allowances, the medi-
cal care, and the travel subsidies which were made available rep-
resented a real undergirding of the spiritual life of the churches of
Germany. One of the first Lutheran leaders to benefit from this
program was Doctor Theophil Wurm, the venerable Bishop of
Wiirttemberg, whose sturdy resistance to the encroachments of
Nazism had made him a symbol of strength and hope within the
German church. Together with two other Lutheran leaders, he
was invited to Switzerland early in 1946 for a much-needed period
of rest and recuperation.
Literally thousands of key Christian leaders in western Europe
i — eS
received similar help during the postwar years. Sometimes it was
a cash grant to enable a pastor to purchase medicine or food or
clothing for his family; sometimes it was an invitation to spend two
weeks in rest and relaxation at some institution of the church tucked
away in the quiet cool of the Black Forest or the invigorating
i,
freshness of the North Sea coast.
ee
Frequently relaxation was coupled with study and Christian
————
fellowship, as in the series of theological conferences at Bad Boll,
sponsored for the first time in 1949 by the National Lutheran Coun-
cil and the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and attended by
hundreds of German pastors. One of the great needs in the post-
war period was the re-establishment of ecclesiastical contacts by
the German churches with the outside world after their long pe-
riod of isolation. Preliminary planning sessions for the Lutheran
World Assembly, and the Assembly itself in Lund in 1947, pro-
vided some of the first opportunities of this kind. The visit to the
United States in 1948 by Bishop Hans Meiser of Bavaria was only
one of many such efforts, both from America and Scandinavia, to
restore important personal relationships for the German Lutheran
churches. It would be impossible even to count the thousands of
individual packages of food, clothing, and books which brought
into Lutheran parsonages in Germany both physical and spiritual
sustenance and enabled pastors to face their overwhelming tasks
with renewed courage.
Support to Christian education on every level has been very
close to the heart of the spiritual reconstruction program in Ger-
many. Damaged school buildings had to be repaired; teachers had
to be trained and supported; textbooks were in many instances
unavailable. In the face of both political and economic problems
in the postwar years, thousands of students would have been un-
able to continue their studies without scholarship assistance and
supplementary food rations. Doubtless the most significant single

item of assistance has been the $600,000 which has been made
available through the Lutheran World Federation to the churches
of the East Zone for the support of their program of Christian
education since 1946.
With the advent of the Russian program of reeducation in the
East Zone, the traditional method of giving religious instruction in
the public schools had to be abandoned. In the face of an over-
whelming shortage of both personnel and teaching rooms, the
churches of the East Zone were forced to set up an entirely new
and independent system of religious instruction. Teacher-training
institutes had to be established and equipped, candidates recruited
and given a respectable course of instruction, and teaching rooms
had to be located in every parish. Even if so much church property
had not been destroyed during the war, this would have been an
extremely difficult problem because most church buildings were
not built to include such facilities. However, with the assistance
of outside gifts and through careful management of their own
limited means, these churches raised up a staff of ten thousand lay
teachers of religion, gave them each a two-year course of instruc-
tion, and sent them out into the 7,000 parishes of the East Zone to
teach. Under almost unbelievable hardships, with inadequate sal-
aries, and under the constant suspicion and periodic interference
of the state, this corps of modern Christian heroes has continued
to work up to the present time.
For the training of these teachers the churches of eastern Ger-
many presently maintain about thirty-five seminaries. Year by year
the number of church-owned teaching rooms increases, with the
ultimate goal of a room for every parish. In 1953-54 Lutheran
World Service grants made it possible for 732 parishes, or ten per
cent of the total parishes of eastern Germany, to secure such teach-
ing facilities. During the same period one-third of the total costs
of maintaining over 1,100 catechetical students was defrayed from
the same sources. Concerning this program of Christian education
in East Germany, a prominent church official commented, “In the
spiritual situation of the German East, the catechetical work is of
decisive importance. Upon it depends to a great extent whether
in East Germany the materialistic view of life will win the youth
or not.”
SOCIAL EVANGELISM IN THE

GERMAN CHURCH
In no other Protestant country is there such a highly devel-
oped program of institutional church welfare as in Germany. Since
Johan Hinrich Wichern, the “father of the Inner Mission,” founded
the “Rauhes Haus” for neglected and unwanted boys in Hamburg
in 1833, there has grown up a vast network of Christian institu-
tions all over Germany. Embraced within this widespread social
ministry of the church are hospitals for the care of epileptics, crip-
pled and tubercular patients, for the retarded and the mentally
ill; homes for the aged, the blind, and the deaf, for orphans and
for morally-endangered youth; vocational training centers, kinder-
gartens, labor colonies, and railway missions. Together with for-
eign missions, these institutions have been the special objects of
voluntary individual and congregational support and have never
been given regular assistance by either state governments or
through church budgets. In 1948 the Inner Mission embraced
more than 3,000 institutions, with about 180,000 beds for the sick,
the infirm, and the outcasts of society.
Overburdened with patients even in normal times, the facilities
of these institutions were strained almost to the breaking point
during the years following the war. Several hundred of them were
either partially or totally destroyed; equipment deteriorated; sup-
plies gave out; personnel for medical and social care was simply
not adequate. Direct grants for supplies and equipment as well as
for the reconstruction or relocation of buildings were made by the
United States Committee to dozens of Inner Mission institutions
throughout Germany.
It was to these institutions that the Hilfswerk delivered much
of the medicines, bandages, bed linens, baby layettes, and food
which it received from German congregations and from churches
overseas. It was from the 189 deaconess motherhouses associated

with the Inner Mission that some 46,000 Protestant sisters went
out like angels of mercy into ruins and bunkers and refugee camps
after the war, bringing relief and comfort to thousands of weary
and suffering people. These were the living arms of the church,
which other distant members of the body of Christ were privileged
to strengthen with their gifts.
In addition to the welfare work of the Protestant church of
Germany, several other general church activities were given di-
rect aid by the United States Committee. Early in 1947 a grant of
$25,000 was made to a joint program of youth camps conducted by
Dr. Manfred Miiller of the Youth Department of the EKID and
by the YMCA. Subsequently, youth centers and training schools
for apprentices, retreat houses and hostels for Christian youth,
and boarding homes for young people attending schools away
from home were established in many parts of Germany.
Both the Men’s Work and the Women’s Work of the German
church were given subsidies, as was also the energetically-led
Service to Mothers, under the direction of Dr. Antonie Nopitsch of
Stein, near Niirnberg. Here in a beautiful complex of buildings
formerly occupied by members of Hitler’s elite SS troops, Dr.
Nopitsch established the headquarters for a service to war-weary
mothers where they might come for periods of vacation and fellow-
ship about God’s Word in an atmosphere enriched by natural
beauty and warm human understanding. Since 1946 thousands of
mothers have thanked God and their church for the blessings they
have received through Stein and its network of associated institu-
tions both in East and West Germany.
One of the most significant developments in postwar German
church life has been the Evangelical Academy movement. Founded
in 1945 by Dr. Eberhard Miiller and Professor Helmut Thielecke
at Bad Boll in Wiirttemberg, this movement seeks to promote what
it conceives to be an absolutely essential relation between the
Christian faith and all aspects of modern life. It was the failure to
take this relation seriously which, according to Dr. Miiller, opened
the way for the moral and spiritual catastrophe of National Social-
ism. As its method of combating this fatal isolationism of the
Christian faith the Evangelical Academy, in the name of the church,
invited groups of individuals representing some significant profes-
sion or group—such as medicine, law, journalism, the theater, labor,
music, or education—to discuss the special problems of their pro-
fession in relation to moral and Christian responsibility. For the
first time in many years there has come a realization that the
church is interested in the problems of people where they are, and
the response to the academies has been extremely positive. Eighteen
of them are now in operation, including five in East Germany,
and about four thousand persons take part in their conferences
each year.
During their earlier years almost all of the Evangelical Acade-
mies, beginning with Bad Boll, received grants from the United
States Committee of the Lutheran World Federation. The largest
individual grant was the $50,000 which made possible the found-
ing of the Academy for Social Study at Friedewald in the Rhine-
land in January, 1948. As a part of its program this unique insti-
tution in the midst of a highly industrialized community seeks to
enable the church better to understand and to combat the ideas
of materialistic Marxian socialism and thereby to reach Germany’s
traditionally unchurched labor groups with the Christian message.
GOD’S PRINTED PAGES

A final category is that of Christian literature. During the years
immediately following the war the hunger for the printed word
was almost as acute as the hunger for bread. Official estimates
claimed there were more than six million Protestants in Germany
without Bibles or Testaments, three million without hymnbooks,
and four million children without books for religious instruction.
Almost eight thousand pastors had lost their theological libraries.
It was no wonder that the first official request sent to the World
Council of Churches from the newly-organized Evangelical Church
in Germany on August 31, 1945, was for $60,000 worth of literature,
including 500,000 Lutheran and 100,000 Reformed catechisms. With

printing presses in ruins and with paper supplies either depleted
or destroyed, the EKID also pled with the World Council for
subsidies of cash and of paper to enable three religious publishing
houses to rebuild and to resume publication.
The response from all sides was overwhelming. Swedish and
American Bible Societies began with an immediate shipment of
Bibles and Testaments, The second request approved for Germany
by the American Section, following that for the barrack churches,
was a $20,000 grant for the purchase of paper in Sweden to be
used for the printing of catechisms. The Hilfswerk requested al-
most immediately that cellulose instead of paper be purchased,
which would then be processed in Germany and turned over to the
various publishing houses. Glue and thread for binding Bibles
were furnished by the American Bible Society. In the first three
years after the war almost 1200 tons of paper and cellulose were
sent to Germany by the American Section, with the American Bible
Society, the Missouri Synod, and various Swedish agencies each
providing about 500 tons. From these and other gifts more than
8,000,000 books and 6,000,000 issues of church papers and periodi-
cals were produced. The famine of Christian literature had at
least been checked.
In the allocations of the Million-Dollar Gift the German Distri-
bution Committee began systematically to fill in the gaps in the
theological libraries of pastors and seminaries. This they accom-
plished by giving direct subsidies and loans to publishers for pro-
ducing certain designated titles. Proceeds from the loans were paid
into a revolving fund which even yet exists for the constant en-
richment of the literature of the church. Bishop Lilje’s widely-read
newspaper, the Sonntagsblatt, was also subsidized.
Stringent government regulations regarding the import of paper
prevented a large production in the Eastern Zone of Germany. The
churches, however, organized 280 synodical. libraries in strategic
centers with the assistance of Lutheran World Federation gifts,
and these libraries were kept well-stocked with both new and
standard theological literature for the use of pastors and professors.
Throughout the period of 1945 to 1953 the United States Com-
mittee spent a total of $5,437,204 for church reconstruction projects
in Germany. In many instances these gifts were multiplied through
the judicious purchase of raw materials, to be processed under the
direction of the Evangelical Hilfswerk into books, clothing, pas-
toral robes, or hospital linens, as the case might be.
The high premium which was placed upon dollars in foreign
exchange also made possible extra benefits to all the churches of
Europe. Dr. John Scherzer rendered an extraordinary service
through careful purchase of so-called “blocked marks” for church
reconstruction purposes in Germany, which in some cases almost
doubled the value of the dollar in foreign exchange. Because of the
precarious state of the economy in 1951 foreign corporations in
Germany were not permitted to export their cash profits in marks.
In order to convert these profits into some free currency such as
dollars, the corporations were willing to exchange their “blocked
marks” at a very favorable rate to some organization which could
use them within Germany for purposes approved by the German
Government. As the economy became more robust, these govern-
ment controls gradually were removed, but in one single year Dr.
Scherzer was able to supplement the American allocation to Ger-
many by $360,000.
THROUGH GERMAN EYES

One of the undoubted blessings that has come to both the
American and the German Lutheran churches through this many-
faceted program of spiritual reconstruction has been a deepening
mutual understanding and affection. Not only the volume of the
aid which has come, but the fact that it began at a time when
enmity and bitterness still ruled in official circles created a deep
impression on the German churches.
“During those early days,” wrote one leading German church-
man, “the need in Germany was so great, and the value of the dol-
lars so high, that through the help of American Lutherans, the life
and health of countless individuals were saved.”
Not only were human needs met, but the life of the church was
strengthened, especially in the East Zone where the economic pri-
vations and the political pressures upon the church have remained
more or less acute ever since the end of the war. The establishment
of certain new forms of church life, such as the catechetical pro-
gram, in the face of extremely difficult conditions, could scarcely
have been accomplished without the outside help which came just
at the critical moments. This program has been the spiritual sal-
vation of an entire generation of children and young people in
East Germany.
To the program of physical relief and spiritual reconstruction
as a whole there has been a positive response from the churches
of Germany. Bishop Meiser referred in 1951 to the flood of gifts
which had swept into Germany from all parts of the world as a
challenge to the German churches “to develop their own resources
to such an extent that they will match the joy of giving” displayed
in Lutheran congregations abroad. There is no doubt that the re-
sponse which the stewardship movement found in Germany fol-
lowing the Hannover Assembly of 1952 was in large measure a
response to this challenge.
The will to share has been manifested by the German churches
both toward their own needy brethren and toward those in other
parts of the world. “Never in all its history,” according to Dr. Wal-
ter Zimmermann, Vice-President of the Berlin headquarters of the
United Evangelical Lutheran Church, “has the church in Germany
ministered so extensively to the physical needs of the German peo-
ple, and thereby also to their spiritual needs, as has been the case
in these past few years.” As West Germany gained steadily in ec-
onomic strength after 1948, tremendous amounts of assistance were
sent by churches and individuals to the East Zone. Following the
Hannover Assembly in 1952 the Lutheran churches of Germany
organized their own Committee on Lutheran World Service to
facilitate the support of relief and reconstruction projects in needy
areas outside of Germany. Even the hard-pressed churches of the
East, impatient with their role as receiving churches, have gathered
gifts for areas in greater need than they. The extent of German
participation in the program of Lutheran World Service will be
examined in a later chapter.
LUTHERAN MINORITIES IN FRANCE

AND ITALY
Outside the borders of Germany and Scandinavia are several
sizable minority Lutheran churches which, since the end of the
war, have been receiving both material and financial assistance
through the Lutheran World Federation. Several of them are made
up of German-speaking people who trace their origin to migrations
from Germany and who had depended heavily upon financial as-
sistance from the German churches before the war. This was true
of the Lutherans of Italy, Switzerland, and parts of Yugoslavia and
Rumania. Those in France were concentrated in large part in the
border provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which at various times
had been a part of Germany and in which the German language
was commonly spoken. Lutherans in Czecho-Slovakia, Austria,
Hungary, and Poland, on the other hand, represented the sturdy
remnant which had survived the assaults of the Counter-Reforma-
tion. In Holland a small group of Lutherans had existed since the
Reformation under the shadow of the powerful Dutch Reformed
Church. Each of these Lutheran churches had problems peculiar
to its own situation, but all shared in the common hazards of
minority status, rendered acute by the losses and privations of
war.
The 344,000 Lutherans in France are distributed between two
church organizations: a State Church in the provinces of Alsace
and Lorraine, and a free Lutheran Church consisting of two synods,
Paris and Montbeliard. The general problem of all these churches
has been the reconstruction of church buildings which were dam-
aged or destroyed during the war. To meet the emergency needs
early in 1946 three temporary barrack churches were given by
Swedish and American Lutherans. In Alsace-Lorraine, where per-
manent reconstruction is actually the responsibility of the state,
aid has been both slow and meager. The Lutheran World Federa-
tion has therefore contributed substantially since 1948 to the pro-

gram of church reconstruction both through grants and loans.
The synods of Paris and Montbeliard have also received funds
for this purpose, but have used a larger portion of their grants
for supplementing the extremely low salaries of their pastors. To
stimulate the congregational life and the evangelistic outreach of
the French church, a number of scholarships have been awarded
to young French pastors for study abroad, and the American, Nor-
wegian, and Swedish churches have sent personnel to assist in
youth and parish work in the Paris Synod, With the slowly recover-
ing economy the Lutheran churches of France have also improved
their situations, and notably in the industrial areas around Stras-
bourg a more vigorous missionary outreach has been displayed.
Large numbers of German refugees have also remained in France,
and with the assistance of the Lutheran World Federation an ex-
tensive pastoral ministry has been provided for them. As a minority
church the Lutheran Church of France has already been measura-
bly strengthened through relations with its sister Lutheran churches.
It has a National Committee, headed by Inspector Meyer of the
Paris Synod, through which it maintains its contacts with the Lu-
theran World Federation.
Until 1949 there was no Lutheran Church of Italy. Thirteen
congregations serving German diplomats, merchants, and resorters,
and receiving their total support from the homeland, were scat-
tered up and down the Italian peninsula from Venice and Genoa
to Rome and Naples. When the war was over, only about 3500
Germans remained to make use of the chain of thirteen truly beau-
tiful churches. After 1945 no help could come from either church
or state in Germany, and therefore the American and Swedish
churches took over the subsidizing of both pastors and church
buildings. One of the first grants made by the United States Com-
mittee early in 1946 was for $1350 for the salaries of two German
pastors in Italy.
Cut off from the support of their home churches and eager to
replace their purely German connotation with a more international
affiliation, the Italian congregations in September, 1948, declared
their intention of becoming an autonomous Lutheran church, and
applied in 1949 for membership in the Lutheran World Federation.
Their application was accepted, and the subsidization continued
as before, but with an increased emphasis upon the development
of local responsibility within the congregations. Pastors continue
to be supplied from Germany, but a theological student was sent
from America for one year in 1949 to assist Dean Erich Dahlgriin
at Rome. In recent years the first efforts have been made to open
a preaching ministry in the Italian language, but it seems probable
that for many years to come the Italian Lutheran church will re-
main a German-speaking minority, dependent for its survival upon
the aid it receives through the Lutheran World Federation.
AUSTRIA’S FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND

Since the days of the Reformation there has been a Lutheran
minority church in Roman Catholic Austria. Its earliest history
was one of oppression and expulsion, later of toleration, and only
after Emperor Franz Joseph's decree of 1849 was full religious free-
dom granted. The dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Em-
pire in 1919 reduced the Lutheran population greatly and left the
church heavily dependent upon outside assistance, especially from
Germany. Even this support was terminated with the end of the
war, and more than 300,000 Austrian Lutherans found themselves
faced with the task of maintaining their ministry, rebuilding many
destroyed churches, and ministering to the needs of about 70,000
Lutheran refugees who crowded in from Rumania, Hungary, and
other eastern countries. When Clifford A. Nelson visited Vienna
for the first time in July, 1946, he was depressed by the “atmosphere
of living death” which he found in that proud capital of Hapsburg
glory, with the glorious Gothic tower of its shattered Cathedral of
St. Stephan still standing amid the rubble “like a frozen, grief-
stricken prayer.”
Austria’s first need was material relief for people trying to subsist
in some cases on a diet of nine hundred calories a day. Three child-
feeding programs were sponsored in successive years by the Amer-
ican Section, and both Sweden and Norway made Austrian needs
a regular part of their aid programs. Student work and youth pro-
grams were encouraged, and the institutions of the Inner Mission
received grants to enable them to fulfill their ministry of mercy
among the needy.
In addition to the material relief which was channeled to Austria
in the first years after the war and which still continues in signifi-
cant amounts because of the disproportionately large number of
refugees to be cared for by a small Lutheran church, large amounts
of money have been made available for both physical and spiritual
church reconstruction. According to a report of the Austrian Na-
tional Committee of the Lutheran World Federation, more than
$555,000 has been received for these purposes between 1947 and
1956.
The largest part of this amount has been used for the construc-
tion and repair of church buildings, both in the older Lutheran
communities and in the many new parishes which have been or-
ganized to meet the needs of the refugees. In these new areas,
overwhelmingly Roman Catholic in population, both the small num-
ce
bers and the diverse national origins of the Lutheran people have
made the building of congregational life very difficult. Many times
a
the gifts of money from the outside have provided the necessary
stimulus for local efforts, and in the actual building operation, to
which members have contributed both money and labor, a real
congregational unity has been achieved. The establishment of these
so-called “diaspora” congregations is one of the most important de-
velopments within the Austrian Lutheran Church since 1945.
Closely related to the church building program has been the
substantial assistance which has been given to the pastors and
church workers of the Austrian Lutheran Church. Parish workers
and teachers have been provided for the scattered diaspora par-
ishes. Because of the help of a special fund many a group of Luther-
an worshippers is able to welcome a motorized minister who finds
his way into their isolated Alpine village, not in a shiny sedan, but
astride a motor-scooter. Pastors’ salaries, consistently far below
standard, have been subsidized periodically, and the Lutheran
Bishop has been supplied with a fund for the alleviation of cases
of special need among pastors and pastors’ families. One of the
most encouraging examples of brotherly aid between near neigh-
bors has been the substantial gift of more than DM 100,000 sent
in 1954 and 1955 by the Bavarian Lutheran pastors to supplement
the salaries of their Austrian colleagues.
Personal ties with the Austrian church have also been main-
tained both through the presence of staff personnel of the Lutheran
World Federation in Austria and through various kinds of pastoral
exchange. More than sixty Austrians attended the World Assembly
of the Lutheran World Federation in Hannover in 1952, and Aus-
trian pastors have been regularly invited to participate in confer-
ences in France, Germany, and Scandinavia. Swedish and Norwe-
gian church committees cooperated in 1950 to bring eight Austrian
pastors to Sweden for a much-needed vacation. From 1950 to 1953
Dr. Julius Bodensieck served as a special commissioner of the
United States Committee, conducting pastoral visitations and lec-
turing in the theological faculty of the University of Vienna, Al-
though their functions were somewhat specialized, members of the
staff of the Lutheran World Federation Service to Refugees also
symbolized the close identification of world Lutherans with the
problems of the Austrian church.
The physical assistance and the inner spiritual strengthening
which have come to the Lutheran church in Austria through the
Lutheran World Federation have been of incalculable importance
in meeting the special problems of the postwar years. Without this
help it is difficult to see how the Austrian church could have per-
formed its ministry adequately. If church reconstruction grants,
subsidies for refugee work, material relief supplies, and housing
subsidies and loans are all taken into account, almost $6,500,000
has been given in Austria through the member churches of the
Lutheran World Federation. There is no doubt that this has awak-
ened the Lutheran Church of Austria to a keen awareness of its

membership in a world family. Its major task within the coming
years will be to throw off the sense of dependence and to develop
a stronger sense of congregational responsibility which will lead
eventually to full self-support.
YUGOSLAVIAS LUTHERANS
The Lutheran church in Yugoslavia is a reflection of the com-
posite make-up of the Balkan domain of Marshal Tito. No less than
four separate churches—Slovakian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and Cro-
atian—ranging in size from eight thousand to fifty-three thousand,
and each speaking a different language, are needed to embrace
the ninety thousand Lutherans in the entire country. An estimated
300,000 Germans, about half of them Lutherans, who had lived in
Yugoslavia before the war, fled to Germany and Austria in 1945
and in subsequent years, thus leaving the churches considerably
weakened as they struggled to recover under the regime of Com-
munist Marshal Tito.
During the first four years after the departure of the Germans
=
there was outright hostility against the churches, marked by the

—
confiscation of several church buildings. During this period a

——_
——
limited number of cash grants were made directly to leaders of

each of the four churches, but practically all of the $90,000 in in-
terchurch aid from the United States Committee up to 1952 was
channeled through the individual package program directed by
Pastor Louis Sanjek. After Tito’s break with Stalin in 1948 the
frontal attacks against the church ceased, although financial pres-
sures and opposition to church youth programs continued.
By 1952 the diverse Lutheran elements within Yugoslavia had
established a Yugoslavian National Committee for the coordination
of church requests and the allocation of Lutheran World Federa-
tion grants, and therefore the package program was discontinued.
In 1951 the first reconstruction project in Yugoslavia was under-
taken when the government returned the previously confiscated
church building in Sarajevo. When the dedication ceremonies were
held in the summer of 1953, a whole host of visiting churchmen
representing the Lutheran World Federation converged on Sara-
jevo and then deployed throughout the country in visits which
brought encouragement and new spiritual strength to the entire
Lutheran church of Yugoslavia.
Although material aid with the approval of the government re-
mained the largest single item of assistance mediated through the
Lutheran World Federation, reconstruction projects continued to
appear on the Yugoslavian requests as confiscated buildings were
restored to the churches. Because of the grave shortage of pastors
and the scattered location of many of the parishes special travel
grants were also made. In Croatia, for example, one pastor was
called upon to serve twenty-one different preaching places, Books
and church literature have also been sent in large quantities, par-
ticularly from Germany, since most of the pastors in Yugoslavia are
able to use this language as well as their own.
For the future of the Lutheran church in Yugoslavia the supply
of young men for the ministry is a particularly critical problem.
Since there is no Lutheran theological seminary in the country,
the only practical possibilities would be to provide a Lutheran
professor in the Orthodox faculty at Belgrade or to send students
to Vienna or to Germany on scholarships. The latter alternative
has been selected, and the German National Committee of the
Lutheran World Federation has been especially helpful in securing
scholarships at several German universities. However, since the
Yugoslavian government has on several occasions displayed a re-
luctance to grant exit visas to its young men for purposes of foreign
theological study, this solution of the problem of theological edu-
cation cannot be regarded as a permanent one for the Lutheran
churches of Yugoslavia.
CHURCHES UNDER THE CROSS:

EASTERN EUROPE
The story of Lutheran World Federation aid to the Lutheran
churches of eastern Europe is tragically abbreviated. In the first
years after the war the channels were still open into Poland, Hun-
gary, and Czecho-Slovakia, and to a very limited extent into Ru-
mania and Bulgaria. But in one country after the other the iron
curtain descended and even correspondence ceased, The Polish
and Czecho-Slovakian governments prevented any direct church
aid after 1949. After the false arrest and deposition of Bishop Or-
dass in 1948, aid to Hungary was halted for eight years, until the
restoration of the Bishop in 1956.
Ever since the relief efforts following the First World War, the
Church of Poland had occupied a place of special concern in the
minds of Lutherans in both Sweden and America. It was therefore
not strange that two of the earliest relief ambassadors of these two
countries should have met in Poland as early as 1946, surveying
the physical and spiritual needs of the shattered Lutheran church
there. Devastated, depopulated, with many of its church buildings
taken over by the Roman Catholics, the Lutheran Church of Po-
land numbered about 120,000 souls, as compared with its prewar
total of 500,000. Only sixty-three pastors remained out of three
hundred. A pastoral conference which Clifford Nelson attended at
Lodz opened with the reading of a list of twenty-one pastors, in-
cluding the General Superintendent Dr. Bursche, who had died in
concentration camps. The American guest wondered whether there
had been a pastoral conference since the time of Diocletian which
had opened under such dramatic circumstances.
Material relief came speedily to Poland from Lutherans in Swe-
den and in the United States. Blankets and clothing were followed
by food shipments, and formal child-feeding programs were ar-
ranged, Salary supplements for church leaders, pastors, and lay
workers, funds for the rebuilding of hospitals and schools in War-
saw and for X-ray equipment for a hospital at Wroclaw, and regular
subsidies for the budget of the Church Consistory were provided.
In the four brief years of grace more than $300,000 in cash and
about the same amount in relief supplies were placed at the dis-
posal of the distressed Church of Poland by Lutherans of Scandi-
navia and America. Part of these cash gifts was also used for church
reconstruction. The monumental Trinity Church of Warsaw, once
able to accommodate five thousand worshippers, was restored with
this aid and with great sacrifice by the members of the congregation
in 1950, only to be confiscated by the government shortly thereafter
for use as a concert hall. Six years later, as a part of its new policy
of rapprochement, the government returned the sanctuary to the
Lutheran church.
One of the very few reports sifting through from the Polish
church in 1952 gave some indication of the significance of the Lu-
theran aid program which had been accomplished in the critical
years after the war. The number of pastors had risen to seventy-
three, and although there was still a severe shortage, laymen were
stepping in to fill the gaps. Sixteen students of theology were liv-
ing in a dormitory erected in Warsaw with the aid of the Swedish
church and the Lutheran World Federation. A few church insti-
tutions had been preserved. Youth groups, choirs, and Sunday
schools were being maintained in the congregations, and most of
the congregations were self-supporting. Offerings had been received
for the rebuilding of twenty damaged churches and chapels, and
the Consistory was administering loans for church reconstruction
from the funds made available to it for that purpose by the United
States Committee. Literature, however, was very scarce, and re-
mains one of the crucial needs of all the Lutheran churches behind
the iron curtain even today.
During 1956 and 1957 there have been encouraging evidences of
a relaxation of restrictions upon the church in Poland, particularly
in the matter of international contacts. Polish Lutheran delegates
attended the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran
World Federation at Vienna in February, 1955, and also a confer-
ence for Minority Lutheran Churches in Europe in Semmering,
Austria, in April, 1956. Officials of the Federation were likewise
permitted to enter Poland in subsequent months. It is to be hoped
that these signs point to even greater normalization of relations for
the Polish Lutherans with their brethren in other lands.
Lutherans in Czecho-Slovakia are divided into two churches, the
larger of which is concentrated in the western province of Slovakia
with 480,000 members, and the smaller along the Polish border
4
in eastern Silesia with 50,000 members. Reports of need in Czecho-

Slovakia were among the earliest to reach Geneva in 1945, and
through the World Council’s Material Aid Division Lutheran relief
supplies were already crossing the Czech border in the first weeks
of 1946.
When the Reverend Clifford A. Nelson reached Geneva in April,
the first assignment he received from Dr. Michelfelder was to visit
the Lutheran churches of Czecho-Slovakia. On the basis of his
discussions with Lutheran Bishops Cobrda and Osusky, Nelson
recommended a series of special projects ranging from bicycles for
pastors to child-feeding programs, Both in Slovakia and Silesia pas-
tors’ relief funds and supplements for pastors’ salaries were provid-
ed, and a large grant was made for the establishment of a school
to train lay teachers of religion.
In May, 1947, the American Section of the Lutheran World Fed-
eration placed Dr. J. Igor Bella in Bratislava as one of its first resi-
dent commissioners within any Lutheran church in Europe. For
two and one-half years Dr. Bella administered the aid program
there until he was ordered by the Communist Government, which
gained ascendancy in February, 1948, to leave the country.
Under the new church laws passed by the Communist regime
all church property in Czecho-Slovakia was transferred to the state,
and all pastors and theological professors were placed on the pay-
roll of the state. With the church thus under state protection, fur-
ther assistance from outside sources was deemed unnecessary, and
for several years thereafter the Lutheran churches of Czecho-Slo-
vakia were even prevented from communicating with their brethren
in the western world.
During the years 1946-1949, however, more than $200,000 in
cash and $125,000 in relief supplies were sent into the country,
mostly from American and Swedish Lutherans. Since 1954 there
has also been a relaxing of travel restrictions to permit church dele-
gations to visit Czecho-Slovakia and also to permit representatives
of the Lutheran churches there to participate in conferences outside
——_ ——e eae eee
ee ars ae eee Se eS ee RR a are ee Ss eee ee eee rere ee

of the country, both in Europe and in America. One of the very
significant results of these renewed contacts has been the supply-
ing of much-needed theological literature by the German Lutheran
churches to the pastors and seminaries of Czecho-Slovakia.
Through the person of Bishop Lajos Ordass, elected at Lund in
1947 as Vice-President of the Lutheran World Federation and in
1952 as an honorary member of the Executive Committee, the Lu-
theran Church of Hungary has maintained an especially close re-
lationship with the world family of Lutherans. His stirring message
to the Lund Assembly urging his fellow Lutherans again and again
to “work while it is day,” took on even more significance after
Bishop Ordass, returning to his country, was arrested by the Com-
munist government on trumped-up charges of currency manipula.
tion and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
To Bishop Ordass and his 460,000-member church the earliest
relief supplies and church reconstruction funds had been sent from
Sweden and America in 1947. The Swedish Section of the Lutheran
World Convention had given a grant of 10,000 Swedish crowns for
a layman’s school, and the first American aid had been used for
salary supplements for the pastors and for youth work and child-
feeding. The following year pastors’ aid was continued, and con-
siderable assistance was given to the home and institutions of the
church. By the time of Ordass’ arrest in 1948, more than $500,000
had been sent to the Lutheran Church of Hungary through the
regular official channels of foreign exchange, in addition to $50,-
000 in food, clothing, and medicines.
After the Bishop’s imprisonment, intimidated leaders of the Hun-
garian church deposed him and installed throughout the church
officials acceptable to the Communist regime. The National Lu-
theran Council in the United States vigorously condemned his
arrest and deposition as “a flagrant instance of religious oppres-
sion,” and thanking God for his example of uncompromising stead-
fastness and devotion, pledged Bishop Ordass its “continuing con-
fidence and loyalty.” From this time on no further aid was sent
to the Lutheran Church of Hungary either by the Lutherans in

America or by the Lutheran World Federation, although the new
leadership continued to maintain its official membership in the
Federation and even attended the Second World Assembly in 1952
at Hannover.
Just before the Hungarian Revolution of October, 1956, officials
of the Lutheran World Federation and of the World Council of
Churches were able to secure the full rehabilitation of Bishop Ordass
by the Hungarian Government, with an acknowledgment that his
imprisonment in 1948 had not been warranted. Shortly thereafter,
Ordass also resumed his rightful position as Bishop of the Montana
Diocese in Budapest. Member churches of the Lutheran World Fed-
eration in twelve countries demonstrated their support of the re-
stored Bishop by contributing $237,000 in less than six months to
a reserve fund for the aid of the Lutheran Church of Hungary.
When Dr. S. C. Michelfelder wrote his report for 1949 to the
United States Committee of the Lutheran World Federation as
their chief Commissioner to Europe, he titled it “Gulfs and
Bridges.” These were the terms in which he thought of the far-
reaching program of interchurch aid which began in the spring of
1945 with the flight of three Lutheran ambassadors of good will
across the Atlantic and continued through the trying years of phys-
ical relief and rebuilding. At first those strands were weak and un-
certain, but through the years they were increased and strengthened
until at last strong bridges “supported by hundreds of cables of
friendship, confidence, and mutual understanding” had been built,
uniting Lutherans with one another in every continent on earth.
CHAPTER FIVE
Not Strangers,
but Fellow-Citizens
Between 1915 and 1956 about 54,000,000 people in Europe were

rooted out of their homes by catastrophe or by political pressures
and cast upon the streets and highways to find whatever shelter
and sustenance they could. In the words of Dr. Michelfelder, “Prob-
ably not since the days of Alaric and Attila has there been such
a fantastic upheaval of peoples in Europe as the twentieth century
has witnessed. And one of the prime sufferers has been the Luther-
an Church.”
Not only have people abandoned their homes and fled before the
onrushing juggernaut of hostile armies, as they did in Estonia
and Latvia, in Silesia and West Prussia, or in Palestine and Korea;
but when the shooting wars have ended, millions of others have
been rooted up by international decrees and sent stumbling and
destitute into the remnant of conquered Germany or of partitioned
Palestine or Korea or into some other land of exile. Twelve years
after the end of World War II the grim tide still continues, with
fugitives by the thousands, their future in a knapsack, daily brav-
Oe
eS
ing a bristling iron curtain in their flight to freedom. “If the nine-
teenth century was the century of the emigrant, voluntarily seeking
a better future,” observes Dr. E. T. Bachmann, “the twentieth is
the century of the refugee, driven from his home and native land
185
by the force of outrageous circumstances and despairing of a bet-

ter future.”
When the war ended in 1945, about 13,000,000 refugees were
scattered over Europe from practically every nation on the con-
tinent. About half of them were able to make their way home
without assistance. However, machinery was almost immediately
set in motion by UNRRA and the armies of occupation to return
other millions to their homelands, and within a period of three years,
2,100,000 Russians, 1,500,000 French, 874,500 Poles, 704,000 Italians,
and 1,400,000 nationals of Yugoslavia, Belgium, Holland, Luxem-
bourg, and Czecho-Slovakia had been repatriated. Only those re-
mained in Germany, Austria, and Italy who, for political reasons,
did not wish to return, These persons, numbering 719,851 in Feb-
ruary, 1947, fell under the special protection of the International
Refugee Organization and, after 1951, under the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees. It is this group, containing no
German nationals whatever, which is technically known as Dis-
placed Persons or DP’s.
At the same time as the millions of DP’s were being repatriated
by the United Nations, an equally large mass of refugees was being
ereated by the decrees of eastern European governments and by
the Potsdam Agreement of 1945. More properly known as “expel-
lees,” these 13,000,000 people, all of German background or nation-
ality, were ordered out of the countries where their ancestors had
lived for centuries, or out of the provinces of Germany which
were placed under Polish or Russian administration, and crowded
into the four occupation zones of eastern and western Germany.
They were entitled to no assistance or protection by the United
Nations, but formed the core of the great relief problem shouldered
by the occupation armies, German and international church and
welfare agencies, and eventually by the German Government.
The third category of refugees in Europe today is the steady
stream of political refugees from all parts of eastern Europe which
continues to cross the iron curtain to the West in search of free-
dom and security.
Not Strangers, But Fellow-Citizens 137
MANDATE FROM LUND
It was to the plight of these millions of refugees, both as an
international problem and a spiritual responsibility of the church,
that the Lund Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation elo-
quently called attention in 1947. Others had already recognized
the problem, the Assembly was quick to admit, but the scarcity of
accomplishments was extremely disappointing. The Federation
therefore adopted resolutions urging the United Nations to extend
the activities of the International Refugee Organization to refugees
and expellees of all lands without distinction of race, language, or
nationality. To its member churches the Federation recommended
the adoption of comprehensive resettlement policies on behalf of
exiled or homeless Lutherans which, in 1947, meant one out of
every ten Lutherans in the world. Upon its Executive Committee
it urged assistance to the churches in devising resettlement plans
and in safeguarding the religious life of Displaced Persons of the
Lutheran household of faith. This was to be done specifically
through the creation of a department of the Federation devoted to
work on behalf of Displaced Persons and refugees.
The plight of large groups of Baltic Lutheran refugees in Ger-
many had been brought to Dr. Michelfelder’s attention in Septem-
ber, 1945, shortly after his arrival in Geneva, through a letter from
a Latvian Lutheran congregation in Augsburg. In April, 1946, he
called at the headquarters of the UNRRA in Bad Arolsen, and
subsequently visited other UNRRA offices, in the company of Dr.
Howard Hong, American professor who was working in Germany
with the War Prisoners’ Aid of the World’s YMCA. The following
month Dr. Michelfelder sent his recently-arrived deputy, Pastor
Clifford A. Nelson to make a survey of the needs of the Displaced
Persons and the Lutheran Churches in Exile. He ascertained that
about one-third of the 700,000 non-German refugees confined in
camps in Germany were Lutherans.
Out of these visits and surveys grew Michelfelder’s recommen-
dation that Pastor C. F. Schaffnit, retiring CRALOG representative
in Munich, be appointed for six months, beginning in December,

1946, to serve the material and spiritual needs of these exiled Lu-
therans. Mrs. Julius Bodensieck was attached to the staff of the
World Council of Churches for a similar service in Liibeck, Ger-
many, where there was a large concentration of Baltic Lutherans.
By January, 1947, the American Section of the Lutheran World
Convention was ready to establish a permanent Service to Refugees
in Germany and Austria, and on Michelfelder’s recommendation it
appointed Dr. Howard Hong as director, to begin work the fol-
lowing June. Before Dr. Hong could undertake his new assignment
in Germany, the Lund Assembly intervened, and it was decided
that the Service to Refugees already established by the American
Section should become the new refugee department of the Federa-
tion, as recommended by the Assembly.
It became evident very quickly that if any effective aid were to
be given to the Lutherans in the semi-military environs of the DP
camps in Germany and Austria, Lutheran World Federation Serv-
ice to Refugees would have to secure official recognition from the
allied occupation authorities. Dr. Michelfelder took the first step
toward securing this recognition when he approached the Pre-
paratory Commission of the International Refugee Organization in
August, 1947, to request its recommendation. On the basis of a
written agreement which he secured in December, 1947, the Lu-
theran World Federation began a long and mutually fruitful re-
lationship with the IRO in the field of refugee work.
MINISTERING TO THE CHURCHES IN EXILE

In its refugee program as well as its program of material relief
and church reconstruction, the Lutheran World Federation has
always conceived of itself as the channel through which the mem-
ber churches strengthened and encouraged other churches in the
meeting of their tasks. It has never sought to replace or to parallel
the work of its member churches, When Dr. Hong began the work
of the LWF-SR in Germany, his main purpose was to be of as-
sistance to the pastors of the Lutheran Churches in Exile in Ger-
many in carrying out their ministry.
Several of these churches existed, though their membership was
so dispersed that pastoral services could hardly have been organ-
ized without outside help. The Latvian Lutheran Church in Exile,
with about 125,000 members and 110 pastors in West Germany
and Austria, had its headquarters in the cramped quarters of Arch-
bishop Teodor Griinbergs near Stuttgart. The Estonian Evangelical
Lutheran Church, whose Archbishop K6pp was in Sweden with
thousands of other Lutheran exiles, had 35 pastors and 30,000
members in West Germany. The Lithuanian Lutherans had eight
pastors and 23,000 members in exile. About 2000 Hungarian Lu-
therans were being served by six pastors, largely in Austria. Poles,
Ukrainians, and other smaller groups completed the total of about
185,000 Lutheran DP’s in Germany and Austria in 1947. Three of
these Exile Churches, the Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian, took
their places as regular members of the Lutheran World Federation,
and Archbishop Griinbergs was elected a member of the Executive
Committee.
The Spiritual Ministry Program of the LWF-SR among the Exile
Churches in Germany and Austria attempted to do for these
churches exactly the same thing which was intended through spir-
itual reconstruction grants to member churches in Hungary, Czecho-
Slovakia, or France. Pastors and congregations in the DP camps,
however, had peculiar problems to face, in addition to their need
for Bibles, hymnbooks, catechisms, communion sets, pastoral robes,
and worship rooms. Pastors in the camps were DP’s, just as every-
one else, and they had neither salaries nor travel privileges which
would enable them to carry on a ministry among their widely-
scattered people. At this point the Lutheran World Federation as
a recognized international organization was able to be of special
help to the Exile Churches. Representatives of LWF-SR interceded
with camp commanders, IRO officials, and occupation authorities,

and were able to secure free travel warrants for pastors, adequate
worship space in the camps, and finally, even salaries for the pastors.
From its own resources, largely provided by the United States
Committee, LWF-SR issued bicycles to pastors, purchased mate-
rial for gowns and suits, field organs, communion sets, and other
church equipment.
Thus strengthened, the DP pastors undertook to organize their
people into camp congregations and to minister to them as nor-
mally as possible. This involved a physical ministry, too, since every
camp had its “special hardship” cases, for whom the regular camp
rations were not adequate, and there were the ever-present war
invalids and amputees. For these people LWF-SR organized a
“congregational care” program and made regular distributions of
food and clothing to the various camp congregations. Most of the
supplies came from Lutheran World Relief, or were purchased with
LWF-SR funds. Gifts occasionally came from other Lutheran
sources, too, as in the case of the gift shipment of fifty food parcels
from the Lutheran Church of Holland,
No spiritual ministry could be complete without an educational
program. Pastors were painfully aware of the hundreds of children
in the camp congregations, for whom no adequate instruction was
available. One of the great deficiencies was that of hymnbooks and
instructional materials in the languages the children understood.
Here again LWF-SR stepped into the breach, first supplying paper
for printing and later establishing a multilith press in Munich, from
which the first hymnbooks, pamphlets, and catechisms began to
roll early in 1949. Each of the Exile Churches was also enabled
to publish a church paper in its own language and to send it into
the homes of its scattered members in Germany, and in some in-
stances even overseas. This press was operated largely for the bene-
fit of these churches until 1956.
Teachers as well as teaching materials had to be provided before
an adequate Sunday school operation could be conducted in the
camp congregations. LWF-SR engaged and salaried two highly-
qualified DP pastors to organize this entire program and to conduct
EO — ~ = eS Oe eee ee = - ————
Not Strangers, But Fellow-Citizens 14]

special courses and conferences for Sunday school teachers at the
newly-established study centers. By January, 1949, ten thousand
children were receiving instruction in at least five different lan-
guages from 275 teachers in 132 organized Sunday schools through-
out the DP camps of Germany.
One of the most imaginative projects of spiritual reconstruction
undertaken in these early years was the establishment of two study
centers where an organized training program could be carried on
for DP pastors, church workers and lay people. The first one was
opened in April, 1948, at Imbshausen, in an old castle near the
university city of Géttingen in north Germany, and the second
shortly thereafter at Camp Insula in Berchtesgaden, at the foot of
the Bavarian Alps. Though neither of these centers could offer
luxurious accommodations, and though frequently there were fuel
shortages and other physical inconveniences, the experiences of
those who attended the Sunday school teachers’ courses, the pas-
toral conferences, the youth leadership courses, and the lay-leaders’
institutes were invariably refreshing and stimulating. “When one
is living in a camp and observing all the events in camp life,”
wrote a Latvian teacher, “frequently a feeling of mistrust creeps
into the soul and the cross of life seems too heavy . . . One longs
for the moments in which to get new strength, to quench the thirst
and to find peace of heart.”
Together with the practical training for the work of the congre-
gation came the very blessings which this camp-bound soul, and
hundreds of others like her, so desperately needed. From the pro-
saic address of “IRO Camp, House 153-12” she looked back ten
days later upon this “oasis in the desert.” “Unforgettable will be
the prayers in the small sanctuary, where we gathered in the late
evening hours and prayed for ourselves, our kinsmen, our unfor-
tunate native country, our nation, and the whole mankind. Inde-
scribable is the feeling which entered the soul when Jesus touched
rg
In a little over two years more than four thousand DP’s partici-
pated in seventy-four different courses given at these two centers.
They became the spiritual centers for the Lutheran Exile Churches
in Germany and provided what many observers felt to be the most

important single aid to their congregational life. Insula is today an
old people’s home for DP’s, administered by the Inner Mission of
the Lutheran Church of Bavaria, and Imbshausen is a theological
seminary of the Lutheran Church of Hannover.
Still another specialized ministry which the Exile Churches were
enabled to perform because of the strengthening hand of LWF-SR
was the chaplaincy service to residents of homes and institutions
and isolated camps. Described by one pastor as the “ministry to
those who are alone,” the chaplaincy service was organized and
conducted by two pastors who visited all the institutions where
Lutheran DP’s were to be found, distributed literature, special
foods and medicines, and established more permanent contacts for
the patients with nearby pastors. One lonely patient bade farewell
to the visiting chaplain with the assurance that she had now expe-
rienced the truth of the Gospel’s words about the shepherd who
had sought out the one lost sheep.
To meet their minor administrative expenses and later to provide
a budget for the travel of the DP pastors from camp to camp, each
of the Exile Churches received an annual cash subsidy from LWF-
SR. Even after the Lutheran DP population in Germany dwindled
through emigration from about 185,000 to 22,000, this subsidy was
still continued in order that even the smallest groups of Latvian
or Hungarian Lutherans in Exile might have a Gospel ministry in
their own language.
LWF’S AMBASSADORS
In the early autumn of 1949 a quartet of American tourists drove
up to a bleak customs office on the border between Belgium and
Germany and presented their documents for the usual formalities.
A tall, green-uniformed, young German border policeman inspected
the passports and discovered that one of the party listed Madison,
Wisconsin, as her birthplace. “That's very near to Janesville, isn’t
it?” he remarked. “I spent several months there as a prisoner of
war.” And then, as if he was singling out the choicest recollection
of that entire period of his life, the young man asked, “Do you know
Howard Hong?”
It was a “one in a thousand” question, way up there on a back-
road frontier in Europe, but it just happened that this American
woman knew Howard Hong very well. And from the policeman’s
lips there spontaneously burst a characterization of the kindly YMCA
worker who always had time for the prisoners he visited. “He was
the finest man I have ever met.”
The same quality of intense personal interest in people which
had obviously characterized his work among prisoners of war, both
in America and in Germany, Dr. Howard Hong was able to trans-
fer into the spiritual ministry for Displaced Persons which he
headed in Germany from 1947 to 1949. The basic principle of
LWF-SR, according to Dr. Hong, was that Lutheran churches
could best express their interest and concern for other churches and
congregations through persons. Relief dollars and bales of clothing
could both be given out of a heart of Christian love and compas-
sion, but Dr. Hong insisted that the intentions of the donors and
the significance of the gift could best be represented by a person
coming in their name and in the name of the Lutheran church, It
was a mistake, he contended, to regard expenditures to send such
representatives among the congregations receiving aid as “overhead
expense” which reduced the actual amount of cash available for
physical reconstruction projects. The work of LWF-SR, declared
Dr. Hong, was intended neither as “relief work” nor as social work.
“The purpose has been to actualize an idea, an attitude, a relation-
ship between persons and churches.” When, therefore, as was ac-
tually the case, LWF-SR workers were referred to by members of
the Exile Churches among whom they worked as “the Word made
flesh,” there was no blasphemy involved but simply a testimony to
the fact that some very idealistic goals were being at least partially
achieved in the refugee program of the Lutheran World Federation.

Realizing full well the importance of making every relief dollar
go as far as possible, Dr. Hong suggested to the United States
Committee as early as February, 1947, the principle of voluntary
service by selected college and seminary men and women. The
first of these voluntary workers, Kenneth Senft, a theological stu-
dent from Gettysburg Seminary, and Mr. and Mrs. James Ander-
son from St. Olaf College, entered Germany in July, 1947, and dur-
ing the next two years sixteen others followed and were assigned
to positions throughout Germany, many of which involved great
responsibilities. What these young envoys lacked in maturity they
made up in Christian idealism, vitality, ability to learn, and devo-
tion to the tasks they were given. Under the guidance and inspira-
tion of Dr. Hong they made a distinct contribution both to the life
of the Exile Church communities in Germany, and after their re-
turn, to the better understanding of the European refugee situation
by the churches of America.
LWF-SR was, however, not staffed only by volunteer workers.
Especially after the resettlement operation was undertaken in 1948,
salaried persons both from overseas and from the Exile Churches
were engaged for various assignments in Germany, Between July,
1948 and July, 1949, the LWF-SR staff in Germany was increased
to 195 persons, representing ten different countries. Thirty-five of
these were enlisted outside of Germany, mostly in the United
States,
The total expenditure for this two-year program of interchurch
aid to the Exile Churches amounted to less than $175,000. Most
of the operating funds were provided by the United States Com-
mittee, but the Evangelical Hilfswerk in Germany made a contri-
bution of 360,000 Reichmarks in 1947, and the Swedish National
Committee paid the salary of the Reverend Hilding Olssen, who
joined the staff in June, 1948. In addition to these contributions,
LWF-SR also received more than 200,000 pounds of food and
clothing which it distributed proportionately among the Exile
Churches, A very substantial contribution to the work, which does
not appear in the financial statements came from the International
Refugee Organization in the form of rent-free office space, travel
warrants for train travel, gas and maintenance of vehicles, and sala-
ries and maintenance of a large part of the locally recruited staff
personnel.
ORGANIZING FOR RESETTLEMENT

Both before the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 and during
the war the National Lutheran Council had maintained a Refugee
Service in its Department of Welfare, and as early as 1940 the
Reverend Louis Sanjek was interviewing more than one hundred
immigrants every month and referring them to Lutheran pastors
for counsel and assistance. Just at the time the United States was
thrust into the war the Department had prepared a congregational
program for the resettlement of 260 refugee families in Europe
who were begging to be brought to America.
The war naturally ended these efforts temporarily, but early in
1946 the first Lutheran war orphans, including twenty-four Esto-
nians, arrived through the facilities of Church World Service, which
had been authorized in December, 1945, to sponsor the immigration
of DP’s from the American Zones of Germany and Austria. By No-
vember, 1946, eighty-three Lutheran Displaced Persons had arrived
in the United States on affidavits of support given by the American
Christian Committee for Refugees. The National Lutheran Council
Division of Welfare aided in finding resettlement opportunities
for them. In August and September, 1946, forty-eight Estonians
who had braved the Atlantic crossing in open fishing boats, landed
at Miami, Florida, and provided the five Lutheran congregations
of that city with a dramatic introduction to the European refugee
problem.
Prominent in the resolutions regarding refugees adopted by the
Lund Assembly in 1947 was a concern for the physical resettle-
ment as well as the spiritual care of Displaced Persons. In Decem-
ber, 1947, as soon as the program of spiritual conservation for the
185,000 Lutheran DP’s in Germany and Austria was fairly under
way, Dr. Hong called to the attention of the United States Commit-
tee the necessity of fulfilling the other part of the mandate, which
also involved the future of the millions of both DP’s and expellees
from eastern Europe. Early in 1948 a complete plan for a Resettle-
ment Service was submitted with the urgent recommendation of
Dr. Michelfelder, who saw in the mass movement of Lutheran
refugees overseas an “unparalleled home mission task involving
numbers equal to gains at home and on the foreign field in a whole
decade.”
Since 1946 an IRO fleet of thirty-six transport ships had been
at work carrying thousands of Displaced Persons to Canada, Aus-
tralia, and South America under government-sponsored schemes
which promised jobs and housing in the new land. Under such
schemes, which often simply “dumped” the emigrants into the
country of reception, no provision was made either for spiritual
care or social orientation. Both the Exile Church leaders and the
LWF-SR felt the responsibility of doing what they could to find
homes for these migrating members, to protect Lutheran interests,
and even to channel the stream of migration into areas where the
refugees would not be lost to the church.
At the time Dr. Hong submitted his plan for a Resettlement
Service, the United States had not yet passed its Displaced Persons
Act for the admission of 205,000 persons, but in May, 1948, when
it appeared fairly certain that this legislation would be carried
through, the United States Committee requested Dr. Hong and
Dr. Michelfelder to come to New York to discuss the details of
Hong’s plan. According to his proposal a Resettlement and Emi-
gration Division of the Lutheran World Federation would be es-
tablished in Geneva under the direction of an executive officer, with
area Offices in the countries of emigration. Reception offices would
also be set up in countries of immigration, locally financed wher-
ever possible, but always closely coordinated with the central of-
fice in Geneva, It would be the special responsibility of these offi-
cers to develop resettlement opportunities for individual migrants
and to assist them in establishing contact with a local congregation.
Of great significance in later resettlement operations of the Luther-
an World Federation was Dr. Hong’s proposal that a revolving
fund of $500,000 be established, from which overseas passage loans
could be made to Lutheran migrants.
The United States Committee approved this proposal and ap-
pointed Dr. Stewart Herman in June, 1948, as the first Executive
Secretary of the new Resettlement Division. In the same month
the United States Congress passed its DP Act. Unlike the mass re-
settlement schemes of other countries, this legislation required jobs
and housing assurances for every single DP family unit which was
to be resettled in the United States. Since no government agency
would assume responsibility to find and develop such guarantees,
it was clear from the beginning that the voluntary agencies which
had pressed for the legislation would have to do it. Likewise, the
task of finding and selecting the DP’s in Europe to fill these job
and housing assurances gathered in the United States would have
to be carried out by voluntary agencies such as the Lutheran
World Federation Service to Refugees.
For this challenging assignment the new Executive Secretary
was well-equipped by long previous experience in Europe, and
especially by his services from 1945 to 1947 as a member of the
staff of the World Council of Churches dealing directly with relief
and reconstruction problems. During the ensuing four years, Dr.
Herman devoted his extraordinary vitality and organizing ability
to the shaping of the world-wide LWF-SR program. Under his
direction it became not only an effective instrument for the resettle-
ment and the social and spiritual reconstruction of thousands of
refugees, but also a positive force for the strengthening of the Lu-
theran church in every continent of the world.
Between July, 1948, and July, 1949, the European staff of LWF-
SR was greatly enlarged. To meet the requirements of the Ameri-
can program, twenty-four resettlement offices were opened in west-
ern Germany, from Liibeck in the North to Munich in the South,
In August, 1948, as the mass schemes of various governments over-
seas began to be replaced by more selective schemes, influenced
by the American pattern, LWF-SR opened an office in Frankfurt
to counsel and sponsor Lutheran DP’s emigrating to countries other
than the United States. Headquarters were established for each of
the zones of occupation in Germany, with German headquarters

at Frankfurt-Hoechst under Dr. Hong. LWF-SR staff worked with
DP pastors in the camps, selecting candidates for resettlement.
They were stationed in processing centers to assist Lutheran-
sponsored DP’s through the maze of IRO documentation and the
medical and political screening of American authorities. From the
time a DP registered for emigration in a camp barracks near
Liibeck or Schweinfurt until he boarded a transport at Bremer-
haven, he was assisted at every turn by LWF-SR.
Because of the legal restrictions upon the emigration of German
nationals immediately after the war, the LWF-SR resettlement op-
eration was at first confined largely to DP’s. The Lund Assembly,
however, had made no distinction between the nationalities of
needy refugees, and Dr. Herman felt keenly the obligation to as-
sist ethnic Germans in finding resettlement opportunities just as
soon as the international regulations would permit. LWF-SR offices
in Rome made their services available to ethnic Germans as early
as August, 1948, but with the opening of a special office in Stutt-
gart, Germany, in June, 1949, LWF-SR became the first interna-
tional agency to launch a resettlement program solely to assist
ethnic Germans.
Since German refugees were not eligible for the assistance of the
IRO, which provided overseas passage for the DP’s, Dr. Herman
urged that the travel loan fund, proposed at the time LWF-SR was
reorganized early in 1948, be established in the amount of $300,000
to provide passage loans for ethnic Germans to such countries as
had indicated their readiness to receive them. The fund was es-
tablished, and subsequently enlarged, and became the model for
similar funds of other international organizations as well, most sig-
nificantly for the Intergovernmental Committee for European Mi-
gration, organized in 1951 and supported by twenty-four nations.
The program for the emigration of ethnic Germans opened a
new area of cooperation between the Lutheran World Federation
and the German church. Whereas the registration of DP emigrants
had been handled largely by the Exile Church pastors working
with the field staff of LWF-SR, the German church had for many
years maintained an emigration service for the thousands of Ger-
mans who had gone overseas. In 1952 the Lutheran Emigrant Mis-
sion in Hamburg commemorated the one-hundredth anniversary of
the founding of such work by Johann Hinrich Wichern.
In the years immediately following World War II German emi-
gration was forbidden by the occupation authorities, with the ex-
ception of those who had been victims of racial, religious, or politi-
cal persecution by the Nazis. In order to make information availa-
ble to this group the Evangelical Hilfswerk established its first
emigration counseling offices in 1946.
Pastor Gerhard Dietrich, who came to Germany in June, 1949,
to head the new LWF-SR emigration program for ethnic Germans,
established his office in Stuttgart with the Hilfswerk. Pastor Die-
trich worked very closely with Dr. Ferdinand Schroeder, the di-
rector of the counselling service, and during the first year of activity
he reported more than a thousand inquiries each month from per-
sons interested in emigration. To handle the increasing volume of
such inquiries as more countries overseas opened their doors to
German immigrants, the Evangelical Hilfswerk developed a net-
work of eighteen counselling offices throughout Germany, each of
which received a part of its annual financial support from the Lu-
theran World Federation. In the actual counselling of prospective
German migrants, however, the Lutheran World Federation has
never been directly involved. As an international organization, it
has simply acted as a “bridge” between the churches of Germany
and the countries of reception. For prospective emigrants recom-
mended to it by the Evangelical Hilfswerk, LWF has sought re-
settlement opportunities in other lands and has provided passage
loans to thousands of emigrants for travel to countries overseas.
Since resettlement always involves two countries, it was also
necessary for LWF-SR to make close contacts with immigration
committees in countries of reception and to create such committees
where none existed. In the United States the Lutheran Resettle-
ment Service of the National Lutheran Council had been estab-
lished in October, 1948, just after the passage of the Displaced
Persons Act, and was already at work seeking assurances for 35,000
refugees, the number considered as the Lutheran “fair share” of

the 205,000 persons to be admitted under the DP Act.
During an extended tour early in 1949 Dr. Herman succeeded
in establishing Lutheran reception committees for immigrants in
eight South American countries, notably Venezuela, Argentina,
Brazil, and Chile. In Scandinavia, Canada, and Australia, the Lu-
theran churches not only declared their readiness to receive refu-
gees and conduct a spiritual ministry among them, but also pre-
pared to support the world-wide program of LWF-SR with per-
sonnel, supplies, and funds. By the summer of 1949 the structure
had been substantially completed, and more than three thousand
Displaced Persons had already embarked for their new homes in
the United States.
In June, 1949, the Spiritual Ministry to the Exile Churches in
Germany was merged with the Resettlement Service, and the entire
operation was placed under Dr. Herman’s supervision. Dr. Paul
——
Lindberg succeeded Dr. Hong as the Senior Representative in Ger-

many. By this time LWF-SR had become a global operation, em-
ploying more than 265 full-time staff members throughout the
world.
THE AMERICAN DP PROGRAM

With the passage of the Displaced Persons Act, it became nec-
essary for the National Lutheran Council to set up a systematic
program for the soliciting of job and housing assurances for the
thousands who would be arriving in the United States within the
three-year limit of the legislation. The Lutheran Resettlement Serv-
ice was organized in October, 1948, and Miss Cordelia Cox, its
Director, set immediately to work building a network of thirty-six
area and state committees and a staff which within a year num-
bered ninety-five persons. In addition to the gathering and process-
ing of assurances, immigrants had to be welcomed at the pier and
started on the last lap of their long journeys by train or bus. Health
and family problems occasionally arose, or changes of sponsor be-
came necessary, and the resettlement offices had to be prepared to
provide such emergency services.
During the three and one-half years of the agency's operation,
its expenditures totalled $3,462,161, practically all of which came
from the annual Lutheran World Action appeals of the National
Lutheran Council. During these years the publicity and promo-
tional channels of the Council were used to tell the story of the
Lutheran DP and to present his need as the Christian responsibility
of Lutheran people and congregations throughout the United
States. News and feature stories, radio broadcasts, films, and the
spoken word were all used to great advantage, but most important
of all in the campaign to gather assurances were the members of
the state and area resettlement committees, who worked with the
pastors and the congregations and interpreted both the needs of
the refugees and the technical questions involved in giving an
assurance, The single most successful promotional venture was the
production of a film called “Answer for Anne,” which received a
gold medal award at a Cleveland Film Festival as the best reli-
gious film of 1949.
If one simply notes that when the Displaced Persons Act expired
on December 31, 1951, a total of more than 25,000 assurances had
been given by Lutheran families and congregations in the United
States, and that 38,254 refugees had been placed in Lutheran com-
munities, the story has by no means been fully told. Each of these
assurances represents the outreach and concern of the church for
fellow-Christians in need, and each one of the 88,254 persons has
through this outreach been assisted in retrieving a shattered life.
In the ministry of resettlement the most constructive physical as-
sistance of all has been given, namely, the opportunity to face the
future with hope and build again. As far as the church is concerned,
this ministry has been much more than an immigration program; it
has been a projection of its belief in the Communion of Saints.
The program of resettlement, on the other hand, has been one
of the most difficult to maintain on the high spiritual plane on which

it was conceived. By its very nature as an international movement
of persons, it must involve governments, laws, immigration regula-
tions, and technical procedures, in the midst of which even the
most devoted Christian may find it difficult to keep his spiritual
motivations in focus. Furthermore, whether it be done in a Chris-
tian framework or not, the transplanting of thousands of mature
people from one country and way of life to another creates so-
ciological and psychological problems, both for those who come
and for those who receive them.
The contribution of cash or clothing to a drive for overseas relief
or reconstruction demands far less personal identification with the
object of one’s compassion than to sponsor and receive a refugee,
and is therefore a far simpler gesture of Christian charity. For this
very reason, even with all of its complications, the resettlement
program has brought to the receiving churches an especially rich
experience in Christian living and Christian giving.
Generally speaking, the Lutheran Displaced Persons who have
migrated overseas have been mentally and physically healthy peo-
ple. They have been almost universally hard workers, in the best
tradition of generations of immigrants who have built America,
Canada, or Australia. They have adapted themselves within a rela-
tively short space of time to the language and customs of the land,
and large numbers of them have either joined existing Lutheran
congregations or, in the characteristic pattern of free church life,
organized their own. Naturally, the adjustments have been more
difficult for the older generation, but within a few months only an
expert would have been able to distinguish which of the two new
youngsters in the fifth grade had come from Talinn and which from
Toledo.
More difficult for both immigrant and sponsor to understand, and
even more trying for the Resettlement Service than the problems
of social adjustment, was the actual operation of the immigration
machinery. To the camp-weary Latvian refugee in Germany the
announcements of emigration opportunities in America were proc-
lamations of hope, but as the weeks and months of processing
Not ' crangers, But Fellow-Citizens 153
dragged on, he oft a wondered whether these hopes would ever
be fulfilled. Likew .e, the Minnesota farmer who needed a “hired
hand” for the com.ug harvest and who had responded in good faith
to the appeal of his church to give an assurance for a refugee fam-
ily was moved to ask, sometimes rather sharply, “Why does it take
so long?”
Between the refugee and the sponsor stood the representatives
of the Lutheran Resettlement Service and the Lutheran World
Federation Service to Refugees, trying to bolster the hopes of the
one and answer the questions of the other, and steering the pro-
gram through the ever-changing maze of government regulations
and procedures.
Although more than 1800 assurances were sent to Europe by the
Lutheran Resettlement Service in the first six months of operation,
only forty-one refugees reached the United States. By 1949 and
1950, however, about a thousand Lutherans a month were being
admitted, but it was clear that even if processing techniques were
streamlined, several thousand DP’s would be left stranded in the
“pipeline” when the act expired on June 80, 1951.
In an imaginative effort to increase the efficiency of the assurance
program, the Lutheran Resettlement Service sent ten volunteer
workers to Europe in 1950 to write case histories based on personal
interviews with refugee families. Since the normal procedure was
for a sponsor to offer a job assurance, which would then be matched
in Europe with an appropriate individual or family, this new sys-
tem represented a reversal of procedure. Over 1700 of these “dos-
siers” were circulated in the United States, and as a result many
of the neediest DP families who might not otherwise have found
a sponsor were placed.
During 1950 the Congress also decided to extend the Displaced
Persons Act till December 31, 1951, and to admit a total of 393,542
refugees, including 54,000 ethnic Germans not previously eligible
for admission. Through its special offices in Stuttgart and Salzburg
for the counseling of ethnic German emigrants, LWF-SR was able
to prepare and send to New York 2300 dossiers, on the basis of
which 4840 ethnic Germans found assurances and were admitted
to the United States before the expiration oi the DP Act. There-

after refugee emigration to the United Stat practically ceased
until the enactment of the Refugee Relief Act c 19583.
THE REFUGEE RELIEF ACT OF 1953

With the exception of the ethnic German migration to Canada,
the overseas movement of Lutheran World Federation-sponsored
refugees had noticeably declined in July, 1953, when the United
States Congress passed the Refugee Relief Act providing for the
admission of 209,000 refugees over a three-year period, including
90,000 expellees from Germany and Austria. Early elation at the
prospects for many of the long-time camp residents whose visas
had not yet been granted when the DP Act expired in 1951, and
for thousands of new refugees, paled as the voluntary agencies
studied the restrictive provisions of the new legislation. Not only
would it be necessary to give documented proof of available hous-
ing and employment, but only individual sponsors of documented
financial ability were permitted to give assurances. For weeks and
months the National Lutheran Council and other voluntary or-
ganizations vainly sought modifications of these regulations, in
order to make the system workable from the standpoint of the vol-
untary agencies which would have to secure the assurances if any
refugees were to be admitted at all.
With such uncertainty surrounding the workability of the pro-
gram, it was extremely difficult to make either financial or organ-
izational plans. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, however,
had expressed its desire to cooperate with the National Lutheran
Council, and in March, 1954, the Lutheran Refugee Service was
organized as a joint operation, with a four-year budget of one mil-
lion dollars. The long experience of Dr. Cordelia Cox was again
enlisted to direct the new operation. Still moving experimentally,
the Lutheran Refugee Service set up its thirty-two area committees
throughout the country, and the assurances began to come in, At
the end of the year 2220 assurances for 5500 persons had been se-
cured, but although the legislation had been in effect for seven-
teen months, only sixty-one Lutheran-sponsored refugees had been
granted visas to enter the United States.
At the suggestion of Mr. Reuben Baetz, Deputy Director of the
Department of World Service and resettlement specialist, the dos-
sier system used in the last stages of the DP Act was readapted to
the new program, and even before the first assurances were secured,
a seven-member team had been sent to Germany and Austria to
interview candidates recommended by the Hilfswerk and the Lu-
theran World Federation field staff. These interviewers and the
several teams which followed them during the next two years pre-
pared a total of 6631 dossiers which were circulated by the area
offices of the Lutheran Refugee Service in all parts of the United
States.
Assurances secured on the basis of these dossiers were then sent
by the New York office to Washington and from there to the Ameri-
can consulate nearest the residence of the prospective immigrant.
In order to help the refugee assemble the necessary documents and
certifications, the Lutheran World Federation increased its subsidies
to the Hilfswerk so additional staff could be employed. In spite
of this fact the processing was seldom completed in less than six
months. Most of the delay was caused by the five separate security
screenings insisted upon by the Department of State before it
would grant a visa.
When the visas were finally issued, travel loans were granted
by the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration and
passages were booked to the United States either by plane or on
the General Langfitt, the special transport chartered by the Com-
mittee. The Lutheran Refugee Service maintained a port reception
staff to aid the refugees when they reached New York, and the
area committees made arrangements for their reception by their
sponsors at the point of destination. When the Refugee Relief Act
expired at the end of 1956, it was clear that the goal of 15,000 Lu-
theran-sponsored refugees which the Lutheran Refugee Service
had set for itself would not only be reached but substantially ex-
ceeded. In addition, a total of 1200 Hungarian Lutheran refugees
had been resettled in the United States by the end of January, 1957,
under the special emergency legislation passed by the Congress

after the Hungarian Revolution late in 1956.
Because of the restrictive procedures required by the United
States Government, American resettlement programs have involved
a disproportionate expenditure of money and staff. However, at no
time have refugees desiring to migrate elsewhere been neglected
by the Lutheran World Federation. On the contrary, both LWF-SR
and its successor, Lutheran World Service, have maintained special
offices and committees in European countries of origin and have
promoted resettlement opportunities for Lutheran migrants in all
parts of the world. Although most of the DP’s were moved under
government-sponsored mass schemes, which did not require the
technical assistance of voluntary agencies, the LWF-SR Individual
Migration Office in Frankfurt assisted several hundred DP’s after
February, 1949, to find homes in twenty-six different countries
which had no government-sponsored schemes. Special LWF-SR
offices have aided and represented ethnic German refugees at con-
sulates and immigration offices since 1948, pleading individual
causes and seeking to open doors of opportunity in many different
countries. When those doors have been opened, LWF-SR has fa-
cilitated the overseas movement of thousands of ethnic German
refugees and DP’s through its Revolving Travel Loan Fund.
NEW AUSTRALIANS
The mass migrations, both of DP’s and ethnic Germans, have
provided a special challenge to the relatively small Lutheran
churches of Australia, Canada, and South America. In three years,
from 1947 to 1950, the Lutheran population of Australia increased
more than thirty percent. By 1957 it had risen one hundred percent.
To meet this overwhelming influx the United Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Australia, with the support of the Lutheran World
Federation, called Pastor Bruno Muetzelfeldt as full-time chaplain
at the big government reception center at Bonegilla. His task was
to contact the Lutheran immigrants as they arrived and to forward
Not Strangers, But Fellow-Citizens — 157
lists of names to pastors in the communities to which the migrants
were going. )
Among the 20,000 Lutherans who entered the country during the
first year were also a number of pastors, and with a fine under-
standing of the importance of the mother tongue as a means of
holding the immigrant for his church during his first years in a
strange land, the Lutheran church in Australia called these pastors
to serve their own people. In the larger cities this led to the or-
ganization of several new congregations composed entirely of Lat-
vians and Estonians, while in other areas the migrants found theit
church homes within the existing Australian congregations.
In its efforts to carry out a spiritual ministry for these new im-
migrants, the Australian church has received an annual grant from
the Lutheran World Federation, which, however, it more than
matched with its own subsidy to the new congregations. Gradually,
the congregations themselves began to assume responsibility, and
by 1956 the Immigration Board reported that four congregations
had become self-supporting. Of the total home mission budget for
1956 more than fifty percent was contributed by the migrant con-
gregations themselves. Toward this ministry the Lutheran World
Federation contributed about $55,000 between 1949 and 1956, in
addition to maintaining the Australian Resettlement Office.
As the influx of DP’s subsided, increasing numbers of German
migrants began to arrive under Australian government sponsorship.
Most of these needed no financial aid from the Lutheran World
Federation, but since 1952 it has also been possible to assist a
great number of individually-sponsored persons through travel
loans. By 1956 more than $300,000 had been granted for this
ae
One of the very fruitful phases of the immigration program for
the Australian Lutheran church has been the chaplaincy service
aboard immigrant ships, made possible by the Intergovernmental
Committee and the Lutheran World Federation. Fifteen Austra-
lian pastors have traveled to Europe in the past three years in order
to provide a spiritual ministry for shiploads of immigrants coming
to Australia. Not only have the new Australians been afforded an
effective preaching and counseling ministry on their long voyage,

but the pastors have had an unusually fine opportunity for per-
sonal contacts with the Lutheran churches of Europe and with
the work of the Lutheran World Federation there.
Since 1954 the Australian church has contributed a member to
the Lutheran World Federation Resettlement staff in Germany, and
for the past several years has given regularly to the aid programs
of Lutheran World Service. For the Lutheran churches “down un-
der,” the European refugee has not only been a challenge to com-
passion, but a stimulus to vigorous home missionary activity and
the instrument through which substantial bonds of unity have been
forged with the family of world Lutheranism.
THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA

One of the most vigorous and rapidly-growing young nations of
the world lies in the northern part of the continent of North Amer-
ica, With a population of 15,000,000 spread over an area larger than
that of any country in the world except the Soviet Union and
China, Canada has had ample room for the one million immigrants
who have crossed her frontiers since 1945. Among these have been
representatives of almost every nation of emigration, and probably
more Lutherans than lived in the entire country in 1945. Twenty-
two thousand Lutheran DP’s came to Canada under the mass mi-
gration schemes of the IRO alone in 1947 and 1948. Among them
were about twenty pastors, of whom a dozen are still carrying on
a spiritual ministry program among their countrymen.
A few additional DP’s came later, either as parts of mass schemes
or on individual assurances, but by far the largest number of im-
migrants were ethnic Germans. Primarily responsible for church
aid to this group was Dr. T. O. F. Herzer, prominent Canadian
Lutheran layman, through whose initiative the Canadian Christian
Council for the Resettlement of Refugees was organized late in
1947. Lutherans, Mennonites, Roman Catholics, and Baptists co-
operated in the CCCRR, the main objective of which was to bring
ethnic German expellees to Canada to join their close relatives who
had been living there for many years. This scheme worked so well
that in 1948 the CCCRR requested the Canadian Government's
permission to bring to Canada groups of farm laborers and domes-
tics who had no relatives there. When the request was granted,
the Lutheran World Federation and the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod gave Canadian Lutheran World Relief, the Lutheran mem-
ber of CCCRR, a joint grant of $100,000 to be used as a revolving
fund for passage loans.
The first twenty immigrants arrived under this loan plan in
August, 1948, with the understanding that they would repay their
loans as quickly as possible and then assist their relatives to follow.
As expected, these “seed” cases bore fruit, and the numbers of
ethnic German Lutheran immigrants increased steadily. By May,
1952, more than 3100 persons had been assisted with travel loans
amounting to $105,000. In 1954 the peak of the Lutheran World
Federation-CCCRR program was reached when 5104 Lutheran
migrants were given assistance to come to Canada, Over the entire
period from 1948 through 1956 a total of 18,299 persons have mi-
grated with Lutheran World Federation and Canadian travel loans
aggregating $2,839,686. Energetic leadership has been provided
for the immigration program of Canadian Lutheran World Relief
by its Executive Secretary, Pastor Clifton Monk, in Winnipeg. Over-
seas, the humming headquarters of the CCCRR in Bremen was
directed till 1955 by Mr. George Berkefeld. Canadian Lutherans
have not only contributed regularly to the general program of the
Lutheran World Federation, but have been frequently represented
on its European staff as well.
When the new Department of World Service was organized fol-
lowing the Hannover Assembly in 1952, Dr. Henry Whiting, its
first Director, appointed as his deputy Mr. Reuben Baetz, a Canadi-
an layman who had first come to Europe in 1949 as a member of
the LWF-SR staff in the British Zone of Germany. After a long and
varied experience on the field, both in Canada and in Germany, Mr.
Baetz brought to Geneva a thorough knowledge of the refugee
problem and a familiarity with international agencies in this field
which enabled him to make an outstanding contribution to the re-
settlement and relief program of Lutheran World Service. When

Dr. Whiting returned to the United States in January, 1955, Mr.
Baetz became Acting Director of the Department, and from Sep-
tember 1, 1955, until August 1, 1956, he served as Director.
In addition to those persons directly assisted by the Lutheran
World Federation, there have been thousands of other Lutherans
who have emigrated to Canada under various government labor
schemes. Through its port representatives in Halifax, St. John,
Montreal, and Quebec, and through almost a thousand congrega-
tions from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Lutheran church of Can-
ada has sought to reach them as well, but it has faced much the
same problem of vast distances and limited resources as the church
in Australia. Meanwhile these thousands constitute a home mission
opportunity unparalleled in the history of Canadian Lutheranism.
SCANDINAVIAN WELCOME
Lutheran Displaced Persons have found homes in South America,
New Zealand, England, and Ireland. More than one hundred Lu-
theran refugees, stranded on the island of Samar in the Philippines,
and another smaller group in Communist Shanghai, were rescued
by LWF-SR and resettled in the United States. Hong Kong has
been a temporary haven for great numbers of European refugees
from China, and LWF has assisted many of them to resettle either
in their homelands or elsewhere in the world.
Twenty-five thousand Estonians found their first refuge in Swe-
den instead of Germany, and there Archbishop Képp and twenty-
eight Estonian pastors established the headquarters of the Estonian
Lutheran Church in Exile. The Swedish Lutheran Church received
these brethren cordially, and as early as April 1, 1945, the Swedish
Archbishop created salaried positions for six Estonian Lutheran
clergymen who were to serve their countrymen in six geographical
districts. Other pastors were given archive work at state expense in
Swedish congregations and ecclesiastical institutions. This arrange-
ment was maintained until June 30, 1946, when political pressures
caused its discontinuance.
In recent years the Swedish church has resumed salary payments
to Estonian pastors, and has also continued to make churches, cha-
pels, and occasionally local parish offices available without cost.
Other church expenses are borne by the members themselves, or in
the case of some general projects, such as the publication of a new
Estonian hymnal in 1955, by special grants from the Lutheran
World Federation.
One of the most exemplary chapters in the resettlement story is
that written by the Scandinavian countries in welcoming Displaced
Persons who could find no place under either mass schemes or in-
dividual assurance programs such as that of the United States
Government. Early in 1952, as the International Refugee Organ-
ization ceased operations, a special church committee called Hjalp
at Aldriga Flyktingar (Aid to Aged Refugees) was organized for
the purpose of bringing aged DP’s to Sweden. Supported in its
efforts by a general appeal signed by the Swedish bishops, this
committee has found places during the past five years for one
hundred thirty-four “hard core” cases from Germany, Austria, and
Trieste, mostly in Swedish homes for the aged, International funds
were first available for the transport and placement of these refu-
gees, but their continuing support has been provided largely through
voluntary collections gathered by the HAF. In 1956 these gifts
totaled almost $200,000. In addition, the Swedish Refugee Commit-
tee of the Lutheran World Federation has found places for a total
of forty-two other residual DP’s, including several invalids and post-
TB cases, and brought them to Sweden with the assistance of the
Revolving Loan Fund of the Federation.
In the spring of 1950 the Norwegian Kirkens N¢dhjelp cooperat-
ed with Norwegian Aid to Europe in a campaign to place a refugee
family in every parish in Norway. Committees in four hundred fifty
parishes were organized to secure sponsorships, with the result that
one thousand Displaced Persons were brought to Norway, including
several aged persons who were placed in old folks’ homes. Thirty-
nine blind persons were housed in a special institution established
near Oslo with funds provided by the International Refugee Organ-
ization.
Following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Norway, Sweden,

and Denmark opened their doors to 5500 refugees from that
country,
THE GERMAN CHURCH AND THE

HOMELESS FOREIGNER
When the mass schemes and the individual efforts to find new
homes for the DP’s had come to an end, it was clear that many
thousands were destined to remain in Europe for the rest of their
lives. These were known as the “residual group,” and in 1951 they
numbered about 130,000 in Germany, of which 20,000 to 22,000
were Lutherans. About half lived in camps and the other half in
rooms or apartments scattered within the German communities.
A few remained by choice, but by far the largest number were
either old or sick or belonged to families in which one member or
more had not been able to secure clearance for emigration.
From the beginning a legal barrier had been placed about the
non-German refugees who were under the protection of the Inter-
national Refugee Organization. As late as the summer of 1949 the
Refugee Minister of the State of Lower Saxony was required to
secure a special permit to visit a DP camp in his own state, and
was accompanied throughout his visit by British officials and mili-
tary police. Because of this artificially-imposed isolation only such
recognized international organizations as the Lutheran World Fed-
eration and the World Council of Churches were able to secure
access to the DP camps in 1947 and 1948 to assist the Exile Churches
in establishing a spiritual ministry.
These legal barriers erected by IRO created a host of psychologi-
cal barriers both in the minds of the DP’s and of the Germans in
whose land they were living. Under these circumstances it was not
at all strange that the announcement of the forthcoming dissolution
of IRO caused considerable apprehension both in the DP camps
and among the Germans, whose responsibility the DP’s were sup-
posed to become after the closing of IRO.
In the quieting of these apprehensions and in the promoting of
—— ee ee ryt
tee oe

fruitful contacts between the two groups, the Lutheran World
Federation and the World Council of Churches played an especially
significant role. As early as October, 1949, the Council of the Evan-
gelical Church in Germany had somewhat cautiously indicated its
willingness to accept responsibility for the spiritual care of the
DP’s “wherever such acts of Christian fellowship are asked for.”
In spite of some objections to establishing a special program of
service for a group of refugees which constituted only one-fiftieth
of the total number of refugees in Germany, the Council agreed to
ask its member churches to contact the DP churches in their areas
and to proffer them this brotherly aid. More convincing was the
offer of places in the homes and institutions of the Inner Mission
for ten thousand sick and aged among the DP’s, and the establish-
ment of a permanent committee to handle questions relating to the
“homeless foreigners.”
Even with these positive overtures on the part of the German
church and the many local efforts to establish cordial relationships
which followed, it was evident that a more general framework of
mutual cooperation must be established on the policy level. At this
point LWF and the World Council of Churches acted as mediators,
arranging a series of conferences which brought together the lead-
¢
ers of both the Exile churches and the German churches. The most
se
significant of these conferences, held at Imbshausen in April, 1950,
—-o
and attended by ninety-one representatives of churches and inter-
national organizations interested in the welfare of the DP’s, adopted
a set of resolutions establishing the main lines of policy for the |
_—_———
future relations between the DP’s and the German churches.

The DP Committee of the Evangelical Church in Germany was
made a permanent part of the secretariat of the church, and was
broadened to include ecumenical representation. The German Par-
liament was urged to establish the legal standing of the DP’s in
Germany, and a few months later that body responded with an
appropriate statute specifying rights and privileges for the DP’s
similar to those extended to other refugees in Germany.
At Imbshausen and at the other conferences which followed at
Koenigswinter and at Ratzeburg, Dr. Stewart Herman, Executive
Secretary of LWF-SR, sought to emphasize the importance of view-

ing the refugee problem in Germany as a whole. In the final solu-
tion of this problem, he said, the local settlement of both German
“expellees” and residual DP’s should be understood as the next
immediate step.
Because of the peculiar psychological barriers which had existed
between the DP’s and the Germans and which were still in evi-
dence, this particular phase was accompanied by special tensions
and problems which would require the closest cooperation and
understanding both by the Exile Churches and the German con-
gregations. Due to the large numbers of Lutherans among the DP’s
in Germany, LWF-SR felt a special responsibility to assist in achiev-
ing this goal and was therefore ready to contribute funds, person-
nel, and the specialized experience it had accumulated in working
with the Exile Churches since 1947. Looking back upon Imbshausen,
Dr. Herman felt that one of the chief services of the conference
had been rendered in the clarification of issues and in the promo-
tion of mutual understanding and confidence among the partici-—
pating groups.
One of the most concrete evidences of the readiness of the Ger-
man churches to assist their Exile Church brethren to secure a
spiritual ministry in their own language was embodied in the de-
cision of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany to
undertake the salary payments of DP pastors according to a fixed
and uniform scale. Here also the ecumenical organizations played
a mediating role, eventually securing the attachment of each pastor
to the provincial German church in which he resided. In a few
instances the pastors also served German congregations in addition
to their work among the residual DP’s. All the provincial churches
contributed to a general salary fund administered by their common
headquarters, and from this fund the individual DP pastors were
paid. Although the salaries were not high, they did make it possible
for the Exile Churches to maintain a regular ministry among their
scattered and constantly dwindling congregations.
Meanwhile, of course, the spiritual ministry program of LWF-SR
continued, bringing supplementary aid in cash subsidies, material
supplies, and printing church papers and religious literature. With
the IRO travel warrants no longer available, the Lutheran World
Federation assumed the responsibility for travel costs for the pastors,
funds for which it included within a regular annual subsidy to each
of the Exile Churches. After 1952 when the functions of LWF-SR
were taken over by the newly-created Department of World Serv-
ice, this item remained on the annual budget for the Exile Churches
as a continuing evidence of Lutheran World Federation concern.
As late as 1957 five Exile Church groups in western Germany were
receiving this travel and administrative subsidy to strengthen the
ministry of about twenty-five Lutheran pastors.
Institutional care for the old, the sick, and the otherwise incapaci-
tated was provided both by taking advantage of the existing homes
of the Inner Mission which the German church had freely offered,
and by erecting a number of large institutions especially for DP’s.
Hundreds of Lutheran visitors in Bavaria in the past seven years
have been introduced to the Alpine-roofed complex of buildings of
the Insula Home for aged DP’s, nestled beneath the towering peaks
of Berchtesgaden in one of the most beautiful spots in all of Europe.
Through alert and persistent negotiations by LWF-SR leaders with
officials of both German and American Governments and the IRO,
this property was leased to the Inner Mission of Bavaria in 1950
as a home for more than 450 aged Lutheran DP’s. For the reno-
vation and equipment of this one home with the most modern
heating and cooking facilities, the IRO contributed about $250,000.
Other institutions at Varel in Oldenburg and at Herzogsaegemuehle
in Bavaria have also received generous grants to provide care for
the aged and rehabilitation training for DP invalids.
A far larger concern was felt for the many thousands of “home-
less foreigners” who were not in need of institutional care, but who
lived a marginal existence either in camps or in scattered DP “set-
tlements” throughout Germany. Since these were the people who
were left behind by the emigration programs, it was practically
certain that some kind of social or medical service or some occu-
pational rehabilitation would eventually be required. Even those
who were physically well and able to work needed help in over-
coming the psychological barriers which made it so difficult for a

DP to become an integral part of the community into which he
had been thrust against his will.
Not content, however, with partial or temporary measures in
meeting this extremely delicate problem, both international organ-
izations and the German church agencies devoted exemplary efforts
to achieve a final solution of the entire DP question in Germany.
Beginning in June, 1950, in spite of a shortage of such personnel
within the German church, the Hilfswerk and the Inner Mission
assigned eighty-five social workers for the special care of “homeless
foreigners.” Supported at first by IRO funds, the World Council
of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation agreed to pay a
part of the salaries of these workers and in addition maintained a
number of persons on their own staffs who worked closely with the
German church welfare workers.
The Lutheran World Federation placed funds at the disposal
of the Evangelical Hilfswerk to cover special needs of DP’s, and
under the leadership of Pastor Gerhard Dietrich also established
a fund from which a refugee could receive small loans for the
purchase of furniture or equipment necessary to establish him-
self in a trade. More and more, however, the responsibility for
social welfare work among the DP’s was relinquished to the Evan-
gelical Hilfswerk until in 1956 even the Lutheran World Federa-
tion subsidy for the salaries of the special social workers was
discontinued.
In their attempt to break down existing barriers on the local
level between DP’s and Germans, the German church social workers
have sponsored great numbers of “parish evenings” throughout
Germany, in which thousands of German and DP church members
have learned to know each other. Youth rallies, summer camps, and
pastoral conferences, frequently financed by the Lutheran World
Federation, have also been conducted.
German church social workers have been active in seeking em-
ployment possibilities for DP’s, among whom the unemployment
rate has been disproportionately high, and also in placing DP
families in the new housing projects of the German Government.
'
Both federal and state governments have set aside certain apart-
ment units in designated housing projects especially for DP’s, but
in the interest of promoting better mutual understanding have
sought to avoid exclusive DP settlements. As a result of these public
housing programs, supplemented by grants from the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, great progress has been made
in Germany toward the elimination of DP camps.
THIRTEEN MILLION EXPELLEES

Beyond the special care which the German Government and the
German churches were prepared to give to the “homeless foreign-
ers” in their midst loomed the overwhelming problem of the 13,-
000,000 German “expellees,” who had swarmed into the four occu-
pation zones from eastern European countries and from the Ger-
man provinces under Polish administration. International assistance
had been made available for the resettlement of DP’s, but it was
expected that these other millions would be absorbed into the
German economic and social life. The Lund Assembly of the Lu-
theran World Federation in 1947 branded such discrimination as
an outright injustice. “Political powers may justify this as they will,”
stated the Report from Section Three, “but Lutheran Christians
will, on the basis of the Gospel, find the refusal to render aid in the
case of human need on an unprecedented scale neither compre-
hensible nor justifiable.”
Nor did the stream from the East cease after 1947. Year after
year it has continued, even to the present. Records of the German
Federal Republic show that between 1949 and 1956 a total of 1,-
443.532 persons crossed the borders from the East Zone alone, and
about 25,000 arrivals were being counted each month during 1956.
On any day of the year, a person may stand at the gates of West
Berlin’s huge Marienfelde Reception Center and watch the crowds
arrive. Five hundred persons every day are being added to the
refugee population, half of them young people under twenty-five
years of age, for whom the spiritual and psychological pressures of
the Communist regime in the East Zone have become unbearable.
After being both physically and politically examined, most of

them are flown out of Berlin at government expense to find a place
somewhere in the expanding industrial economy of West Germany
or possibly a new beginning in some country overseas.
Only governmental resources could fully cope with the mam-
moth task of feeding, clothing, housing, employing, and rehabili-
tating these new arrivals and the millions of older refugees, a task
for which the German Federal Republic spent one-third of its total
budget in 1949. The refugees have been scattered through every
community in Germany, and on the local level the church has
contributed much both toward the physical and spiritual care of
individual persons. Lutheran World Federation aid for the meeting
of the German refugee problem has sought to strengthen the Ger-
man churches themselves, that they might more effectively render
these services. In this sense both shipments of material relief and
the cash contributions toward church reconstruction have been
substantial expressions of the deep concern of the entire world
family of Lutherans for the German refugee problem.
Great energy and ingenuity have been displayed by the German
churches as they have reached out to minister to the refugees in
their midst. In West Berlin, where the population of the forty-three
refugee camps seldom drops below sixty thousand in spite of the
constant movement of government-screened refugees to West Ger-
many, the Evangelical Hilfswerk carries on a vigorous social min-
istry through a network of community centers located in the vicinity
of the larger camps. Built with funds received from foreign churches
and staffed in large part by representatives of those churches, these
centers are intended to provide some relief from the depressing
camp atmosphere and also some contact for the refugees with per-
sons from the outside world. The Bodensieck House in the French
Sector of Berlin was built with American funds, the Scandiaheim
with gifts from Norway, and three others with Swedish, Dutch, and
Swiss help. Each year the Lutheran World Federation contributes
to a Hilfswerk fund for the maintenance of all five centers. Spirit-
ual services for the refugees are provided directly by the churches
of Berlin,
Up in the lonely woods of north Westphalia the combined efforts

of church and government have transformed the scattered buildings
of a former ammunition dump into a thriving city of refugees, com-
plete with homes, schools, churches, and industries. According to
the decision of Allied military authorities in 1945, this vast complex
of bunkers and warehouses and factory buildings called Espelkamp
was scheduled for liquidation by British demolition squads. Through
the intervention of a Swedish pastor, Birger Forell, whose name
has become synonymous in Germany with unselfish Christian serv-
ice to refugees, the action was halted, and the church was given a
unique opportunity for social reconstruction.
Beginning in 1948 the project was carried forward in cooperation
with the state. Within six months more than $500,000 had been
expended to lay out a street plan, water mains, and drainage sys-
tem. One portion of the six-hundred-acre tract was set aside for
schools and institutions, and both Norwegian and Swedish church
contributions were made for the construction of children’s homes.
Another area was designated as the industrial quarter, and as soon
as public announcements of the project were made, applications
began to flow in by the hundreds from refugees eager to make a
new start in their trades. The most difficult problem was the secur-
ing of capital for investment in these new industries, but even that
was gradually overcome, and presently, in the empty halls in which
had once been stored weapons of destruction there resounded the
hum of the cabinet-maker’s lathe and the roar of the metal-worker’s
hearth.
More than five thousand people, all refugees from the East, are
now living in their own homes in Espelkamp, and expectations are
that the population will grow to ten thousand. State aid is availa-
ble both for the building of homes and the establishment of shops
and small industries. And in the midst of the new city of refugees
stands the church, built with gifts from the Svenska Kyrkohjiilpen,
and symbolizing the fact, well-known in Espelkamp, that the Gos-
pel also motivates Christians to social action.
Another symbol of the reborn concern of the German church
for the social as well as the spiritual well-being of its homeless
members has been its bold venture into the field of social housing.
As early as 1946 a series of cooperative housing projects in the
neighborhood of Heidelberg was undertaken by the church, and
outstanding leadership was given to the movement by a Lutheran
pastor in Frankfurt, Otto Fricke. The synod of the Evangelical
Church in Germany in 1950 gave its official blessing to the efforts
of these cooperative building societies as a means of reuniting
divided families and strengthening the Christian home. Both the
German provincial churches and the Lutheran World Federation
have made substantial contributions to the operating capital of the
societies, and in the past seven years more than 20,000 family hous-
ing units have been constructed. While this number does not rep-
resent a large share of the 2,000,000 units which have been built
in West Germany, it was a pioneer venture on the part of the
German church, demonstrating a keen sensitivity to the needs of
its people in this postwar period and a determined effort to minister
to them where they were.
Although Germany was called upon to receive far more refugees
than any other country in Europe, her larger resources also made
it possible for her to handle them more effectively than many small-
er countries who received far fewer. The churches of Germany,
too, with their well-developed institutional program and their large
membership, became increasingly effective in their ministry to the
refugees as they recovered from the shock of war. With the excep-
tion of the East Zone, which needs outside aid more than ever, the
German churches are now fully capable of carrying their own load,
even in the ministry to refugees.
LWF-SR IN AUSTRIA
The Lutheran Church of Austria, on the other hand, would prob-
ably have been in need of outside help even if it had had no refu-
gee problem. But with its 70,000 Lutheran refugees crowding in
from the East, help was desperately needed. This came first from
the American Section of the Lutheran World Convention in the
form of material relief supplies to ward off starvation among the
ao
—
————
re re ee Per
Not Strangers, But Fellow-Citizens 17]

children, then as cash subsidies to relieve the needs of the pastors,
and later through an emigration operation of the Lutheran World
Federation.
Only 5500 of the Lutheran refugees in Austria were IRO-eligibles,
and therefore from the time its office was opened in December,
1948, LWF-SR in Austria also served ethnic German refugees.
Nevertheless by far the largest number of emigrants processed by
the LWF-SR office under the direction of Miss Henrietta Lund and
subsequently of Dr. Alvin Fritz and Dr. Ralph Wood were DP’s,
and by 1952 the total number remaining in Austria had been re-
duced to less than six hundred.
Responsibility for a pastoral ministry among the DP’s in Austria
was carried by the Austrian church, but a large-scale welfare pro-
gram was maintained by the various branch offices of LWF-SR,
which were staffed by twelve international and thirty-seven local
workers. Two-thirds of all the relief supplies sent to Austria by
Lutheran World Relief were sent directly to the Austrian Hilfswerk
in Vienna, and one-third to LWF-SR in Salzburg. From Salzburg
the supplies were sent on to the field offices, which handled the
final distribution to individuals or to camps. More than 120,000
persons received relief supplies from these offices in one single year,
and 10,000 interviews were conducted on resettlement problems,
legal and personal questions. In keeping with the Lutheran World
Federation policy of strengthening the local agencies, however,
much of this activity was taken over in 1952 by the Evangelical
Refugee Aid, a newly-organized branch of the Austrian Lutheran
Church, and subsequently by the Austrian Hilfswerk.
Several special refugee projects have been carried on by the
Lutheran World Federation in Austria, among them a unique sur-
vey and treatment of almost five hundred amputees, a Student
Home in Linz, and a series of summer youth camps. To the latter
program—under which an average of 700 undernourished children
per year from 1950 to 1953 were given three weeks in a summer
camp—the Norwegian and Swedish churches contributed a large
share of the leadership and food supplies.
With 50,000 refugees in 1950 living in camps, and another 250,~
000 in substandard quarters outside the camps, Austria’s housing

problem was proportionately as acute as that of Germany. Acting
on the principle that the most basic help to the refugee is that
which takes him out of the camps and helps to restore his flagging
self-confidence, the Lutheran World Federation granted a first loan
of $10,000 in 1950 for the organization of “Neusiedler,” the first
building cooperative of the Austrian Lutheran Church. Eleven
students of an international work camp joined with the refugees in
the construction of the first twenty-four-family unit beneath the
shadow of the massive fortress of Salzburg, on a street named in
honor of the Lutheran World Federation. During the six years
which followed, 750 family units have been constructed in various
parts of Austria, financed jointly by the contributions of the Aus-
trian government, the churches of Norway and Switzerland, and
the members of the cooperatives themselves. The Lutheran World
Federation has made loans amounting to $50,000 and has been in-
strumental in securing more than $115,000 in grants from the Ford
Foundation.
Since 1952 the Austrian refugee program of the Lutheran World
Federation has been incorporated within the new Department of
World Service, and until 1956 was directed in Austria by Pastor Ahti
Auranen of the Lutheran Church of Finland. Under Pastor Aura-
nen’s leadership the Lutheran World Federation was able to medi-
ate cash grants to the Austrian church from the Ford Foundation
and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for spe-
cial refugee projects amounting in two years to more than $40,000.
The flow of material relief supplies to Austria has been substan-
tially increased, but the Lutheran World Federation now depends
entirely on the Austrian Hilfswerk for all distribution. It was be-
cause of the immediate availability of these stocks in Vienna that
the Lutheran World Federation was able during two brief periods
following the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution in October,
1956, to send supplies of food and clothing to the destitute within
Hungary itself.
The Resettlement Service, the Lutheran World Federation’s pio-
neer operation in Austria, has been maintained without interrup-
tion. From 1948 to 1952 more than 7300 Lutheran refugees, most-
ly DP’s, were assisted by LWF-SR in emigrating from Austria.
Movements to the United States under the Refugee Relief Act have
been handled by Miss Gertrude Sovik, an American of Norwegian
background, born in China.
Immediately following the Hungarian Revolution the refugee
operation in Austria was greatly accelerated in order to handle the
large numbers who were being hastily processed and passed on to
western European countries or overseas. By no means all were
able to emigrate further, and they remained as an added respon-
sibility for the small and already overburdened Austrian Lutheran
Church, strengthened, however, by generous contributions from
churches in all parts of the world.
LUTHERANS IN BRITAIN
The Lutheran refugee in Great Britain presented another special
problem. Between 1946 and 1949 the British Ministry of Labor ad-
mitted about 100,000 “volunteer workers” from the continent, among
whom were 40,000 Baltic and German Lutherans. The few existing
congregations of German Lutheran background in the British Isles
were themselves in financial difficulties and were not linguistically
equipped to provide a ministry for most of these refugees. As soon
as they became aware of this situation, both the National Lutheran
Council and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod took steps to
provide assistance,
The National Lutheran Council asked David L. Ostergren, an
American pastor who was doing graduate study at the University
of Uppsala in Sweden, to visit London and ascertain the needs of
these groups. Early in January, 1948, Pastor Ostergren consulted
with Estonian, German, Latvian, and Polish church leaders in
London, and together they extended an invitation calling together
all pastors serving new Lutherans in Great Britain. The result was
the formation in June, 1948, of the Lutheran Council of Great
Britain, including representation from all the Lutheran groups,
including the Missouri Synod. Pastor Ostergren was asked by the
United States Committee to remain in England as its representa-

tive, and he also became the Executive Secretary of the Lutheran
Council of Great Britain.
Because of the primary concern of this program with refugees
and Displaced Persons, responsibility for its supervision was trans-
ferred in 1949 to the Lutheran World Federation Service to Refu-
gees. In 1953 Dr. Ostergren was designated as Senior Representa-
tive in Great Britain and Holland for Lutheran World Service.
With the financial assistance channeled through the Council by
the Lutheran World Federation and the Missouri Synod, each of
these groups was enabled to organize congregations and carry on
a pastoral ministry in its own language. At the same time they
participated through the Council in combined programs, such as
Sunday schools, Bible camps, youth work, and theological study,
which they could not have maintained individually. More recently
Lutheran World Service has provided the entire subsidy, amount-
ing in 1955 to $73,182, the largest part of which was used for sup-
plements to pastors’ and church workers’ salaries.
In 1955 a unique cooperative project was undertaken under the
energetic direction of a young American pastor, Lloyd Swantz. Up
in the green, rolling countryside of Northamptonshire the Council
purchased a large country house called Hothorpe Hall, to be used
as a youth and adult leadership training center. By enlisting vol-
unteer labor from Lutheran congregations and arranging interna-
tional work camps for students, Pastor Swantz was able to make
necessary repairs and improvements, and in June, 1955, the first
youth conference was held at Hothorpe Hall.
Developments such as this recognize the fact that there is an
increasing use of the English language among the new Lutheran
congregations in Great Britain. Youth work and student work are
almost entirely in English, and the cooperative work among the
church groups finds in that language its simplest common de-
nominator.
Dr. Ostergren, who terminated his long service in England in
1956 and was succeded as Senior Representative by Pastor Vernon
Frazier, did much to encourage the development of stewardship
programs among the congregations, but about two-thirds of their
total expenses are still carried by the Lutheran World Federation.
A pastors’ pension fund has been established, and the Lutheran
Council of Great Britain is at present laying plans for the estab-
lishment of a capital expenditures fund for future building needs.
Although at the present time it is the function of the Council to
provide a framework for cooperative work among autonomous
groups, there are definite trends within the Council pointing toward
the eventual formation of a confessionally united Lutheran Church
in Great Britain.
MINISTRY OF PULPIT AND PLOW

Although France did not receive large numbers of refugees after
the war, the Lutheran churches established in November, 1947, a
joint ministry to Displaced Persons and to the several thousand
German laborers and prisoners of war who remained in France,
Urgently recommended by Dr. Michelfelder and substantially as-
sisted by the United States Committee, the new organization was
known as CLAIR, or the Comité Luthérien d’Aide aux Immigrés et
Réfugiés. Under the direction of Pastor Franck Gueutal, and for
three years with the cooperation of the Reformed Church of France,
CLAIR has carried on its program largely in the German language,
in six regions throughout the whole of France. In several localities
new Lutheran congregations were organized. The staff of CLAIR
has been truly international in character, its nine pastors in 1952
representing France, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Latvia, and
Norway. In 1955 the numbers of German laborers remaining in
France having substantially decreased, the spiritual ministry of
CLAIR was taken over by the three synods of the French Lutheran
Church,
During its eight-year history CLAIR has also distributed relief
supplies to needy refugees and has provided a transit service, es-
pecially in Paris, for emigrants from Germany and Austria on their
way overseas,
Its most unique venture has been a colonization project in Mont-
de-Marsan, in southern France, where abandoned farm Jand was

made available by the French Government for the resettlement
of forty ethnic German refugee families. Under the resident
supervision of a technical director, each family was provided with
basic equipment for farming, including livestock and agricultural
implements, and it was expected that after the first harvests were
gathered, each family would take over the payments on the farm
lease. Funds for the original investment were contributed by the
Lutheran World Federation, the German Government, and the
Ford Foundation,
Acutely conscious of the fact that the Lord of the Church was
also once a refugee, born in a stable in Bethlehem, the Lutheran
churches of the world have sought in every continent to find room
for the homeless and the wanderers. The Refugee Service which
they founded in accord with the mandate of the Lund Assembly
established a strong chain of hands, stretching from church to
church around the world. But there is much more to be done. As
the Lutheran World Federation prepares for its Third World As-
sembly, ten years after the Lund resolutions were proclaimed, new
refugees are being created in greater numbers than are being re-
stored or resettled. This is still the century of the refugee, and we
are still faced with the sobering word of Dr. Stewart Herman,
spoken in 1951: “The final decision as to whether we shall all be
refugees before this century is out depends on what we do for the
refugees of today. The earth will never know peace as long as such
a large percentage of its human inhabitants have no homes, no
work, and no hope.”
a
CHAPTER SIX
We Want to
Help One Another
When the Second World Assembly of the Lutheran World Fed-

eration, meeting in Hannover in 1952, voted to create a new De-
partment of World Service, it signalized the beginning of a new
phase of interchurch aid. The first phase had begun with Dr.
Michelfelder’s arrival in July, 1945, as American commissioner to
the stricken Lutheran churches of Europe. Its primary emphasis
had been emergency relief and reconstruction in the wake of the
disasters of World War II, and subsequently, the ministry to thou-
sands of refugees on six continents. Of this period Dr. Michelfelder
became the living symbol, much as Dr. John A. Morehead had been
in the years immediately following World War I.
There was never absent, however, from the minds of either of
these men the hope and the desire that the brotherly hand which
was extended through them would be firmly grasped and that a
fellowship of enduring character would be established among the
Lutheran churches of the world. Great strides were made toward
this goal through the interchurch aid program even before the
Hannover Assembly. As the most pressing emergencies passed,
churches which had been receiving aid indicated their desire to
participate in programs of assisting others.
Recognizing in such impulses promise of the fulfillment of the
177
original purposes of the Lutheran World Federation, Dr. Michel-

felder sought to provide a channel for their more effective ex-
pression. To this end he proposed to the Executive Committee at
its meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in July, 1951, the creation of
a new department through which member churches might coordi-
nate their interchurch aid programs. On the suggestion of Dr. Paul
Empie the name of Lutheran World Service, under which the
service program of the Lutheran World Convention following the
first World War had been conducted, was given to the new pro-
posal. A conference was called in Copenhagen in December, 1951,
to prepare detailed plans to be laid before the Hannover Assembly
in 1952.
FULL MEASURE OF DEVOTION

This new idea for the more effective use of the Lutheran World
Federation as an instrument of common service was one of Dr.
Michelfelder’s last bequests to the Lutheran churches of the world.
Shortly after the Executive Committee meeting he left Geneva
to attend the first Latin American Lutheran Conference in Curi-
tiba, Brazil. From Brazil he flew to the United States to participate
in the important “turn in the road” conferences of the National
Lutheran Council. In the midst of a strenuous series of meetings
mobilizing the churches for a new approach to their world respon-
sibilities, God laid His hand on the shoulder of Sylvester Clarence
Michelfelder and called him home.
A series of heart attacks, the first of which occurred in his hotel
room in Chicago only a few hours after he had delivered an address
to the staff of the CROP organization, was the cause of his death
on September 30, 1951.
To his colleagues in the Federation and to the thousands of
friends he had won during the six years of service he had given to
the Lutheran churches of the world, Dr. Michelfelder’s passing
came as a severe shock. He had carried his sixty-one years easily
and gracefully, and up to the very day of his collapse he had ful-
filled his heavy schedule with youthful vigor. In view of the coming
ltaly.
Lutheran Church in
jana, Yugoslavia, rebuilt
with Lutheran World Serv-
ice funds.
Newly-built Lutheran
Church of the Resurrection,
in Caracas, Venezuela.
Geianeaaast aE Hothorpe Hall, Lutheran

enaaa a center in England, spon-
sored by the Lutheran
Council of Great Britain
and Lutheran World Serv-
ice,
Thor eles
vette Tasers er?)
"i
Lutheran Refugee Serv-
ice pastor interviewing
youthful Hungarian ref-
ugees at Camp Kilmer,
New Jersey, Reception
Center.
Above: LWF Commis

sion on World Services
meeting in London i
1956, left to right: Bish
op Volkmar Herntrickh
Dr. Paul C. Empie, Pas
tor Henrik Hauge, Dr
Harry Johansson, Dr.
Henry Schuh.
Consultation on stew
ardship and evangelism
in the Lutheran Churc&
of Hannover, Germany
left to right: Pastor
Herbert Reich, Paster
Carl H. Mau, Jr., and
the late Superintendes*
Theodore Laasch.
The Rev. Bengt Hoff-
man, Director of the
Department of World
Service, and Dr. Carl
E. Lund-Quist, LWF Ex-
ecutive Secretary, con-
fer at LWS Commission
meeting in London in
1956,
Right: Pastor Henrik

Fauge of Norway lis-
tens to two Eastern Eu-
wepean delegates at a
conference for Europe-
ae Lutheran Minority
Churches, sponsored by
LWEF at Semmering,
Austria, in April, 1956.
Center: Dr. Jan Michal-
tm of Czechoslovakia;
moni, the Rev. Zygmunt
Michelis of Poland.
Dr. Stewart Herman,

Executive Secretary of
LWF Committee on La-
tin America, addresses
pastors of the mulfi-
lingual Resurrection
Congregation in Cara-
cas, Venezuela.
Lutheran World Relief food supplies
reach Korea in I951.
Refugee mother and son

Hong Kong.
Sewing class for Hong Kong refugees,

sponsored by the vocational rehabilita-
tion program of Lutheran World Service,
We Want to Help One Another 179
Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, which was to meet in
Hannover in less than a year and for which Dr, Michelfelder had
given so much of his strength and effort, his passing seemed trag-
ically premature. The chief architect would be absent from the
dedication of the structure he had planned.
There was another sense, however, in which his death marked
the end of one era in the life of the Federation and the beginning
of a new. Dr. Michelfelder was the embodiment of the truth that
when the Church faces an hour of crisis, God raises up men of
stature sufficient for the hour. The crisis of 1945 was one of human
suffering and need, physical destruction, and broken relationships
within the Church. God called forth a man whose strength was
his great-hearted Christian compassion, his boundless energy, and
his contagious conviction that the Lutheran churches of the world
should walk together in mutual service.
When he spoke of Dr. Michelfelder at a memorial service in
Hannover during the World Assembly in 1952, Bishop Nygren,
President of the Federation, paid him a high tribute. “He was on
fire with a holy zeal for the house of God, for God’s children, a
fire which consumed him. He could not bear the sight of destroyed
churches, of wrecked and ravaged men and women. A vast work
of reconstruction must begin at once, and he knew that he was
called to do it.”
“It is perfectly clear to all of us now,” declared the Bishop, “that
he was the right man to perform this service at this particular time.
It is a proof of God’s love of our Church that He gave us this chosen
vessel at the right moment for the unification of Lutherans through-
out the world.”
To that call Sylvester C. Michelfelder was not disobedient. “Who
am I,” he had written in 1946 as he faced the decision of remaining
in Europe or returning to his congregation in America, “to tell God
where He wants me to be? I am ready at any time to go where He
wants me to go.” |
This was the humble and devoted spirit, and yet the sense of
urgency with which Dr. Michelfelder carried out what he called
“the greatest challenge of my life.” Those who were closest to him
were ignited by the same fire which consumed him, the fire of
compassion for the suffering Church and its people. It was this
quality which made Dr, Michelfelder the symbol of interchurch aid
in the postwar years and the man who more than any other was
responsible for the establishment of the Lutheran World Federa-
tion.
BLUEPRINT FOR SERVICE

Before he left Europe in the summer of 1951 plans for the Han-
nover Assembly were well under way. At its meeting in Tutzing,
Germany, in 1950 the Executive Committee had selected the theme,
“The Living Word in a Responsible Church.” More than a conven-
tion motto, this theme was the distilled essence of Dr. Michelfelder’s
own theological position. The Word and the Church were always
paramount in his thinking, but it was also his intention that the
Federation be shaped in such a way that through it the Word
should become action and the Church should publicly acknowledge
its relation to society.
The fact that preparations for the Assembly continued without
a break after his death was itself a tribute to Michelfelder’s care-
ful planning. It was, however, also due in part to the able leader-
ship provided by the man who stepped into the breach. In April,
1951, Dr. Carl E. Lund-Quist had been sent to Geneva by the
United States Committee as its chief European Commissioner, in
order to free Dr. Michelfelder for his increasingly strenuous tasks
of consulting with the various national committees and preparing
for the coming World Assembly. He had worked with Michelfelder
just long enough to become familiar with the developing plans, and
it was therefore natural that the Executive Committee should ask
him to serve as Acting Executive Secretary of the Federation until
the Assembly in July, 1952. For this emergency assignment the
United States Committee extended him a leave of absence.
—
Following the Geneva meeting in July, 1951, the next formal

._n
step in the creation of a Department of World Service was the

Copenhagen Conference in December. Representatives of twelve
a
S-
eae
aie
eS
ante
countries met to evaluate their continuing needs and to discuss
the relation of the proposed Federation-centered program of inter-
church aid to the various independent aid programs which had
been carried on for many years. The Scandinavian churches partic-
ularly were concerned lest unnecessary administrative machinery
be set up which might jeopardize direct and spontaneous relation-
ships between individual churches. At the same time they recog-
nized the value of coordinating these national programs and ac-
knowledged the importance of the special international services
already rendered by the Lutheran World Federation in the safe-
guarding of foreign mission properties in Shanghai, Hong Kong,
and Palestine. Having given its unanimous endorsement to the
proposal of the Executive Committee for the new department of
the Federation, the Copenhagen Conference adjourned.
If Dr. Michelfelder may be called the father of Lutheran World
Service, Dr. Paul C. Empie was its godfather. Not only did he
contribute its name, but he was delegated by the Executive Com-
mittee to present it formally in an address to the Assembly in Han-
nover on July 31, 1952. After sketching concisely the historical
backgrounds of Lutheran interchurch aid following two world
wars, Dr. Empie drew a parallel between the Eisenach Assembly
of 1923 and that of Hannover in 1952. Both had been held approxi-
mately a half-decade after the end of a war. Both were in large
measure the direct outgrowth of the surge of compassion for the
postwar needs of European Lutherans. Both were striking testi-
monies that the emergencies which confront the Church help to
actualize God-given potentials which often lie dormant in years
of peace and prosperity.
But after 1925 Lutheran world cooperation began to dwindle,
with the result that the Lutheran World Convention itself began
to lose some of its strength and some of the loyalties which had
helped to create it. Only by working together, said Dr. Empie,
could Lutherans grow together. Lutheran World Service might be
only one instrument for cooperative work, but history had clearly
demonstrated that it was an instrument which God Himself had
especially blessed. |
As he surveyed the aid programs of the member churches be-

tween 1945 and 1952, Dr. Empie singled out three major areas of
service which he felt could be properly brought together in a co-
ordinated program of world service. The first of these was church
reconstruction and interchurch aid. Although the postwar recovery
in Europe was making outside help for physical rebuilding pro-
gressively less urgent, there was still the need of ministering to the
scattered Lutheran colonies and churches living as minorities in the
midst of other more numerous communions.
Physical relief would likewise remain urgent. The plight of mil-
lions of people, either uprooted from their homes or living in the
famine areas of the world, would continue to move the compas-
sionate hearts of Lutheran people. By coordinating and pooling in-
dividual efforts, the Lutheran World Federation could increase
both the scope and effectiveness of this ministry of mercy.
The third great area of service, described as “the most urgent
and compelling need which still faces the church,” was that of the
refugees. The Mandate of Lund still stood, and the Lutheran World
Federation could most effectively meet its acknowledged respon-
sibilities through a coordinated program of world service, which
would reach even beyond a spiritual ministry to those of the Lu-
theran household of faith to the millions of non-Christian refugees
of the Near East and the Far East. .
There was no question in Dr. Empie’s mind concerning either
the ability or the responsibility of the Lutheran churches to direct
their energies into these areas of service. His greatest concern was
that for one reason or another these churches might fail to grasp
the opportunity and, as they had done once before, permit the
great gift of Lutheran world unity to slip through their fingers.
This unity was not something to be grasped for its own sake, but
rather as a means of more effective service in the Kingdom of God.
“No Lutheran Church,” said Dr. Empie, “should ever lose sight of
the fact that it is part of a global, international fellowship which
is tied together by bonds of common confession, by powerful spir-
itual traditions, and by deep convictions, The world Lutheran
church knows no distinction of race or color or language. Its mem-
bers live in every part of the world, and refuse to be separated by
social and political barriers.” The Lutheran church, therefore, bears
global responsibilities, and there is no other way to fulfill them
except through cooperative action.
Within this framework, Lutheran World Service would become
not only the extended arm of the Church reaching out to those in
need, but also an effective means for enriching the spiritual vitality
of the entire Communion of Saints. “In working together we teach
each other; we inspire each other; we enlarge our horizons and
sharpen our vision. We gain the strength to penetrate deeper across
spiritual frontiers.”
The guiding principles for the new department in the Federation
were few and simple. Participation in its program was to be entirely
voluntary, respecting at all times the independent and autonomous
character of the member churches. Economy, flexibility, mobility,
and global planning were to characterize the operation, and the
entire program was to reflect the essential ideals of the Christian
faith and implement some basic function of the church. Lutheran
World Service was not to become a secular relief agency.
Dr. Empie’s proposal to the Assembly also sketched briefly the
operational lines of the proposed new department. It would func-
tion under the general direction of the Executive Secretary of the
Lutheran World Federation, but program, policy, and annual budget
would be subject to review by a supervisory committee appointed
by the Executive Committee. The actual administration of the
program would be in the hands of a Director elected by the Execu-
tive Committee and working under the Executive Secretary in
Geneva. It would be the task of the Director to survey the needs of
the churches annually and send his findings to the various national
committees of the Federation, National committees would be free
to respond either with direct financial support for specific projects
or with contributions of money or personnel to joint activities co-
ordinated through the Department of World Service.
On August 1, 1952, the day following Dr. Empie’s address, Dr.
P. O. Bersell presented a recommendation to the Assembly that a
Department of Lutheran World Service be established and that
the Executive Committee be authorized to take the necessary steps

to activate it. The recommendation was adopted without a dis-
senting vote.
THE LOCCUM CONFERENCE

Immediately following the Hannover Assembly the Executive
Committee met to carry out the instructions of the Assembly for
the setting up of three new departments: Theology, World Service,
and World Missions. The Lund Assembly had marked the willing-
ness of the participating churches to undertake emergency respon-
sibilities cooperatively; the Hannover decisions reflected the desire
to move beyond the experimental stage into a permanent program
of cooperative study and service.
As members of the supervisory Commission on World Service
the Executive Committee selected Dr. Paul C. Empie and Dr.
Henry Schuh from the United States, Pastor Henrik Hauge from
Norway, Dr, Harry Johansson of Sweden, and Professor Volkmar
Herntrich of Germany. As Director of the Department the Rever-
end Henry Whiting, Executive Secretary of the Lutheran Welfare
Society of Minnesota, was elected to a two-year term. May 1, 1958,
was designated as the date for the official activation of the Depart-
ment of World Service.
In the nine months which intervened it was expected that the
necessary staff could be enlisted and assembled, program and pro-
cedures worked out, and national committees sufficiently oriented
so that they could inform the Director either of their needs or of
the resources they could make available to Lutheran World Service
for its first year’s operation. In order to facilitate these matters it
was decided to hold the first meeting of the Commission on World
Service in the Evangelical Academy at Loccum near Hannover on
December 15-17, 1952, and to invite representatives of the national
committees of twelve countries to participate in a World Service
Conference at the same time.
At Loccum the Commission turned its attention first to the list
of requests which had come from the various countries represented
and was immediately confronted with the necessity of determining
some scale of priorities on the basis of which the limited funds
could be allocated. Dr. Empie suggested that projects such as
Services to Refugees, for which Lutheran World Service had a con-
tinuing responsibility and which by their very nature had to be
done cooperatively, be supported from a general budget. Other
projects could simply be listed, and recommended to the various
national committees for their direct support. This would secure
the “core” program of the Department, but at the same time pro-
vide room for the exercise of free choice of projects in which
individual committees had a special interest.
Even more significant for the future of the program of World
Service was the question of contributions to meet this ambitious
statement of needs. With the gradual termination of emergency aid
Lutheran World Service was to become a mutual agency for the
strengthening of the Lutheran church in all parts of the world.
This meant that churches which had thus far been cast by circum-
stance in the role of “receiving” churches should through World
Service gradually become “giving” churches.
Beginning with the United States and Canada, each of the dele-
gations declared its intention of making some contribution to proj-
ects outside of its own borders. The German churches had organ-
ized a special committee on World Service just three days before
the Loccum meeting. With the termination of Russian reparations
payments by their country the Finns hoped to begin regular con-
tributions. Delegates from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden declared
their readiness to continue support of refugee work through the
Department of World Service in addition to the special projects
they supported independently. Even the minority churches of Italy
and Holland declared their desire to participate by extending in-
vitations to needy pastors and children to spend vacations in their
countries; and France, Austria, and Brazil each promised smaller
cash support to Lutheran World Service.
Before the conference adjourned, the new Director of the De-
partment, Pastor Henry Whiting, directed the attention of the dele-
gates to the importance of the spiritual objectives of the program
of World Service. According to the “Preliminary Statement” adopt-

ed by the conference, the primary reason for the cooperative ac-
tion of the churches through World Service was “to develop a more
powerful global evangelical witness by the Lutheran Churches of
the World.”
With this goal clearly in view, said Pastor Whiting, the Depart-
ment might profitably examine its organizational relationships with-
in the Lutheran World Federation, with the national committees,
and with ecumenical and governmental agencies and organizations.
Beyond this Lutheran World Service would have to develop a staff
of workers dedicated to its goal, program, and philosophy, and
equipped with insight, understanding, and ability. The entire pro-
gram must also be established on a sound financial basis.
ORGANIZING IN GENEVA
To these rather formidable tasks Dr. Henry Whiting turned his
attention in the following months. Securing an early release from
his responsibilities with the Lutheran Welfare Society of Minnesota,
he spent several weeks in New York mapping the strategy of the
new department, preparing a formal budget, and enlisting staff.
Although his term of office was not scheduled to begin until May
1, 1953, he felt it important that he be in Geneva well in advance
in order that the Department might begin functioning properly on
that date,
Organizationally, Dr. Whiting’s task was to combine the opera-
tions of the Lutheran World Federation Service to Refugees and
the various interchurch aid programs of the member churches, par-
ticularly that of the United States Committee. Since October 1,
1952, Dr. John Schmidt had been Director of LWF-SR in Geneva,
having come from Germany to replace Dr. Stewart Herman, who
had returned to New York to direct the Latin American programs
of both the Lutheran World Federation and the National Lutheran
Council. Although greatly reduced from its peak strength in 1949,
ee en a i eg ee ot i i i i i i i i le

LWF-SR still maintained a considerable staff both in Europe and
elsewhere, working with the resettlement of refugees and the inte-
gration of Displaced Persons.
The United States Committee had had no chief European com-
missioner since Dr. Carl Lund-Quist became Acting Executive
Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, and was subsequently
elected by the Hannover Assembly to a five-year term as the suc-
cessor of Dr. S. C. Michelfelder. From 1947 to 1952 the United
States Committee had conducted its own interchurch aid operation
in Europe, but had made annual appropriations to the Geneva-
directed LWF-SR program. When the member churches of the
Federation agreed to establish the Department of World Service
as their common instrument for supporting “Lutheran groups in
need of spiritual or material aid,” the United States Committee
voted to discontinue its overseas operation and to place its full
support behind the program of Lutheran World Service. Before
concluding his services as European Secretary for the United States
Committee in the spring of 1953, Dr. John Scherzer spent two
months in Europe closing out Committee operations and arranging
with Lutheran World Service to take over all unfinished obligations
with funds furnished by the United States Committee,
Thereafter, instead of maintaining its own staff in the field and
considering various direct requests for aid from churches and
groups, the United States Committee regarded Lutheran World
Service as its overseas agent for interchurch aid and refugee work
and made allocations of funds on the basis of annual Statements
of Needs,
Dr. Whiting’s plans called for the appointment of a Deputy in
Geneva to handle refugee matters and a series of Senior Repre-
sentatives located in countries in which Lutheran World Service
carried on its various programs of assistance. The Senior Represen-
tatives were to supervise all field operations and staff and to act
as liaison for the Department with the national committees.
Mr. Reuben Baetz, veteran Canadian member of the SR staff
in Germany, became Dr. Whiting’s Deputy. Dr. Richard W. Sol-

berg was appointed Senior Representative in Germany, and Dr.
David L. Ostergren for England and Holland. Pastor Ahti Auranen,
who had supervised the relief operations for the Finnish Red Cross
during the evacuation of the Karelian Peninsula in 1940 and di-
rected the United States Committee’s church reconstruction pro-
gram in Finland, became Senior Representative in Austria. Dr. J.
Igor Bella, United States Committee expert on eastern European
interchurch aid, represented the Department to the minority Lu-
theran churches of France, Italy, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, and
eastern Europe. In the Near East Mr. Christian Christiansen of
Denmark undertook the direction of the LWF-SR program in
Syria, and when the Department of World Service was assigned the
supervision of Lutheran relief operations in Jordan in 1954, he
eee
was placed in charge of the entire program. Mr. Arne Fjellbu of

==
Norway was sent in 1954 to South America, and when Lutheran

World Service expanded its program in the Far East, the Reverend
——
K. L. Stumpf of Germany was designated as Senior Representative

in Hong Kong,
The preliminary statement adopted by the Loccum Conference
had made it clear that Lutheran World Service was to be an agency
created by and belonging to the member churches. New staff mem-
bers were therefore chosen so that the insights and traditions of
as many member churches as possible were represented. All ap-
pointments were subject to the approval of the staff member’s
home church and the concurrence of the national committee of
the country in which he was to be stationed.
Having selected his staff and ascertained what financial resources
were immediately available, Dr. Whiting moved to set up a unified
pattern for receiving requests for aid. With the assistance of the
Senior Representatives, national committees were asked to prepare
their requests in project form for the endorsement of the Commis-
sion on World Service well in advance of its annual summer meet-
ing. These requests were then compiled in a booklet called a
| “Statement of Needs” and sent out to all national committees. With
the entire service program thus laid before them, the committees
were invited to respond with assurances of financial support, both
for the general budget and for such special projects as they might
select for the fiscal year beginning May 1.
SUPPORT FROM THE MEMBER CHURCHES

Responsibility for presenting the program of Lutheran World
Service to the member churches and congregations in its own coun-
try was left to each national committee, and the pattern therefore
varied considerably. In December, 1952, shortly after the Hannover
Assembly organized the new Departments of Theology, World
Missions, and World Service, the Executive Committee of the Na-
tional Lutheran Council in the United States initiated action for
the creation within its own structure of a Division of Lutheran
World Federation Affairs. Plans took shape slowly, but at the an-
nual meeting of the Council in January, 1956, the Division was
created, with Dr. Stewart Herman as its Executive Secretary, and
with departments corresponding to those of the Lutheran World
Federation. Mr. Bernard Confer, Executive Secretary of Lutheran
World Relief, assumed the direction of the new American Depart-
ment of World Service, whose supervisory committee was charged
with allocating the annual United States Committee contribution
to the Federation’s program of World Service. Since 1953, this
contribution has averaged about $875,000 per year.
Eager to assume its place among the “giving” churches of the
Lutheran World Federation, the German National Committee
moved even more quickly to establish its own Committee on Lu-
theran World Service. On December 12, 1952, this committee of
six members was organized under the chairmanship of Superinten-
dent Johannes Schulze of Hannover. Kirchenrat Karl Nagengast,
who had served with distinction for several years as pastor among
Lutheran refugees in the Bavarian forest at Cham, was named
Executive Secretary and Field Representative.
Establishing his offices on May 1, 1953, in Stuttgart, where close
contacts could be maintained with both the Evangelical Hilfswerk
and the Lutheran World Service Senior Representative in Germany,
ee
Kirchenrat Nagengast began his task of interpreting Lutheran

World Service to the Lutheran churches of Germany. The motive
for service, declared Nagengast, must be heartfelt gratitude to
God for the blessings experienced by the churches and people of
Germany during the postwar years. “We were not left alone in our
need,” he reminded his fellow-churchmen. “We experienced in
overwhelming degree the help of the Christian world. Our hands
were filled in order that we might minister to the needs of our land
and our people. Now when we see others in need, we cannot pass
them by.”
There were still great needs in West Germany in 1952, when the
German Committee on World Service was organized. Every church
was struggling to restore its war losses and minister to the thou-
sands of refugees in its midst. But the greatest need of all was that
of the sister churches of the East Zone, to whose support money
and packages flowed from the West in a steady stream. In view of
this need, the German National Committee requested in 1953 that
no further interchurch aid funds be allocated to West Germany,
and that all available assistance be diverted to the churches in the
East. Not only did this request serve to emphasize the critical
conditions among the Lutherans behind the iron curtain, but it
indicated that the Lutheran churches of western Germany were
ready to participate both in spirit and in deed in the outreaching
program of Lutheran World Service.
This good will had already been manifested when the German
churches gathered a thank-offering following the death of Dr. S.
C. Michelfelder and presented it to the Lutheran World Federa-
tion as a memorial to their great benefactor. To the general needs
budget of Lutheran World Service in its first year the German
National Committee made a contribution of $15,670, and since that
time its support has steadily increased. From 1953 to 1957 more
than $250,000 was gathered for relief and interchurch aid projects
outside of Germany, most of which was channeled through the De-
partment of World Service in Geneva.
One of the first projects to capture the imagination of the German
Committee in 1953 was the flood-devastated Lutheran Church of
OE

Holland, for the relief of which Kirchenrat Nagengast personally
delivered a substantial gift of $10,000 in cash and in beds and mat-
tresses. Each year the German Committee has also selected a num-
ber of projects within the minority Lutheran churches of Austria,
Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Italy, or England, and in recent years has
extended its assistance into both the Near East and Hong Kong.
Since its beginning the Committee has displayed an increasing
concern for the Lutheran Exile Churches in Germany. Through the
headquarters of the Evangelical Church in Germany and through
the Hilfswerk each of the member churches has for many years
contributed to the salaries of the pastors and to the welfare needs
of the “homeless foreigners.” More recently the German Committee
has taken over the support of Lutheran World Service projects for
the promotion of closer relations between the DP’s and German
congregations, and has also provided theological literature and
sponsored an annual conference for the Exile Church pastors.
As the West German churches have increasingly assumed the
role of “giving” churches, the Department of World Service has
gradually withdrawn its international staff from Germany. With
the return of Dr. Richard Solberg to the United States in July,
1956, the position of Senior Representative was discontinued. How-
ever, he was replaced in Berlin by the Reverend Frederick Otto
as LWS representative for East Germany. Mr. Laimons Pavuls
continued his long service in Germany as liaison representative to
the Lutheran Churches in Exile. Two international resettlement
staff members, the Reverend Eugene Ries and Mr. David Graetz,
remained in Stuttgart to cooperate with the Evangelical Hilfswerk.
Sufficient interest in the work of stewardship and parish evangelism
has now developed so that full-time persons have been designated
in most of the German churches to carry on this work without the
assistance of Lutheran World Federation staff.
In addition to the United States and Germany the national com-
mittees of Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian countries have
been consistent supporters of the World Service program. Since
1953 Canadian gifts have totaled $72,000. Contributions of the
Swedish National Committee have mounted steadily since 1953,
totaling $80,132 up to May, 1956. With the appointment of Pastor

A. Kastlund as its first full-time Executive Secretary late in 1956,
it seemed likely that this trend in Swedish support would continue.
The Danish National Committee began its contributions to Lu-
theran World Service in 1954, as did Norway's Kirkens Nédhjelp.
Though seriously hampered by currency restrictions, the Finnish
National Committee has managed to make regular contributions
either in cash or in shipments of paper. In the face of an over-
whelming problem of ministering to a Lutheran refugee popula-
tion equal to its total membership, the United Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Australia has consistently contributed to Lutheran World
Service since 1954. Symbolic of the manner in which fellow-be-
lievers in widely-separated parts of the world can be linked together
in mutual concern have been such special gifts as those from South
America and from the Batak Lutheran Church of Indonesia to the
churches of East Germany, and the many similar g.fts for Hun--
garian refugees.
WIDENING CIRCLES OF COOPERATION

When Dr. Henry Whiting presented his first report to the Execu-
tive Committee of the Lutheran World Federation in August, 1954,
he described the work of the new Department of World Service
as “a venture of supreme faith and love” on the part of the mem-
ber churches of the Federation. “For the first time in the history
of the Church of the Reformation,” he pointed out, “member
churches from the four corners of the world have determined to
serve together in meeting their common tasks and common respon-
sibilities.” Although individual churches had been carrying on such
service programs for many years, the bold decision to undertake
them cooperatively called for new patterns and forms of action, The
quest for these patterns has been one of the great tasks of Lutheran
World Service in the first years of its existence.
The circle of cooperation extended beyond the membership of
the Lutheran World Federation. Many of its member churches also
belonged to the World Council of Churches, and in planning its
program Lutheran World Service sought to recognize these rela-
tionships within the larger ecumenical family. Fortunately, both
geographical proximity and the traditionally close relationship that
had existed since Dr. Michelfelder’s early days in Geneva made this
adjustment relatively easy.
Several of the member churches of the Lutheran World Federa-
tion had given regular support to the administrative and service
budgets of the World Council of Churches, and some of them had
benefited from its program of interchurch aid. For many years the
United States Committee has contributed from its “Cooperative
Work” budget to the support of Church World Service in New York
and the World Council in Geneva, and at present provides approxi-
mately ten percent of the cash budget of the World Council’s pro-
gram of Interchurch Aid and Service to Refugees.
Both Swedish and Norwegian churches have consistently sup-
ported this program, and the German churches, so warmly remem-
bered by the member churches of the World Council in the past,
are now contributing to its aid projects as well as those of Lutheran
World Service.
The daily four o’clock tea on the Geneva campus has long sym-
bolized a close relationship between the staff members of the two
organizations. Dr. Henry Whiting served as a member of the Ad-
ministrative Committee of the World Council’s Department of
Interchurch Aid and Service to Refugees, and great care has been
exercised in coordinating programs of resettlement and material
aid. Lutheran World Service staff members have participated regu-
larly in the annual Consultations conducted by the World Council.
In their dealings with intergovernmental organizations the Lutheran
World Federation and the World Council have frequently made
joint approaches, and there have been several instances in which
a single staff member has represented both organizations in field
operations.
As a recognized international organization dealing with refugees,
the Lutheran World Federation has from its earliest days in 1947
maintained relations with many international and voluntary agen-
cies established to assist in the resettlement, rehabilitation, or in-
tegration of refugees. Funds have frequently been made available

through these organizations, and throughout the years they have
provided a substantial source of income for the financing of the
Federation’s refugee program.
Some of the most significant grants have come from the Inter-
national Refugee Organization, which ceased to function in 1952;
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who carries
special responsibility for Displaced Persons; the Ford Foundation,
which has channeled more than a half-million dollars through the
UNHCR to the Lutheran World Federation for special refugee
projects in Germany, Austria, France, Canada, Australia, and South
America; the United States Escapee Program, which extends special
administrative and welfare grants for the care of certain refugees
| from Communist-controlled areas of eastern Europe; and the In-
tergovernmental Committee for European Migration, a twenty-
! four-nation organization for the assistance of refugee migration,
which is still providing extremely generous financial support both
for the Revolving Resettlement Loan Fund of Lutheran World
Service and for the administrative costs of the program,
In a single year ending April 30, 1956, the Lutheran World Fed-
eration received from these outside sources a total of $1,854,968
in special, earmarked funds for the assistance of refugees. One of
the most substantial contributions to the refugee program and to
the reputation of Lutheran World Service in the field of interna-
tional welfare has been the relationship maintained with these or-
ganizations by Mr. Reuben Baetz, who succeeded Dr. Whiting as
Director of the Department on September 1, 1955.
Still another group of organizations with which Lutheran World
Service has dealt and whose activities it has in some measure sought
to coordinate has been the various agencies: handling the shipment
of material relief. While it has conducted no relief campaigns of
its own, Lutheran World Service has sought to serve its member
churches by keeping its finger on the fluctuating pulse of human
need in all parts of the world. On the basis of information which
it has supplied, the various relief agencies of the member churches
have been able to govern the nature and size of their shipments
Hh
and to avoid overlapping with other aid programs in the same
areas. For example, both Church World Service and Lutheran
World Relief in New York plan their large shipments to Germany
and Austria on the advice of their international associates in Gene-
va, who receive the estimates of need directly from the Evangelical
Hilfswerk in those countries.
In other areas, where distribution is handled directly by Luther-
an World Service, specific requests have been conveyed to the
gathering agencies in several countries, and they have responded
with food, clothing, or medicines as needed. Typical of this service
was the urgent cable received in New York during the Hungarian
uprising in 1956: “Refugee population today 60,000. Urgent re-
quest plastic dishes. 1000 cups and saucers. 1000 soup plates. 1000
sets knives, forks, and spoons. Men’s, women’s, children’s underwear
2000 each. Men’s, women’s, girls’ stockings 2000 each, Hartig ca-
bling additional food requests.” Lutheran World Relief responded
promptly with the requested supplies.
Services of this kind are in harmony with the charter of Lutheran
World Service, which pledges it “to provide the member churches
a common international Lutheran agency as they seek to meet in
Christian love and compassion human need as it may develop in the
world.” In 1954 Lutheran World Service called a fifteen-nation
church conference to evaluate the entire Lutheran material relief
effort throughout the world, seeking to ascertain new areas of need
which were arising and other areas in which improved conditions
might warrant a curtailment of relief shipments.
WORLD SERVICE AND WORLD MISSIONS

As an adventure in cooperative Christian service on a world-scale
by fifty-seven Lutheran churches in twenty-nine different countries,
Lutheran World Service had many new frontiers to explore in its
first five years. There was no dearth of tasks, but the new organi-
zation was frequently called upon to choose the type of tasks it
would undertake and the areas in which it would work.
Certain responsibilities, such as physical relief, church recon-
struction, and services to refugees, had already been fixed during
eg en,
the years of emergency following the war. All of these had to be
continued, but within many areas new emphases appeared. The
i
concentration of concern for Europe, which had been character-
istic of the early interchurch aid and material relief program, yield-
ed to the broadening concept of global responsibility.
As early as 1954 the Commission on World Missions indicated
that it would welcome a coordinated program by Lutheran World
Service for the distribution of material aid within mission territory
and among the churches of Africa and Asia. In the same year the
Commission on Younger Churches and Orphaned Missions of the
National Lutheran Council asked Lutheran World Service to as-
sume direction of its relief program in the Hashemite Kingdom
of the Jordan, including the operation of the Augusta Victoria Hos-
pital for Arab refugees in Jerusalem. An invitation from the Lu-
theran Foreign Missions Conference to begin a program of mate-
rial relief distribution among Chinese refugees led to a decision to
expand the entire World Service program in Hong Kong and sub-
sequently in Taiwan. In order to supervise the increasing shipments
of material aid to India, Lutheran World Service appointed Pastor
Steinhoff, a missionary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in
South India, as its representative in August, 1956,
Because of these developments in the field of material relief and
also because of the increasing interest of the Asian and African
member churches in the interchurch program of Lutheran World
Service, it became necessary for the Departments of World Mis-
sions and World Service to draw up a working agreement to pre-
vent duplication of effort. It was agreed that Lutheran World Serv-
ice should channel material relief into all parts of the world as
emergencies arose, and develop welfare programs in strictly refugee
areas to the extent of available resources. All such activities, how-
ever, were to be closely coordinated with the Department of World
Missions. Requests for interchurch aid directed to Lutheran World
Service were to be restricted to churches or groups which did not
already have a working relationship with some other department
or committee of the Lutheran World Federation. The increasingly
—N —_
4
7 ‘
t
*
We Want to Help One Another 197 | |

important role being played by the churches of Asia and Africa in
all Lutheran World Federation affairs, and their eagerness to par- ‘|
ticipate fully in all phases of the Federation’s program, will doubt- |
less call for a careful re-examination of the relationships between
these two departments in the years ahead.
STRENGTHENING THE BRETHREN

When Dr. John Scherzer presented the closing report of the 7
United States Committee on European interchurch aid in 1953, he ;
summed up the trends which would characterize the program of
Lutheran World Service in this field during the ensuing period. &
“The task of the church,” he said, “is no longer chiefly that of an-
swering the call of the hungry and the naked, as was the case y
three, four, and five years ago, but rather that of strengthening areas .
of church life which remain weak .. . and giving encouragement
in those areas where the church has become weary and frustrated 4
because of unrelenting pressures and unsolved problems.”
Nowhere was this latter task more crucial and clear-cut than in
the land of the Lutheran Reformation. There had been a time when 1;
all of Germany was in dire need and had received more interchurch i
aid and relief than any other country within the Lutheran World
Federation. But in 1952 there were two Germanys. Western Ger- PS
many had recovered sufficiently so that its National Committee had
:
d
informed the Lutheran World Federation that funds for church
reconstruction were no longer needed. But East Germany, with its
'
;
thirteen million Lutherans, was still in grave need of both physical
and spiritual aid,
At its first formal meeting in Copenhagen in 1953 the Commission
on World Service placed the needs of these churches high on its
list of priorities, and in each succeeding year they remained as the
largest single concern of the Department. Nor does there seem to
be much prospect that this situation will be altered. The atmos-
phere which is fostered by the schools and political organizations
in East Germany is fundamentally opposed to the Christian faith.
The church therefore is compelled to work against great odds, es-
pecially among the children and young people, as it seeks to foster

and sustain Christian life.
Together with their sister churches in West Germany and several
of the member churches of the World Council, Lutheran World
Service has touched practically every phase of church life in the
East Zone with its strengthening hand. Aid has been given toward
the rebuilding and repairing of churches and institutions; paper
has been supplied for the printing of theological and devotional
literature; the religious education program of the churches has
been supported; and through the welfare program of the Evangeli-
cal Hilfswerk the sick have been visited, the hungry fed, and the
naked clothed.
Essential as has been this many-faceted program in undergirding
the actual ministry of the churches, pastors and churchmen from
the East constantly emphasize the spiritual value of the prayers and
the gifts from Christian brethren in other lands. For those who are
daily contending with clear reminders of the reality of organized
enmity to the Kingdom of God, the knowledge that they are sus-
tained by millions of fellow-Christians all over the world means
even more than the gifts themselves,
Also included among the continuing tasks of Lutheran World
Service in interchurch aid are the minority Lutheran churches and
the scattered Lutherans living outside the boundaries of any or-
ganized church body. Such groups in Europe have long been as-
sisted by the German and Scandinavian Lutheran churches and by
such organizations as the Gustav Adolf Society and the Martin
Luther Bund. In the years following the war, however, when most
of these churches and societies were unable to extend their usual
help, the Lutheran World Federation stepped into the breach. Lu-
theran World Service has continued to include the requests of
these churches within its Statement of Needs, hoping that its en-
couragement, together with renewed assistance of their former
patrons, might move these minorities gradually in the direction of
self-support. Member churches of the Federation have also extend-
ed spiritual aid to these churches through gifts of books and liter-
ature, exchanges of persons, and occasional conferences for pastors
and leaders. Such a conference for representatives of all the minor-
ity Lutheran churches of Europe was sponsored by Lutheran World
Service in Semmering, Austria, in April, 1956, To this meeting
came not only representatives of the western churches, but also
from the Lutheran churches of Poland, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia,
and Rumania.
INVESTMENT IN THE KINGDOM

In accord with the policy of encouraging self-support among
the churches, Lutheran World Service has made increasing use of
loan funds in place of outright grants. The United States Commit-
tee first made use of this system for interchurch aid to Germany and
France in 1951-1952, having adopted the pattern of the overseas
passage loan program of LWF-SR, begun in 1948.
It was the intention of the United States Committee that these
funds should be repaid into a revolving fund which would then be
available for further loans. The administration of the German fund,
amounting to $679,416, was taken over by the German Committee
on Lutheran World Service in 1953 and up to May 1, 1957, $28,000
in new loans had been made from the repaid principal and interest.
Building projects of various kinds were financed; subsidies for
publications granted; and loans for needy students were provided
from these funds each year.
Loans totaling $86,000 were made to the three synods of the
Lutheran church of France, the largest being a $50,000 loan to
the Synod of Paris for the construction of three churches in 1952.
As these funds are repaid, they will also be available for additional
church extension work within France.
Following the flood disasters of 1953 in Holland, the 60,000-
member Lutheran church in that country approached the Lutheran
World Federation with a request for a loan fund to help restore
damaged structures and to build some badly-needed new churches,

parsonages, and parish houses. Of the first $30,000 grant made by
the Commission on World Service in 1954, $20,000 was used for
the printing of a new edition of the Dutch hymnbook. So quickly
was this money repaid that before an annual report could be pre-
pared, it had been lent once more, this time for the construction
of new buildings. With the assistance of similar grants the follow-
ing year the Dutch church undertook the construction of churches
in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, and several other important
communities, and in each instance has made significant contribu-
tions from its own resources.
At its meeting in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, in August, 1955, the
Commission received a request from the United Evangelical Lu-
theran Church of Australia for the establishment of a capital ex-
penditures fund. This small church, virtually overwhelmed by the
flood of Lutheran refugees into the country during the past ten
years, found itself in a position where it would have to curtail
home mission work simply because it could not provide housing
for the pastors in the new areas where work was required.
After a careful study of the request the Commission approved
the first allocation of $87,500 toward a fund of $225,000, half of
which was to be raised by the Australian church itself. A special
feature of this plan called for the appointment of a specialist in
home mission and stewardship work by Lutheran World Service
for one or two years, to assist the church in mapping in its home mis-
sion strategy and in raising its portion of the capital expenditures
fund. The Reverend David Fetter of Detroit, Michigan, a pastor
of the American Lutheran Church, began this new assignment on
May 1, 1957.
At the London meeting of the Commission in 1956 the Austrian
National Committee was invited to prepare plans for the operation
of a $20,000 loan fund for church building and repair, and the
Lutheran Council of Great Britain was likewise encouraged to lay
plans for the eventual establishment of such a capital expendi-
tures fund, It was clear from these actions of the Commission that
the period of emergency grants was past, even among the minority
nd
«
om
Lutheran churches. In harmony with the principles stated in its
charter, Lutheran World Service was serving the churches “in such
a way that they may be helped to become self-maintaining.”
THE QUICKENING SPIRIT

One of the great contributions of the Hannover Assembly to the
life of the member churches of the Lutheran World Federation
was its strong emphasis upon stewardship and evangelism. Ameri-
can delegates had introduced these ideas to their European col-
leagues at the Lund Assembly in 1947, and the Assembly had
appointed a subcommittee on stewardship and evangelism—com-
posed, however, entirely of Americans. The primary concern of the
churches at that time centered rather in the establishment of the
Federation itself and the overwhelming problems of physical recon-
struction and relief which faced them in Europe.
Gradually, however, as the emergency receded, pastors and
church leaders in Germany began to display a lively interest in
the virtually unknown churches and congregations in America
es
foee
which had responded so quickly and generously to their needs.
ee
Representatives of the United States Committee in Germany were
ann
frequently confronted with the question: “What kind of church
and congregational life made these gifts possible?”
The discussions at the Hannover Assembly and the report of
Section IV on Stewardship and Evangelism gave many of them
opportunity for insights into the motivations of the American
churches, Discussion continued after the Assembly in the new
Commission on Stewardship and Congregational Life, broadened
now to include a more varied membership.
One of the questions most frequently raised was whether the
concepts of congregational life operative in the free churches of
America were applicable to the European situation, where the
old principle of virtually universal, if frequently only nominal,
church membership existed. Only when it could be demonstrated
that stewardship and evangelism were sound scriptural principles
dealing with the expression of the Christian life, and not merely
external techniques developed in an American setting for stimu-

lating organized activity in the church, were Europeans ready to
take them seriously.
One of the first churchmen to initiate a study of stewardship
principles in his own church with a view to their practical appli-
cation was Bishop Hanns Lilje of Hannover, President of the Lu-
theran World Federation from 1952 to 1957. Immediately after the
Hannover Assembly he formed a committee of five members, in-
cluding Pastor Carl Mau, the Lutheran World Service representa-
tive in Hannover, to study the American application of stewardship,
to seek a theological basis for it, and to try to adapt it to German
church life.
Even before the Assembly, Pastor Mau had been called upon
frequently to lecture in German congregations and pastoral con-
ferences on American church life, and as he became more familiar
with the German church pattern, he was more and more frequently
called upon for help in making the practical application of steward-
ship in individual parish situations. Together with Pastor Herbert
bin
Reich, who was subsequently designated as the Stewardship Sec-
retary for the Hannover Church, Pastor Mau was instrumental in
stimulating stewardship work in northern Germany to such an
extent that other churches, both within Germany and elsewhere
in Europe, established similar patterns of operation and appointed
full-time men to carry on the work. In 1954 Lutheran World Ser-
vice was asked by the German National Committee to appoint a
second stewardship consultant to work in southern Germany, and
Pastor Theodore Hartig fulfilled three years of fruitful service in
that area. Since 1954 special emphasis has been placed upon visita-
tion evangelism by carefully instructed laymen, and more than
fifty congregations in the Church of Hannover alone have now
established such a program.
In practically every one of the provincial churches of Germany
at the present time, even in those behind the iron curtain, there
is an active program of stewardship and evangelism. From Ger-
many the movement has spread into Scandinavia, Austria, and
Italy. Dr. J. Igor Bella introduced it in the Lutheran churches of
Yugoslavia and France. Dr. David L. Ostergren, Lutheran World
Service Senior Representative in Great Britain and Holland, has
done much to encourage stewardship in the churches of those
countries, and together with Pastor Mau has given great assistance
to the Scandinavian churches in establishing programs of visita-
tion evangelism. As the result of several visits in Norway by Pastor
Conrad Thompson, Director of Evangelism in The Evangelical
Lutheran Church in the United States, great interest has been
stimulated among Norwegian pastors in the American pattern of
“Preaching-Teaching-Reaching” missions.
It is significant that this program of deepening the Christian life
and expression of the European churches through programs of
stewardship and evangelism should have been directly fostered by
the Department of World Service, as well as the Lutheran World
Federation Commission on Stewardship and Congregational Life.
This is clearly one of the new emphases in interchurch aid which
has grown out of relationships first established through the shar-
ing of materials and money.
LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER

Very closely related to this type of spiritual interchurch aid is
the new program inaugurated by Lutheran World Service for the
exchange of pastors and church workers. Ever since the end of
the war the exchange of persons has been used by governments,
churches, and private organizations as a most effective means for
the promotion of understanding and good will. Member churches
of the Lutheran World Federation have had permanent representa-
tion in several European countries and have regularly exchanged
visits by church leaders and pastors. Following the Hannover As-
sembly in 1952 the Lutheran churches of Germany made a special
effort to invite visitors into their congregations, and Bishop Meiser
declared such personal associations to be as important as the As-
sembly itself in achieving the mutual understanding so essential
to interchurch cooperation.
For several years the American and British Governments have
2
provided opportunities for German churchmen to visit their coun-

tries, and the National Lutheran Council has arranged itineraries
for many Lutherans who have visited the United States under
such study programs. Since 1949 the German Government has
extended similar courtesies to groups of visiting churchmen from
both countries.
Student exchanges of all kinds have flourished since the end of
the war. The program for theological students sponsored by the
World Council of Churches has mediated scholarship grants for
several hundred students from all parts of the world at leading
theological schools, both in America and Europe. Member churches
of the Lutheran World Federation have regularly supported this
program financially and with scholarship opportunities at their
own theological seminaries. In cooperation with the Department
of World Missions, the Department of Theology of the Federa-
tion maintains a separate exchange program for theological pro-
fessors and graduate students.
As the emergency aid program in Germany drew to a close,
several German church leaders urged the establishment of a con-
tinuing exchange program to safeguard the close relations which
had been fostered by the presence of personal representatives of
sister churches in their midst. On the basis of a formal proposal
from the German National Committee in 1955 the Commission
on World Service incorporated in its Statement of Needs a fund
of $15,000 with which to begin such a program. Designed mainly
for younger pastors and church workers, it sought to emphasize
practical training in such areas as stewardship and evangelism,
youth and student work, religious journalism, church music, and
pastoral counseling.
Each national committee was asked to nominate candidates for
three- and four-month assignments, and also to inform the Depart-
ment of World Service of available exchange opportunities within
its country. Selections have been made by the Department’s super-
visory committee, During the first year of operation seventeen ex-
changes were approved, and with an increased allocation of funds
the numbers grew in 1956-1957.
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.
———————
.
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This type of interchurch aid is one of the most promising con-
oo.
tributions to the understanding and mutual trust upon which coop-
©
erative work is based, At the heart of the exchange program is
ote
ae
the conviction that every church has something to give and some-
thing to receive, and that a closer acquaintance with living rep-
,
>
resentatives of those churches brings mutual enrichment. In the
eo
coming years this phase of Lutheran World Service may be ex-
dda
}
pected to develop into a major departmental operation.
NEW VIEWPOINTS IN LATIN AMERICA

The responsibilities laid upon the Lutheran World Federation
and its member churches by the Lund Assembly for the care of
refugees and Displaced Persons have been discharged throughout
the past decade in a variety of ways, ranging from the support of
a ministry in the DP camps of Germany to the resettlement and
spiritual care of thousands of families in new homes all over the
world. When refugees have come into a country where vigorous
Lutheran churches already existed, these churches have opened
their doors to receive them and have served them as far as their
resources have permitted. More difficult has been the problem
where Lutherans have been a scattered minority.
As early as 1948 the United States Committee and the Lutheran
World Federation Service to Refugees faced this problem in South
America, and to cope with it undertook a special program which
has since developed into a significant “home missionary” venture,
Lutheran work in Latin America is by no means a new develop-
ment. Since before the turn of the century European and Ameri-
can Lutherans have sponsored missions, congregations, and syn-
ods whose total membership was well over half a million before
World War II. Immediately after the war the American Section
of the Lutheran World Convention sent a number of envoys to
South America to ascertain the needs of Lutherans, and followed
these visits with several small interchurch aid grants to the Lu-
theran church in Brazil.
It was through its Service to Refugees program, however, that
the Lutheran World Federation became directly involved in South

America. Convinced that the responsibilities of the Lutheran
World Federation Service to Refugees extended far beyond the
mechanics of resettlement, Dr. Stewart Herman, newly-appointed
Executive Secretary, visited South America in 1949 to make provi-
sion for a spiritual and social ministry to Lutheran World Federa-
tion-sponsored immigrants. If LWF-SR was to carry out its man-
date properly, it would have to follow these DP’s into their new
homes, and wherever possible, assist them in establishing contact
with a Lutheran church, To assist in this task Dr, Herman ap-
pointed LWF-SR representatives in eight South American coun-
tries.
In 1951 the National Lutheran Council organized a new Divi-
sion of Lutheran Cooperation in Latin America and prepared
to seek closer contact with the many scattered phases of Lutheran
activity there. Dr. Paul Empie, Acting Executive Secretary of the
new division, was asked to confer with Lutheran leaders in Brazil
and suggest that they call an all-Latin American Lutheran con-
ference in September at Curitiba, Brazil. On the proposed agenda
were such topics of general concern as the coming Assembly of
the Lutheran World Federation, the need of Lutheran interchurch
aid in South America, the care of Lutheran refugees arriving
in South America, the practice of Christian stewardship and
evangelism, and a possible cooperative Lutheran witness in the
Spanish and Portuguese languages. To this conference, the first
of its kind in South America, came representatives of the Lu-
theran churches in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Germany, and
the United States. Dr. Herman and Dr. Michelfelder from Geneva
brought to the conference the global perspective of the Lutheran
World Federation. For the first time in their history the 750,000
Lutherans of South America felt a sense of their own strength and
of their close spiritual ties with a world family of faith. In addi-
tion to creating a closer relationship between Lutherans of three
continents, the Curitiba Conference also laid historic groundwork
for a future ministry of the Lutheran church in the Spanish lan-
guage.
ae
The attention of the Conference was also called to the scat-
adel
2
tered Lutheran groups of German, Scandinavian, Baltic, and Hun-
»
garian background in many parts of South America who should
ee
J
be brought into direct contact with the organized church. Regard-
ing this as an especially appropriate area for the services of the
Lutheran World Federation, the United States Committee peti-
tioned the Federation at Hannover to undertake an Area Program
of Spiritual Service to Diaspora Lutherans, while the National Lu-
theran Council concentrated its attention upon the development
of a ministry in the Spanish language. The result was the organi-
zation, a few months later in Hannover, of the Lutheran World
Federation Committee on Latin America, with special responsi-
bility for ministry among European Lutheran Diaspora groups in
Latin America. Dr. Stewart Herman, who in the meanwhile had
completed four years as Director of LWF-SR and had accepted
the position of Executive Secretary of the Division of Latin Ameri-
can Cooperation of the National Lutheran Council, was also asked
to serve as Executive Secretary of the Federation’s Latin American
Committee.
Since 1952 the Committee has been developing a pattern of
multi-lingual congregations throughout South America, wherever
there has appeared to be a sufficient concentration of Lutherans.
Pastors from Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, and the United States have taken part in this
vigorous home mission venture of the Lutheran World Federation,
drawing together people divided in language but united in their
profession of faith.
One of the most unique ventures in modern home missions has
been undertaken in the Lutheran Congregation of the Resurrec-
tion in Caracas, Venezuela. After a survey in 1951 indicated that
there were 8,000 unattached Lutherans of widely varied back-
ground in Caracas, it was decided to organize a single parish,
with a ministry in the Latvian, German, Hungarian, and Estonian
languages and a youth program in Spanish. The National Lutheran
Council provided funds for the leasing of an old school building
to be converted into a chapel, and in July, 1951, at Geneva, the
Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Federation consented

to have this work done under the sponsorship of the Federation.
By September, 1952, three pastors were on the field, and in Oc-
tober 425 persons braved a torrential rain and crowded into the
chapel to adopt a constitution providing for three congregational
“chapters”: German, Hungarian, and Latvian.
An elementary school with fifteen teachers and 150 pupils, vir-
tually self-supporting from the outset, was started in connection
with the church, A little more than a year after the congregation
was organized, it had 1,100 members, and after its second year the
membership had risen to 1,684. In 1954 the congregation added a
Scandinavian chapter and voted to buy land and launch a construc-
tion program of $300,000. The Lutheran World Federation con-
tributed a $20,000 grant and a loan of $80,000, but the congrega-
tion raised the balance. On September 4, 1955, the first service
was conducted in the new, gleaming white sanctuary, and two
years later the entire plant was dedicated, including church, parish
house, and two parsonages. During the year of construction 48
children were confirmed and 49 baptized.
Other projects, only slightly less spectacular, have been devel-
opened in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. In almost every instance
the congregations have grown rapidly and have steadily increased
the extent of their self-support. As the growing congregations have
needed church buildings, parsonages, and schools, the Lutheran
World Federation has made grants and partial loans totaling
$280,720. Four-fifths of this amount will be repaid into revolving
loan funds to be used again in the same countries.
Reporting to the Committee on Latin America in 1955, Dr. Her-
man expressed his conviction that the work of the past three years
had been built on solid foundations. At the second Latin Ameri-
can Lutheran Conference in Petropolis, Brazil, in 1954, a new spirit
of common purpose was clearly evident. A Lutheran Theological
Seminary was being built at Buenos Aires to serve all of Latin
America. With the arrival of a Lutheran pastor in Ecuador, every
South American republic had at least one Lutheran congregation.
In only a few years the whole of Latin American Lutheranism
had been strengthened by its closer contacts with the Lutheran
World Federation.
What Dr. Herman said concerning the future of the church in
Latin America might also be applied to the entire program of
Lutheran World Service. “It would be foolish to assert that the
greatest victories have been won, Indeed, they still lie ahead.”
That future, however, he pointed out, lies completely in the hand
of God. “But it would be presumptuous on our part to tempt God
a
by not redoubling our efforts to proclaim the gospel of Jesus
-
~
Christ throughout the world” with every means at our disposal,
-
both through the spoken word and acts of faith and love.
—
EMERGENCY IN HUNGARY
In the midst of its long-range planning and its new emphases
in interchurch aid, Lutheran World Service was grimly reminded
that the refugee is still the great problem of this generation. Into
Austria, through a suddenly-opened breach in the iron curtain,
streamed thousands of people in the wake of a revolution which
exploded in October, 1956, against the Communist government of
Hungary. Relief agencies of all kinds, both governmental and
private, hastened to the immediate assistance of these refugees
and even found ways to send relief supplies into Hungary itself.
In charge of Lutheran operations in this emergency was a Swedish
SS
pastor and former member of the World Council staff in Geneva, the
Reverend Bengt Hoffman, who had become Director of Lutheran
World Service in July, 1956, when Mr. Reuben Baetz resigned to
accept a position with the Canadian Red Cross. For the thou-
sands of refugees huddled in Austrian camps, shelter, sustenance,
and medical care came first, and then the process of registra-
tion and emigration to practically every country in the Western
World. In all of these efforts Lutheran World Service played a
significant role, forgetting neither its responsibility to alleviate
human need wherever it existed, nor its mandate to minister to
the spiritual wants of the Lutheran household of faith. Trucks of
the Austrian Hilfswerk, carrying supplies made available by Lu-

theran World Service and accompanied by members of its staff,
moved across the frontier within hours after the borders were
opened. Important contacts were made in Budapest with Lutheran
Bishop Lajos Ordass, who had been exonerated by the Govern-
ment shortly before the outbreak of the revolution, and would
very shortly thereafter be reinstated in his office.
A far more demanding task was the ministry to the refugees who
had flocked into Austria and who continued to filter through the
border for several weeks until a total of 150,000 had escaped. In
order to make their part of the total relief operations as efficient
as possible, the World Council, Lutheran World Service, and the
Brethren Service Committee divided responsibility geographically,
but each maintained a central office in Vienna and cooperated
closely with the Austrian Evangelical Hilfswerk.
The response from the member churches of both the Lutheran
World Federation and the World Council was overwhelming. Scan-
dinavian church relief agencies collected a total of $534,000, part
of which they placed at the disposal of Lutheran World Service
for the purchase of a building in Vienna as an immigration center
for refugees being processed by the Austrian Hilfswerk and the
Lutheran World Federation. Scandinavian gifts also paid the sal-
aries of two mobile teams under the auspices of Lutheran World
Service, aiding in the distribution of food and clothing among the
refugees in Austria.
In a moving demonstration of Christian solidarity the churches
of the entire East Zone in Germany contributed their Christmas
offerings for the relief of the church in Hungary. The Evangelical
Hilfswerk reported in March, 1957, that cash contributions of
almost $375,000 had been made by all German churches for Hun-
garian relief, and that well over one million pounds of contributed
goods, valued at $900,000, had been received, largely for the care
of Hungarian refugees in Austria. Sixteen German deacons and
deaconesses had offered their services to the Austrian church to
help meet the emergency, while the Hilfswerk and the Inner Mis-
sion in West Germany were ministering to approximately 2,000
Protestant refugees among the total of 15,000 admitted by the
German Government.
In March, 1957, Lutheran World Service reported that it had
received a total of $400,000 in cash and $800,000 in contributed
goods for Hungarian relief from twelve member churches since
November. Part of these gifts was designated for refugee relief
in Austria and part was placed in a special reserve fund for the
Lutheran Church of Hungary. In addition to the Scandinavian
countries, Germany, and the United States, gifts were received
from Lutherans in Finland, Canada, Australia, Holland, Japan,
Luxembourg, Ireland, Venezuela, Argentina, and Ecuador.
Beyond this material support, Lutheran World Service was also
able to mediate spiritual aid to many refugees, and when the gov-
ernments of the Western World practically suspended their immi-
gration laws to admit Hungarian refugees, Lutheran World Service
expanded its resettlement staff and worked feverishly to assist with
the cursory examination and documentation of Lutheran candidates
for emigration. Agencies of member churches in the countries of
reception likewise extended their facilities to the limit to serve
the five per cent among the total who were likely to be Lutherans.
As Lutheran World Service faced its first major anniversary in
1957, five years after its creation at Hannover, there seemed to
be no question that its ministry had become a permanent part of
the work of the Lutheran World Federation. During the “century
of the refugee” physical needs among the churches would not be
eradicated, nor would emergencies ever be far from the surface.
But the Hungarian crisis had demonstrated that the churches were
far more sensitive to need, far better organized to respond, and,
happily, more able to give than ever before.
But beyond physical emergencies, Lutheran World Service had
discovered new areas of need which touched the inner life of all
the churches. These needs could also be met more effectively
because the churches had begun to sense their mutual interdepend-

ence. At Eisenach in 1923 Dr. John A. Morehead had told his
colleagues of the Lutheran World Convention in simple terms,
“We want to help one another.” A quarter of a century later,
through the blessing of a gracious God, the Lutheran churches of
the world had achieved the experience, the understanding, and the
organization necessary to bring this goal within their reach.
=
Acknowledgments and .
Bibliographical Notes
One of the characteristics of new organizations and movements

is that they are more concerned with making history than with
writing it. Thus far this has been true of the Lutheran World Fed-
eration, which in this year of its Third World Assembly looks back
upon ten brief but turbulent years of history making. The original
suggestion for this volume came from Dr. Henry Whiting, who
in 1955 was Director of the Department of World Service in Ge-
neva, Switzerland, and who felt keenly the importance of prepar-
ing an account of these intense and dramatic postwar years before
too much time had elapsed.
Written at the request of the Lutheran World Federation, this
volume is simply the preface to a comprehensive history of the
entire movement for Lutheran world unity which must be under-
taken at some future time. Source materials have not been easily
accessible, since the archives of the Lutheran World Federation in
Geneva have not yet been catalogued. The extensive correspond-
ence of Dr. Michelfelder and his colleagues in many lands, and
the voluminous reports which have been collected by LWF,
form the richest repository of information on the entire develop-
ment of the Federation. These archives are being regularly supple-
mented by the records of LWF offices in all parts of the world,
213
which are slowly gravitating toward Geneva. Files of the World

Council of Churches, located on the same campus in Geneva, con-
tain additional valuable material, especially for the earliest years,
1945 to 1952.
The library of the National Lutheran Council in New York has
also begun to assemble and organize the reports and correspond-
ence of the American Section of the Lutheran World Convention
which, together with the scattered files of the Central European and
Scandinavian Sections, will form the basis for a complete account
of Lutheran world cooperation in the decade following World
War I.
In New York the files of the United States Committee of the
Lutheran World Federation and the Minutes, Proceedings and
Annual Reports of the National Lutheran Council from its begin-
ning in 1918 to 1957 contain reports on the entire program of world
service from the American standpoint. Complete files of Lutheran
World Action brochures, the Lutheran World Action Bulletin, the
National Lutheran, and the news releases of the National Lu-
theran Council News Service contain large amounts of factual
data,
On the program of Service to Refugees, Dr. Howard Hong has
assembled a valuable documentary and pictorial account of the
Spiritual Ministry to the Exile Churches in Germany from 1947-
1949. Dr. Stewart Herman's series of staff news letters contains a
graphic account of the growth of LWF-SR into a world-wide or-
ganization between 1948 and 1952. Mr. Reuben Baetz’s report, en-
titled Service to Refugees, published for the Assembly in 1952, is
based upon these letters.
For the program of World Service since 1952, the Proceedings
of the Hannover Assembly and the Agendas, Minutes, and State-
ments of Needs of the Commission on World Service are basic
documents.
In many instances, summaries and reports are available through
church periodicals and from national committees and other church-
related agencies in individual countries. The Swedish National
Acknowledgments and Bibliographical Notes 215
Committee of the LWF publishes a quarterly called Lutherhjéilpen,
which gives valuable summaries of that committee’s work. The
reports of Kirkens N¢dhjelp in Norway since 1947 are available in
mimeographed form. In addition to its annual reports and a great
amount of pamphlet material, the Evangelical Hilfswerk in Ger-
many has published helpful three-year, five-year, and ten-year
reports. Since its organization in 1952, the German Committee
on World Service has complete reports on its aid program in mime-
ographed form.
The headquarters of the Lutheran World Federation, the Na-
tional Lutheran Council, the German Committee on Lutheran
World Service, the Evangelical Hilfswerk in Germany, Kirkens
N¢dhjelp in Oslo, Canadian Lutheran World Relief, and the United
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia have been extremely
helpful in making documentary materials available.
Many individuals have given generously of their time to recall
events and programs in which they themselves played an active
role. For helpful comments on the manuscript Dr. Paul Empie, the
Reverend Bengt Hoffman, Dr. Stewart Herman, Dr. Lawrence M.
Stavig, Mr. Bernard Confer, and Dr. Howard Hong merit special
thanks. Illustrations have been graciously furnished by the Lu-
theran World Federation Department of Information in Geneva,
by the promotional offices of the National Lutheran Council in
New York, by the Lutheran Herald, and by Dr. Howard Hong.
Effective cooperation on the typewriter was given by Irene Henckel,
Gordon Iseminger, and Alma Roisum. My wife, June Nelson Sol-
berg, provided indispensable encouragement, a helpfully critical
ear at the first readings of the draft copy, and long hours of detailed
work in preparing the index.
; ‘
Index
Aasgaard, J. A., 40, 105 Evangelical re Aid, 171

All-Lutheran Food Appeal (ALFA), “Neusiedler” (building cooperative)
67-69 172
Allgemeine Lutherische Konferenz, 9, LWS loan fund, 200
13 Stewardship and evangelism, 202
American Council of Voluntary Agen- See also Evangelical Hilfswerk, Aus-
.
i
cies, 37, 58 tria
American Relief Administration, 11 by
Anderson, Mr. and Mrs. James, 144 Bachmann, E. Theodore, 185 ¥
’
Arab Refugees, Aid to, 73, 84-86, 196 Baetz, Reuben, 155, 159-160, 187-188,
Argentina, 71, 150, 206, 211 194, 209 :
Augusta Victoria Hospital, Jordan, 84, Barstow, W. Robbins, 34 b
85, 86, 196 Bartning, Otto, 113
F)
a
;
Auranen, Ahti, 109-110, 171, 188 Bella, J. Igor, 103, 107, 110, 132, 188, tf
;i
Australia: 202
Material aid to Europe, 70 I!
Bergerav, Bishop Eivind, 50, 105, 106
2
Immigration schemes, 146
Berkefeld, George, 159
———_
Lutheran Church: help for orphan
missions, 89 Bersell, P. O., 25, 39, 41, 91, 98, 102,
National Committee LWF, 96 183
Resettlement of refugees, 156-158 Bodensieck House, 168
Travel Loans for refugees, 157 Bodensieck, Julius, 49, 103, 127
Chaplaincy service for refugees, 157- Bodensieck, Mrs. Justine, 49, 62, 138
158 Boe, Lars W., i, 16, 22, 90
Loans from LWF, 200 Bonnevie-Svendsen, Conrad, 106
Aid to Hungarian refugees, 211 Boury, Henri, 21
Austria:
Bowles, Chester, 66
Material aid, 67, 68, 80
Brazil, 150, 206, 208
DP’s in, 136, 171
Refugees, 170-173, 209-211 Brethren Service Committee, 210
Lutheran Church, 125-128 Brown, Frank, 59, 62-63
Austrian National Committee LWF, Bulgaria, 130
126, 200 Bursche, Julius, 2, 6, 130
217
218 Index
CLAIR, 175-176 Survey of needs after World War

Canada: II, 44-45
Immigration schemes, 146 Lutheran Church: aid to pastors,
Lutheran Church: Canadian Nation- 100, 123, 180, 131-138, 199
al Committee LWF, 101
Help for orphaned missions, 89 Dahlgriin, Erich, 125
Canadian Lutheran Council, 96 Dahlin, Clifford, 65
Resettlement program, 158-160 Denmark:
Travel loans fe refugees, 159 Relief efforts, 18, 70
Aid to refugees, 211 Aid to orphaned missions, 89
Canadian Christian Council for Reset- Aid to Hungarian refugees, 162
tlement of Refugees (CCCRR), 158- Danish National Committee LWF,
159 192
Canadian Lutheran World Relief Deutschlander, John, 62
(CLWR): Dibelius, Bishop Otto, 64
Organization, 69 Dietrich, Gerhard, 149, 166
Relief shipments, 69 Dietrich, Martin, 103, 112
Caracas, Lutherans in, 207 Displaced Persons (DP): 136
Cederberg, Daniel, 48, 70, 96, 98 Spiritual ministry to, 187
Chile, 70, 150, 206 Swedish aid to residual cases, 160-
Christian X, King of Denmark, 19 161
Christian Rural Overseas Program Relations with German Church, 162-
(CROP), 65-67 167, 191
See also All-Lutheran Food Appeal DP Act (U.S.), 147-148
Christiansen, Christian, 85, 188 American DP program, 150-154
Church World Service, 65, 79, 145, See also Refugee Relief Act
195
Clay, Gen. Lucius, 37 East Germany:
Claypool, James, 83 Aid from West German Churches,
Cobrda, Bishop (Czecho-Slovakia), 132 29, 78, 122, 191
Cockburn, J. Hutchinson, 25, 26, 43, Theological libraries, 120
98 Catechetical program, 116-117, 122
Colombia, 208 Refugees, 167-168
en
Confer, Bernard A., 63, 189 LWS aid, 190, 197, 198
Confessing Church (Germany), 28 Aid to Hungarian Church, 210
Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Ecuador, 208, 211
Operate in Germany (CRALOG): Ehrenstrom, Nils, 42
me
Organized, 38 Eidem, Bishop Erling, 40, 45, 46, 51

2
American Lutheran representatives, Eisenhower, Dwight D., 35

49-50, 58-63 Empie, Paul: 90, 95, 102, 178
Licensed, 58
Presents LWS plans at Hannover,
181-183, 184, 185, 206
Channel for relief supplies, 58-63 England, 160, 173-175
Cox, Cordelia, 150, 154 See also Great Britain
Cullberg, Bishop John, 97 Engstrom, Sigurd, 103
Curitiba Conference (Brazil), 206-207 Espelkamp, 169
Czecho-Slovakia: Estonia: 135
Relief shipments, 38, 81 Refugees in Sweden, 48
a
.
ey
A
ee
Index 919
ee
rene
a
In Australia, 157 Fetter, David, 200
sath
In England, 178 Finland:
a
Lutheran Church in Exile, 189, 160- Lutheran Church, relief shipments
et
161 to, 38
et wee
Evangelical Academies (Germany), be- Aid from Sweden, 70, 88, 98
ginnings at Bad Boll, 118-119 Million dollar grant to, 105, 108-111
ee
ow
ocial Academy, Friedewald, 119 Contributes to LWF, 111
Evangelical Church in Germany Finnish National Committee LWF,
(EKID): 198
Formation at Treysa (1945), 29, 32, Aid to Hungary, 211
99 Fjellbu, Arne, 188
National Reconstruction Committee, Ford Foundation, 172, 176, 194
32 Forell, Birger, 169
Committee for Eastern Churches Formosa, 67, 68, 196
(Ostkirchenausschuss), 81 France:
DP Committee, 163-164 Church aid to Russia, 18
Relationships with DP’s, 162-167 Relief shipments to, 67, 68
Service to expellees, 167-170 Refugees, 136
Social Housing, 169-170 Lutheran Church, 80, 123-124, 175
Evangelical Hilfswerk (Austria), 80, French National Committee LWF,
171, 172, 195, 210 124
Evangelical Hilfswerk (Germany) Loan fund, 199
Plans for, 28 Stewardship and evangelism, 203
Formation at Treysa, 29 Frazier, Vernon, 174
First report of activities, 29-30 Fricke, Otto, 170
Channel for distribution, 30, 36, 59, Friedewald, 119
68, 72, 195 Fritz, Alvin, 171
CROP distribution, 66 Fry, Franklin Clark, 36, 37, 40, 57
Receives world-wide help, 69-70
Self-Help program, 74-79, 120-121 German-African Aid Committee
Distributes through Inner Mission, (DAHA), 72, 77
75, 76, 77, 78-79 Germany:
Care and feeding of children, 77 Relief efforts after World War I, 7
Student help, 78 Orphaned missions, 89
Package help to East Germany, 78 Destruction of churches, 99
U. S. surplus commodities, 78-79 Million dollar grant to Lutheran
Swedish aid to, 98 churches, 112-113
Administers loans, 113-114 Refugees (1945), 186
Financial aid to exile churches, 144, Residual DP’s, 162
191 See also Evangelical Church in Ger-
Counselling service for emigration, many, Evangelical Hilfswerk (Ger-
149, 155, 191 many), East Germany
Social welfare, 166, 198 Gerstenmaier, Eugen, 28, 29, 74
se
Spiritual and social ministry to refu- Graetz, David, 191

gees, 168 Grasmo, Andreas, 72
eh hers)
Hungarian relief, 210-211 Great Britain:

Lutheran Council of, 173-175
Fandrey, G. A., 1-3, 4 See also England
aes
re
-
See
2
920 Index
Greever, Walton H., 6 India, 66, 67, 68, 83, 196

Griinbergs, Archbishop Teodor, 139 Inner European Mission (Sweden), 71
Gueutal, Franck, 175 Inner Mission (Austria), 126
Inner Mission (Germany):
Hamilton, Countess Lily, 71 Origin and Scope of work, 117
Hareide, Bjarne, 108 Distribution of relief after World
Hartig, Theodore, 202 War I, 7
Hauge, Henrik, 108, 184 Church “free table” system, 17
Hedenquist, Géte, 96, 98 After World War II, 61, 75, 77,
Heikkinen, Jacob, 103, 109 117-118
Herman, Stewart: 26, 27, 31, 33 U. S. surplus commodities, 78-79
LWF-SR, 147, 148, 150, 163-164, War losses, 99
176, 186, 189 Aid to DP’s, 168, 165, 166, 211
Latin America, 206, 207, 209 Insula:
Herntrich, Bishop Volkmar, 184 Study Center, 141
Herzer, T. O. F., 158 Home for aged DP’s, 142
Hayne, Bodo, 66 Intergovernmental Committee for Eu-
Hilfswerk, see Evangelical Hilfswerk ropean Migration (CEM), 148, 155,
(Germany), or Evangelical Hilfswerk 157, 194
(Austria) International Missionary Council, 89
Hoffman, Bengt, 209 International Refugee Organization
Holland: (IRO), 136, 137, 138, 144-145, 146,
Material aid to, 38, 58 148, 161, 162, 165, 167, 194
Flood relief to, 80 Ireland, 160, 211
Lutheran Church, 123 Italy:
Food parcels to Germany, 140 Relief shipments to, 67, 68, 73, 80
Aid from Germany, 190-191 Refugees, 136
Loan fund, 199-200, 203 Lutheran Church, 123, 124-125, 202
Relief to Hungary, 211 Interchurch aid, 80, 191
Hong, Howard, 137, 138, 189, 143-
144, 146-147, 148, 150 Jacobs, C. M., 9
Hong Kong, 73, 83-84, 160, 181, 191, Japan, 68, 82, 211
196 Johansson, Harry, 97, 184
Hothorpe Hall, 174 Jordan, see Arab Refugees
Hun : Jorgenson, A. Theodore, 16
Re ‘et efforts after World War I, 7
Relief efforts after World War I, Karle, Friedrich, 71
70, 80-81, 172, 173, 209-211 Kastlund, Pastor A, 192
Lutheran Church, 123, 180, 133- Kieffer, Lynn, 6
134, 199
Kirsch, Luther, 58
Lutheran Church in Exile, 1389
Refugees and refugee aid, 155-156, K6épp, Archbishop, 139, 160
162, 195, 209-212 Korea:
Material relief, 67, 68, 69, 70
Ihmels, Bishop Ludwig, 14, 16, 46 Refugees, 135
Imbshausen: Krumbholz, Clarence E., 57
Study Center, 141, 142
DP Cickerenes: 163-164; 165 arker: Lauritz, 8-9, 12, 13
Index 221
Latin America, Lutheran work in, 205- “Little World Assembly,” Paris
209 21
Latvia: Projected Philadelphia Assembly
Refugees, 135 (1940), 23
In Australia, 157 Executive Committee at Uppsala
In England, 173 (1946), 45-47
Lutheran Church in Exile, 189 Becomes Lutheran World Federa-
Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia tion at Lund, 54
(LARA), 82 American Section LWC, 25, 31, 40,
Lilje, Bishop Hanns, 22, 88, 120, 202 99, 120, 125-126, 1388, 170
Lindberg, Paul, 150 Becomes U. S. Committee LWF,
Lithuania, Lutheran Church in Exile, 100, 205
139 Danish Section, 70
Long, Ralph: 25, $2, 39, 40, 41 Swedish Section, 49, 133
Keynote address at Lund, 51, 57, Relief to European churches, 70, 96-
90-91; 98 97, 99, 126, 127
Death, 101-103 Becomes Swedish National Com-
Lund, Henrietta, 171 mittee LWF, 101
Lund-Quist, Carl E., 180, 187 See also Lutheran World Federation
Lundgren, Bishop, 16 Lutheran World Federation:
ee
Lutheran Book Depository, 89 Reason for formation, ii
Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod: Name first suggested, 5-6
Cooperates in ALFA appeal, 67 LWC is named LWF, 46
Aid to Germany, 76 Lund Assembly (1947), 50-53, 56,
Cooperates in prisoner-of-war work, FQ. AIS
89 On refugees, 137, 145-146, 148, 167,
oe
Theological conferences, Bad Boll, 182, 205 (see also Service to Ref-
115 ugees)
Lutheran Refugee Service, 154 Hannover Assembly (1952), 54-55,
Canadian resettlement, 159 180
Lutheran Council of Great Britain, Constitution, 100
173 Formation of Department of World
Lutheran Foreign Missions Confer- Service, 108, 177-178 (see also
ence, 18, 196 Lutheran World Service)
Lutheran Refugee Service, 155 Committee on Latin America, 207,
Lutheran World Action: 40, 55, 68 208
Promotion, 63-65, 92-95 Commission on Stewardship and
Prisoner-of-war-service, 88-89, 90 Congregational Life, 201
Ten Million Dollar Appeal, 91-92, Department of World Missions, 204
93, 101, 102, 105, 109 Department of Theology, 204
Total contributions (1940-56), 93-94, National Committees:
151
Formation of, 100-101
Lutheran World Convention:
Australian National Committee, 191
Reason for formation, ii
First formal suggestion of, 5-6 Austrian National Committee, 126
Eisenach Assembly (1923), 14-17, Canadian National Committee, 191
51 Danish National Committee, 192
Copenhagen Assembly (1929), 18-19 Finnish National Committee, 192
222 Index
French National Committee, 124 Stewardship and evangelism, 201-

German National Committee, 80, 203
112, 129, 189, 202, 204 Exchange program, 203-205
Distribution Committee, 112, 114, Hungarian relief, 204-211, 211-212
120 Lutheran World Relief:
Committee for LWS, 112, 114, 122, Organized (1945), 38, 57-58, 49, 59-
189-191, 199 60, 62, 63-65
Norwegian National Committee, 191 CROP, 65-67
Swedish National Committee, 71, ALFA, 67
144, 19] U.S. surplus commodities, 67, 68-69
U.S. Committee, 101-105, 111, 1138, Shipping Costs reimbursed by U. S.
114, 117, 118, 119, 121, 140, 144, and U. N., 67-68
147, 175, 193 German Federal Republic provides
Yugoslavian National Committee, shipment assistance, 68
128 17-year total (1940-56), 69, 94
Service to Refugees: established at Hungarian relief, 195
Lund, 53, 138 Luxembourg, 211
In Austria, 80, 127, 170-173
Spiritual ministry, 138-142, 150, Marahrens, Bishop August, 21, 40
164-165 Martin Luther Bund, 9, 198
Resettlement program, 145-150 Mau, Carl, 68, 202-208
Revolving loan fund, 146-147, 148, Meiser, Bishop Hans, 46, 112, 115,
156, 194 122, 208
In England, 174, 205, 205-206 Meyer, Lawrence, 25, 41, 102
Becomes part of World Service, Meyer, Inspector (Paris Synod), 124
186-187 Meyer, Theophilus, 10, 15
Lutheran World Service: Michelfelder, Sylvester Clarence: ii
In 1927, 18 . Called to Europe, 24-26, 91
Russian relief after World War I, 18 First activities in Europe, 27, 30-32,
Formation of Department, 103, 177- 82-36
178, 181-184 Organizes Division of Material Aid
Commission on World Service, 184- WCC), 38-39, 98
186 Strengthening ecumenical ties, 40-
Begins operation, 186-189 43, 111
Cooperation with World Missions, Gathers staff, 48-44, 49-50
82, 195-197 Surveys Eastern and Central Eu-
In Hong Kong, 83 rope, 44-45
Aid to Arab refugees in Jordan, 84- Executive Secretary of LWF, 46-47,
87 58, 60, 100, 102, 105, 134, 185,
Aid to refugees in Austria, 172 187, 188, 146, 175
Aid to England, 174 Death, 178-180
Plans for Hannover, 180, 181, 187
Loans to churches, 199-201
Memorial gift, 190, 206
Ecumenical relations, 193
Moll, Edwin,- 85, 86
Relations with intergovernmental Monk, Clifton, 159
agencies, 193, 198-199 Morehead, John A., 1-3, 4-5, 6, 7-8,
Coordinates relief shipments, 194- 10-13, 14, 17, 17-18, 18-21, 21-22,
195 94, 46, 177, 212
Index 293
Morgenthau Plan, 27, 57 Paderewski, Ignace, 3

Mott, John R., 44 Pannkoke, O. H., 3-4, 6
Mueller, Eberhard, 118 Pavuls, Laimons, 191
Mueller, Manfred, 118 Pechmann, Baron von, 16
Muetzelfeldt, Bruno, 156 Peru, 208
Petropolis, Brazil, Latin American Lu-
Nagengast, Karl, 189-191 theran Conference, 208
Nansen, Office for Refugees, 20 Poland:
National Catholic Rural Life Confer- Early relief efforts in, 2-3, 6-7
ence, 65 After World War II, 48
National Lutheran Council: i, 8, 9, From Sweden, 70, 80
18-14, 17, 18, 19, 40, 57, 68, 90, Polish Lutheran Church, 3
145 In England, 178
Lutheran Resettlement Service, 150- Aid to Russia, 18, 123, 130-131, 199
154, 172 Potsdam Agreement, 33, 36, 57
Division of Lutheran World Fed-
eration Affairs, 189 Reich, Herbert, 202
Commission on Younger Churches Ries, Eugene, 191
and Orphaned Missions, 196 Riter, Frank M., 2
Division of Lutheran Cooperation Rogers, Earl, 62
in Latin America, 206, 207 Rumania, Lutheran Church, 123, 130,
Nelson, Clifford Ansgar, 44-45, 48-49, 199
100, 103, 125, 180, 182 Russia:
Nielsen, Ove R., 67 Lutheran relief efforts, 7, 10-14, 15,
Niemoeller, Martin, 29 18, 20
Nopitsch, Antonie, 118 Lutheran Church, 10, 18
Norem, Owen J. C., 59, 62 Society of the Godless, 20
Norway: Harbin refugees, 20-21
Lutheran Church, aid from Sweden, Rygh, G. T., 4
70, 98
Orphaned missions, 89 Sanjek, Louis, 81, 89, 128, 145
Million dollar gift, 105-108 Scandiaheim, 168
Aid to refugees, 161-162, 169, 171 Schaffnit, Carl, 38, 59, 62, 65
See also Norwegian Aid Committees Scherzer, John, 50, 59, 60-62, 67, 103,
Norwegian Aid Committees: 104, 107, 121, 187, 197
Europahjelpen, 72, 161 Schmidt, John, 186
Kirkens Ngdhjelp, 72-74, 108, 161, Schneller, Johann and Theodor, 84
192. Schoenfeld, Hans, 42
Nygren, Bishop Anders, 53, 179 Schroeder, Ferdinand, 149
Schuh, Henry J., 184
Olssen, Hilding, 144 Schulze, Johannes, 189
Ordass, Bishop Lajos: at Lund, 52, 81, Senft, Kenneth, 144
130, 133-134, 210 Service to Refugees, see Lutheran
Ostergren, David-L., 178, 174, 188, World Federation, Service to Ref-
203 ugees
Otto, Frederick, 191 Shanghai, 181
Osusky, Bishop (Czecho-Slovakia), 132 Shaffer, Rollin, 94
Oxnam, Bishop G. Bromley, 36 Sherrill, Bishop Henry Knox, 36
224 Index
Smemo, Bishop (Norway), 108 Thompson, Conrad, 203
Smith, Charles J., 2 Trieste, 67, 68, 80
Sdderblom, Bishop Nathan, 14-15, 16, Truman, Harry, 37
41, 50
Solberg, Richard W., 188, 191 United Nations: 27, 58, 67, 83, 85, 86
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Commission U. N. Relief and Rehabilitation
(1918), 2 Agency (UNRRA), 26, 27, 56-57
Sommerlath, Ernst, 46 U. N. High Commissioner for Ref-
Sovik, Gertrude, 178 ugees, 167, 194
Steinhoff, Pastor (India), 196 United States Escapee Program, 194
Stewardship and Evangelism, 201-203
Stolee, M. J., 2-3 Venezuela, 211
Stub, H. G., 14 Visser t Hooft, W. A., 25, 26, 42, 98
Stumpf, Karl Ludwig, 83-84, 188
Sweden, 48-49, 70-72, 89, 95-97, 98, War Relief Control Board, 58
126, 127 Whiting, Henry, 159, 160, 184, 185-
See also Swedish Aid Committees, 186, 186-189, 192, 198, 194
LWC, Swedish Section; or LWF, Wichern, Johann Hinrich, 77, 117, 149
——_—
Swedish National Committee Williams, Clayton, 26

Swedish Aid Committees: Wood, Ralph, 171
—_——
Gustav Adolf Society, 71, 97, 198 World Council of Churches:

Hjilp at Aldriga Flyktingar, 161 Provisional Committee (1938), 25,
Hjalpkommitten for Tysklands Barn, 26, 28
71 Reconstruction Department, 25, 31,
Inner European Mission, 71 34, 38-39, 41, 91, 98, 99, 119-120
Kommitten fér Efterkriegshjalp, 71 Division of Material Aid, 89, 47, 99,
ae
Sec
Kommitten fér Kristen Efterkriegs- 132

hjalp, 71 Swedish participation, 98, 99, 100
Svenska Kyrkohjalpen, 97, 169 Relations with LWF, 41-43
Svenska Europahjilpen, 70-71, 97 Wurm, Bishop Theophil, 29, 30, 31,
Swedish Natibnal Committee LWF, 74-75, 114-115
71, 191-192
Till Bréders Hjalp, 70, 96-97, 98, 99 Yeager, Carl, 62
West Coast Fish Collection, 71 Ylvisaker, N. M., 62
Syria, 85, 86 Youngert, Sven, 1-3, 4
Syrian Orphanage, Jerusalem, 84 Yugoslavia:
Szeruda, Bishop (Poland), 48, 98 Lutheran Church, relief shipments
to, 88, 68, 81-82, 123, 128-129
Taiwan, see Formosa National Committee LWF, 128
Telleen, S. Frederick, 57
Thielecke, Helmut, 118 Zimmermann, Walter, 122
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As Between Brothers

AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE

Manufactured in the United States by Augsburg Publishing House

Dr. Solberg has rendered an invaluable service to historic re-

of these motivations, but he also gives a vivid account of those

A few months after the outbreak of World War II representa-

people, in whatever country they might be. Far beyond considera-

in Rumania and in Hungary; German Lutherans collected money

1947 at Lund, Sweden, an even stronger and closer family group

than that of Eisenach twenty-four years earlier.

Chapter I: REHEARSAL FOR UNITY PAGE

Chapter II: A MAN SENT FROM GOD

Chapter Ili: THE GOSPEL OF THE INASMUCH

Chapter IV: REBUILDING THE WALLS OF ZION

Chapter V: NOT STRANGERS, BUT FELLOW-CITIZENS

Organizing for Resettlemiant:.....s225 0 cacesnssenwrenwen seamen 145

Chapter VI: WE WANT TO HELP ONE ANOTHER

Acknowledgments and Bibliographical Notes................. 213

No GN Ice NK S SN a OSS DORON Ge MR 216

On the 11th of November, 1918, the guns of World War I were

able to secure passports, but in this interim the Council had

REPORT FROM EUROPE

bearing the name of the present family of world Lutheranism. The

AID FOR THE CHURCH'S EASTERN FRONT

also asked Dr. Morehead to accept the office of permanent chair-

evangelization.” “The future of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

THOUGHTS ON LUTHERAN UNITY

tablished with so many Lutherans “has necessarily awakened and

developed in our minds the thought of world Lutheranism and the

earnest desire for the establishment of closer relationships between

tionate influence in the world, and urged that in the presence of

theran church ought to lead the way. He disclaimed any ulterior

RELIEF FOR RUSSIA

Not until he himself collapsed physically under the severe strain

WORLD LUTHERANISM AT EISENACH

Convention was expressed by the Swedish Archbishop Séderblom.

MOREHEAD AND LUTHERAN WORLD

tion under Dr. Morehead’s guidance. Part of this decline in Ameri-

FROM COPENHAGEN TO PARIS

Members of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Convention, at Gothenburg,

Bishop Anders Nygren of

the Lutheran World Federation,

tion continued to support the assistance program of Lutheran

the committee in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, President Lars W.

forced or frightened into joint resistance. A wave of inhumanity

When Dr. Sylvester Clarence Michelfelder boarded the troop-

ford and Edinburgh in 1937, had come the decision to form a

European combat back to their home shores, were Dr. Stewart

BREAD FIRST—CATECHISMS LATER

Under these circumstances it was clear, as one observer put it,

REOPENING THE ROAD TO GERMANY

controlled by the so-called German Christians who had com-

ting up of the Hilfswerk of the Evangelical Church in Germany

of the new German federation, a corresponding Hilfswerk was

Your Lutheran brethren in America realize how the devastations and

A Man Sent From God 31

Dr. Michelfelder went on to express the hope that he might

in deceitful leaders he exhorted to repentance, acknowledging at

The Bishop himself responded immediately to Michelfelder’s

struction Department of the World Council of Churches. Singled