7 : Helping to make peace with Germany, 1946
During the Second World War many captured German soldiers and airmen were imprisoned in POW camps in Huntingdonshire.
One such prisoner of war was Kurt Schroeder, a Lutheran minister from Westphalia, imprisoned at the POW camp in Warboys. On 27th October 1946 Warboys parish priest Rev Nelson Trafford and Pastor Kurt Schroeder gave a united church service.
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Kurt Schroeder (stepping down from the pulpit) and the congregation inside Warboys parish church [Huntingdonshire Archives: PH91/30/2] |
Schoeder was the first German to preach in an English church since World War Two, and so this unique service helped break the barriers set up by six years of bitter fighting.
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The service register entry for the event [Huntingdonshire Archives: HP91/1/7] |
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German prisoners of war leaving the church [Huntingdonshire Archives: HP91/30/1] |
The German and English ministers shared in preaching, prayer and fellowship together. Each minister preached a translation of the other's sermon to his own countrymen: an English message to the Germans and a German message to the English.