“The Preacher of Buchenwald”


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Paul Schneider remained in solitary confinement, in the so-called “Bunker”, in Buchenwald concentration camp for over one year, from spring of 1938 to summer of 1939, and was severely mistreated by the sadistic guard Martin Sommer.


He nonetheless pulled himself up on the bars time and again in order to preach the Gospel and to denounce torture and murder to the prisoners assembled on the assembly grounds until he was forced to fall silent under the brutal strokes of the guard’s truncheon. Even Jewish and Communist prisoners admired his courage. He became the “Preacher of Buchenwald”.


Since Schneider strictly refused to obey the expulsion order from his parish and to remain silent about his experiences in the concentration camp, the Nazis no longer considered releasing him. Instead, they will willing to make a martyr out of Schneider’s and murdered him premeditatedly in the infirmary by injecting him with an overdose of the heart medicine strophanthin on July 18, 1939.


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