Despite Probation: Last Respects to Paul Schneider

When Pastor Mörike started his new job as the pastor in Weissach-Flacht in July of 1939, he was well aware that he was under constant surveillance by the Gestapo, above all after his sentencing by the Special Court to ten months of prison with three years of probation in November of 1939. His probation did not end until November of 1942.

Nevertheless, Mörike attended the funeral of Paul Schneider, who had been murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp, as the representative of the Regional Council of Brethren of Württemberg’s Evangelical Confessional Fellowship on July 21, 1939. Two hundred vested Confessing Church pastors from all over Germany followed the Protestant martyr’s coffin through the village.