Following the Voice of God: Herman and Lydia Lauster
The Nazi Party was so thoroughly organized, having spies left and right, that my better judgment told me that my religious activities would sooner or later be called into question. Herman Lauster
Herman Lauster was imprisoned at Welzheim for preaching the gospel in Germany in defiance of Nazi opposition.
The Church of God arrived in Germany in 1936 in the hearts of Herman and Lydia Lauster. It was a dangerous time as political events propelled the world toward war.
Desiring material wealth and enticed by posters advertising the need for farmers, Herman and Lydia had immigrated to the United States from their homeland in Germany ten years earlier. With toil and struggle they had successfully made a comfortable life for themselves in Grasonville, Maryland. But along the way they had encountered Jesus Christ and learned to follow His voice–even when that voice led them along paths they had not planned to travel.
As the Lausters prayed at home one evening, Lydia prophesied, “You shall carry my name into all the world.” The same words were repeated to Herman in a vision the following evening. Believing missions ministry to be the will of God for their lives, Herman made a brief visit to Columbia, South America.
The Lausters not only learned to hear the Lord’s voice, but also to commit their all to Him. When one of their heifers suffered a broken horn and was bleeding to death, Lydia prayed that if God would spare the cow, they would give it to the Lord. That cow was later sold and the money used to build the Church of God in Grasonville.
In 1936 Brother Lauster heard the Lord tell him to return to Germany, and the Church of God agreed to send him with a salary of $45 a month. To his surprise, he found that many Germans, including some of his relatives, were under the influence of the Nazi Party. Despite the Gestapo’s forbidding him to preach, he began to hold home meetings.
Two miracles confirmed the hand of the Lord as the Lausters worked to establish the Church of God in Germany. Herman’s brother-in-law, Hans Klement, supported Nazism and opposed the Pentecostal message. But when Hans became so ill that the doctors could do nothing for him, Herman prayed, and Hans was healed. Now full of fervor himself, Brother Klement became a church leader. When Mrs. Otto Sonder heard of Brother Klement’s healing, she opened her home for prayer meetings, requested prayer for herself, and was healed.
These activities did not go unnoticed by the Gestapo, however. Brother Lauster was routinely questioned by the secret police, worship services were interrupted, worshippers were threatened, and mail was censored. Then on August 22, 1938, Herman Lauster was arrested and imprisoned in Welzheim Prison, where prisoners were often starved, brutalized and made to toil under horrible conditions.
Although he was imprisoned for preaching the gospel, Brother Lauster’s work and character gave him favor in the eyes of the prison staff. The Church of God declared a day of prayer and fasting, and Brother Lauster was released from prison on March 16, 1939– eleven days after the church-wide day of prayer and fasting. Despite his experience and the constant dangers, Herman Lauster continued to follow the voice of his Lord and preach the good news of Jesus Christ.
This article was written by Church of God Historian David G. Roebuck, Ph.D., who is director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Lee University. This “Church of God Chronicles” was first published in the February 2004 Church of God Evangel.
