Paul Schneider (pastor)

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Paul Robert Schneider (August 29, 1897 – July 18, 1939) was a German pastor in the Evangelical Church who became the first Protestant minister martyred by the Nazis. He died in the Buchenwald concentration camp from a lethal injection.

He was born in Pferdsfeld near Bad Sobernheim, Germany, to Gustav-Adolf Schneider and Elisabeth Schnorr. He studied theology at the universities of Giessen, Marburg, and Tübingen and was ordained in 1925 near Wetzlar.

At the funeral of a Hitler Youth boy, a Nazi official claimed the deceased would join Horst Wessel’s “heavenly storm.” Schneider said he did not know about such a storm, but blessed the boy and asked God to receive him. The Nazi leader repeated his words, and Schneider replied that he would not let God’s word be adulterated during a Christian ceremony. He was arrested for one week in June 1934.

In prison, he refused to salute the swastika flag, saying, “I cannot salute this criminal symbol.” He also refused the Hitler salute, stating that salvation comes from the Lord, not from a human being.

On Easter Sunday, from his cell window, he shouted to the other prisoners that people were being tortured and murdered and that the Lord is the resurrection and the life; his speech was interrupted by guards.

After June 1938, the only reason for his imprisonment in Buchenwald was his refusal to leave his congregations in Dickenschied and Womrath. He could have been released if he had agreed, but he refused, even under torture.