Mission at Nuremberg (54 page)

Defendants General Alfred Jodl (left), Hans Frank (center), and Alfred Rosenberg (right) in court, circa 1946. Jodl and Rosenberg largely rejected Gerecke's offer of spiritual counsel. Frank was Hitler's personal lawyer, and eventually governor general of Poland, where an estimated three million Jews were killed during the war. O'Connor baptized Frank during the trial, bringing him back into the church.

Office of the United States Chief of Counsel, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Baldur von Schirach (pictured in the Palace of Justice speaking to his attorney) led the Hitler Youth movement and was later a Nazi leader in Vienna.

Office of the United States Chief of Counsel, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Albert Speer (shown here in Courtroom 600) was Hitler's architect and designed many of the Nazi Party's grand edifices in Nuremberg. Speer and Schirach both asked Gerecke to work with them toward receiving Holy Communion while they were on trial.

Office of the United States Chief of Counsel, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Gerecke was close to General Wilhelm Keitel, seated here in the Courtroom 600 dock. The former chief of staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, he was one of Hitler's preeminent yes-men. Fritz Sauckel, shown here consulting with Keitel, was Hitler's labor chief and Gerecke's first convert back to the Lutheran faith at Nuremberg.

Office of the United States Chief of Counsel, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library.

As the prisoners began to accept Gerecke during the trial's initial weeks, many slowly agreed to attend his services on Sundays. Gerecke and O'Connor used a small chapel fashioned by knocking down a wall between two cells. A former lieutenant colonel of the SS was the organist. In this photo, Gerecke poses for an army promotional shot.

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

In June 1946, a rumor circulated among the defendants that Alma Gerecke had called her husband home to St. Louis. All twenty-one defendants signed a letter to Alma asking her to let Gerecke stay until the end of the trial.

From the collection of Concordia Historical Institute.

Permission of Henry H. Gerecke.

Gerecke and O'Connor also ministered to the defendants' families throughout the trial. Gerecke was especially close to Goering's wife, Emmy, and daughter, Edda, whom he visited in the countryside and sent care packages to after the war. Goering signed the back of this photo of his family for Gerecke.

Permission of Henry H. Gerecke.

When the trial ended, Gerecke returned to St. Louis. He hadn't seen Alma—pictured here with Gerecke at a welcome-home party in his honor—or his youngest son, Roy, in three years. He was soon assigned to the Fifth Army's disciplinary barracks in Milwaukee, where he ministered to the U.S. Army's troubled souls.

Permission of Henry H. Gerecke.

In 1950, Gerecke, pictured here celebrating with a beer, was discharged and moved with Alma to Chester, Illinois, to be the assistant pastor of St. John Lutheran Church. But for Gerecke, Chester's real draw was the Menard penitentiary, a maximum-security facility housing 2,500 murderers and rapists, the state's worst criminals. He became the chaplain at Menard and at a hospital for the criminally insane.

Permission of Henry H. Gerecke.

After the trial, O'Connor returned to Siena College, where he taught philosophy, gardened, and played the horses at the nearby Saratoga Race Course. He never wrote about his year in Nuremberg, and rarely spoke of it, even to friends. Here he is in front of a blackboard in a Siena classroom.

Permission of Siena College Archives, Loudonville, New York.