Paul Leo
Pastor with Jewish Roots in Flight from Nazism
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2024
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Publisher's Description
Although baptized as a child and serving faithfully as a pastor and theologian in the German Evangelische Kirche, Paul Leo was persecuted, removed from his church position, and imprisoned by the Nazi regime due to his Jewish ancestry. Leo was a descendent of Moses Mendelssohn, the famous Jewish philosopher, and Fanny Hensel nee Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the composer and pianist. The book carefully documents how the Nazis took severe measures against Leo, a Christian minister, because of his Jewish lineage. This eventuated in his incarceration in Buchenwald concentration camp before he was able to flee Germany as an exile to the United States. His escape from Germany was mediated through a refugee camp in the Netherlands and emigration to the US through the sponsorship of his colleague and friend Otto Piper, on the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary. The story of Paul Leo in America includes his teaching at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, pastorates in southern Texas, and professorship at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. This book highlights the teaching and scholarly publications by Leo and his marriage to the accomplished artist Eva (Dittrich) Leo.
Endorsements (5)
““Jews, how this regime put pressure on the church to comply with their insane persecution of everybody remotely Jewish, and how Leo found a second home in Dubuque, Iowa, as a professor at Wartburg Theological Seminary. This most welcome book is meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated. The authors did an excellent job to render this book into English, and it deserves many readers.”
“Craig Nessan and Carsten Linden’s book about my father brings him to life, weaving his theology into the flow of his remarkable life. Born in the twilight years of the Victorian era into a thoroughly assimilated, educated, solidly middle-class home, he survived Buchenwald to create a whole new life in the United States as a country pastor and a professor of theology. His faith and optimism shine through the text.”
“This work brings to life the dramatic story of Paul Leo, a Lutheran pastor who because of his Jewish heritage was forced to flee Nazi Germany. As a pastor and seminary teacher in the United States, he had lasting influence. In this carefully researched and fascinating book, the reader will see above all the thoughtful, faithful Christian. As a pastor and teacher, Leo focused not on his own suffering but on fulfilling his call to ministry.”
“Today, perhaps even more than ever, the Holocaust’s unquenchable mandate, ‘Never again,’ cries out to be heeded. Even those with ears to hear still often ask, ‘How could such evil have taken over such an enlightened, scientific, and historically Christian nation?’ Condensing Paul Leo’s precarious sojourn, Craig Nessan and Carsten Linden narrate at the granular level the ‘how’s’ of these mid-twentieth-century atrocities as well as the struggles of refugees from trauma and terror back then, with truths as pertinent as ever.”
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