# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S969
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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386 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

claim affiliation in some form or another with the Lutheran,
Church. Since our Missouri Synod could not claim to speak for
all Lutherans in America, and because the Government is dis-
inclined to deal with individual Lutheran groups, it became ex-
pedient to form a Lutheran Commission for Prisoners of War
~~ made up of three members of the
Lutheran.Commission National Lutheran Council and three
for Prisoners of War members of the Missouri Synod. For
the past year this commission has
been functioning smoothly. There never has been occasion for
a violation of the doctrinal principles which bind the conscience
of the Missouri Synod members of this commission. Our mem-
bers on this committee are Dr. Paul FE. Kretzmann, chairman;
Rev. Paul Dannenfeldt, chairman of the Army and Navy Com-
mission; Rev. L. Meyer, executive director of the Emergency
Planning Council; and Dr. J. W. Behnken, ex officio, who has at-
tended every meeting. ;

The primary function of this commission has been to render
spiritual services to the more than 150,000 prisoners of war scat-
tered throughout more than 75 P.O. W. camps in various parts of
the United States. This service has been rendered by means of
literature, a special hymnal, the regular German edition of our .
devotional booklets series, and Der Lutheraner.

At the present time there are 29 civilian pastors of our
Synod and 5 of the N.L.C. in charge of spiritual work in
33 camps. In addition there are 19 of our U.S. Army chaplains
and 17 belonging to the N.L.C. serving in 36 prison camps.
Thus the Lutheran Church is at work in 69 P.O. W. camps.

Of an Easter service Rev. Theo. Brackmann of Puyallup,
Wash., writes:

“At six P.M. I started the services among the German pris-
oners of war, having driven twenty miles to camp. My fatigue
of the Easter work earlier in the day vanished when an audience

of about 100 German men appeared. The
Does It Pay? men had even decorated the chapel, plac-

ing soft ferns and trilliums on the altar,
mostly in tin cans. In this service I was to administer the Lord’s.
Supper for the first time among these men. I never preached to
a more attentive audience anywhere, and. that same attention
characterizes every service.”

When Chaplain John Kaiser, who had been serving a pris-