Hans Grimm has a great life story being a faithful Christian living through Nazi Germany. He is a member of Christ’s Church for which he recorded church history from 350 AD to the 1950s. His brief biography is presented below and attests to the great example that he is.

“Hans Godwin Grimm, Kanalgasse 28, Biel (Switzerland), was born at Sablon-lez-Metz, Lorraine, son of the late Gustaf Grim, last bishop of the church of Christ in Alsatia. He was married July 9, 1948, to Ilse Hildegard Kohler of Leipzig, Germany.

His publications include Djinnistan (Lorch, 1918); Islamische Mystik (Dusseldorf, 1919); Sturmvolk (Leoben, 1920); Ludendorff (Hamburg, 1921); Die junge Republik (Konigsberg, 1924); Der ostpreussische Bauernkrieg (Konigsberg, 1925); Das Raesel des Chassidismus (Bin., 1931); Anglo-Israel und die verlorenen Staemme (Bin., 1932); and Der Weg der Gemeinden Christi (Mannheim, 1958).

He was baptized as a scion of one of the oldest Christian families in Central Europe at the age of 17 in the Hanau pond in Alsatia. He attended college in Strassburg, and started preaching while inscribed in the universities of Koningsberg, Hamburg and Riga. Lic. Comparative Religion Science and doing research work for a history of the churches of Christ in Central Europe.

In 1933 he was placed in a Nazi concentration camp in Germany for illegal preaching in Anhalt, Germany. His first library and manuscript were confiscated in 1934, and his second library and manuscript were bombed out in 1944 in Leipzig. In 1946-48 he served as professor in the Teachers’ College in Leipzig. In October 1948, he was arrested by the Communists for illegal preaching, serving a four-year term in the Red prisons of Leipzig, Waldheim and Graefentonna. He escaped to Berlin in December 1952, and from 1953 to 1955 was a lecturer of the Evangelical Academy in Kassel.

At his first contact with the brethern from the United States (Roy Palmer and Otis Gatewood), Herr Grimm was recognized as a member of the churches of Christ. He served congregations at Kaiserslautern and Mannheim, Germany, and since May 1963, at Biel, Switzerland, under the supervision of the elders of Trinity Heights Church of Christ in Dallas.”

Not only is Dr. Hans Grimm’s life an encouragement as is recorded in more detail in the history of the “Tradition and History of the Early Churches of Christ in Central Europe”, but his work is also an encouragement. He also presented the persecution of the churches of Christ in Nazi Germany. This history that he recorded has been long ignored by Christians. The life that he lived gives him validity presented in his integrity, and his work is excellent in presenting the facts. He deserves that his history be recognized, read, and known by those of the churches of Jesus Christ and throughout all records concerning the Church. This history is published by the Firm Foundation and presented on the internet. Click here to read the history.