Bruno Groening

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Bruno Gröning (born May 30, 1906 in Oliva , Danziger Höhe district as Bruno Grönkowski; † January 26, 1959 in Paris ) held numerous spiritual healing lectures in West Germany in the 1950s and was regarded by his followers as a faith healer . He claimed to pass on a “healing stream” sent by God to the sick.

In his lectures, Gröning called for the “Great Reversal”, which represents the turning away from science and turning to faith, especially in the medical context. Gröning came into conflict with the Heilpraktikergesetz several times and was convicted of negligent homicide in this context .

The groups referring to Gröning are judged by church representatives as a sect .

Life

Bruno Gröning was born in Oliva in the Danziger Höhe district . He came from a humble background; his parents were described as "devout Catholic". After five years of elementary school, he began several training courses that he did not finish. He then worked as a construction worker, carpenter and carpenter, among other things.

Groening was married twice; the first marriage resulted in two children who died early. After his release from Soviet captivity, he lived in West Germany, where he soon began to work as a “healer”.

Gröning died of stomach cancer in Paris in 1959 . After the cremation, his urn was buried in a cemetery in Dillenburg, Hesse .

Public appearance

In the years after the Second World War , a number of people said they were healed by Groening. After a press report about an alleged success in March 1949, thousands of people seeking healing flocked to Herford , Westphalia, to see the "healer".

Gröning always referred to - as he called it - the Heilstrom , the "divine power flowing through him". He himself understood his unmistakable goiter as "swelling due to this very force". Those affected (mostly women, many older people) sought healing through personal contact with Gröning, through participation in his mass meetings, but also through the use of an object sent by Gröning (mostly a ball made of tinfoil , see below). The presence at a previously announced location, to which Gröning directed targeted “healing waves” from a distance, or simply the patient's mental concentration on Gröning were said to have helpful effects by his followers.

The Gröningkugeln , egg-sized balls made of tinfoil , which were distributed or sold at meetings, were temporarily traded on the black market in Munich. According to a statement by Gröning's temporary manager Otto Meckelburg, they contained Gröning's hair, drops of blood or toenails; According to another source, Groening had "discussed" them.

A large following, who saw Gröning as a miracle healer, formed from 1949. In the investigation files of the Bavarian state government, Gröning's case reports on healings or improvements in chronic pain such as neuralgia and asthma can be found.

On the other hand, damage to health was alleged, namely in a patient who had discontinued her insulin trusting Gröning .

In 1949 the city administration of Herford , and shortly afterwards the North Rhine-Westphalian state government, banned Gröning from its activities. He then moved to the Bavarian Traberhof stud farm near Rosenheim and later to Mittenwald , where he was initially allowed to go. Up to 15,000 people visited the Traberhof. The Munich-based magazine Revue published at this time a sensationalized reportage series, which the support was allowed to rise to nearly 400,000 pieces a week of 100,000.

Gröning expressly refused to be paid for his work, but still received substantial donations. According to a media report, several helpers occasionally opened the daily incoming mail. From 1950 at the latest, Gröning's presence had to be paid for. In June 1950 it was recorded in a police protocol that those seeking healing had to pay between 25 and 2500 DM per person to the Association for Research on Gröning's Healing Methods; at two mass events, up to 300 D-Marks were charged per participant. A journalist reported in 1950 about short group meetings with Gröning and up to 100 participants who paid ten D-Mark admission. The whereabouts of the money is unknown. Gröning and his then business partners later accused each other of a dissolute lifestyle; they have "celebrated real orgies" (Meckelburg). By 1950, without regular bookkeeping, more than DM 100,000 had been earned. Groening always claimed that he did not know anything about it.

Judicial proceedings

As a result of his work, Gröning came into conflict with the Heilpraktikergesetz several times , as he did not have a corresponding license (he never saw himself as a naturopath). At the first trial in 1951/52 he was acquitted of the charge of culpably violating the Heilpraktikergesetz, but he was denied further work as a healer. Groening then applied for approval as a naturopath, which was rejected on August 12, 1953 "because of lack of suitability".

Gröning then switched to "lecture tours" through Bavarian and southern German places and invoked the freedom of religion guaranteed in Article 4 of the Basic Law : His lectures were not "treatment" within the meaning of the Heilpraktikergesetz. In fact, according to the announcement text, “healing waves” were sent to the auditorium and images, balls and tinfoil plates were distributed or sold. The organizers were mostly established alternative practitioners or newly founded local communities.

In 1955, Groening was again charged with violating the Heilpraktikergesetz; He was also charged with the negligent homicide of a 17-year-old girl with lung disease in 1949. The first instance sentenced him to a fine of DM 2,000 for violating the Heilpraktikergesetz, but acquitted him of the accusation of negligent homicide. In January 1958, the Munich District Court II sentenced him in a second instance for violating the Heilpraktikergesetz and for negligent homicide to a total penalty of eight months on probation and a fine of 5,000 DM.

In a lecture on August 30, 1958, Groening described that he felt misunderstood, that he never treated illnesses and never advised against consulting a doctor. Rather, the verdict turned out to be in his disadvantage, so that he would be prevented from spreading the truth that only people could move themselves "to their salvation".

A judgment was no longer pronounced on the appeal lodged by Gröning because he had died in Paris that morning on the day it was announced.

Communities around Gröning

  • In 1953 Gröning founded the "Gröning Association", from which he distanced himself after a few years.
  • In 1958 he then founded the Association for the Promotion of Spiritual, Spiritual and Natural Basis of Life in Germany. V. This association still exists today.
  • The Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends split off from this association in 1979 and is registered in Germany as the “Circle for Natural Help in Life”. The founder was Grete Häusler (1922–2007), Gröning's employee since 1950, who ran the association until her death.
  • The “Information Circle: Life and Teaching of Bruno Gröning e. V. "from. According to the information group, the reason for the separation was the decision of the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends to delete all passages from Gröning's lectures in which he spoke about Christ and committed himself to Christ and his teachings in order to make it easier for Muslims to gain access to Gröning’s teachings. The "information circle" rejects the personality cult around Gröning resolutely.
  • Other independent Groening communities that do not belong to any of the above organizations were founded in Denmark, Austria, Spain and Australia in addition to Germany.

Criticism of Gröning and Gröning groups

Gröning's demeanor and the groups referring to him, which established themselves after his death, are classified as esoteric by church representatives and judged as a sect .

The Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauung questions of the EKD sees the disease treatment of the Gröning movement as "dangerous misleading" that could be life-threatening.

“Critics chalk up the sect that medical arguments are not relevant for the so-called 'group of doctors of the circle of friends', which in individual cases could endanger life and limb of the sick person. Gröning supporters say that the patient wages his struggle for health on a purely spiritual level. [...] The critics of the sect are also concerned about the constant admonitions that negative attitudes, criticism and doubts, even contact with people who think differently, are harmful to the healing process. In practice, this often leads to dangerous isolation of the sick and destroys entire families. "

- Axel Vogel : The healing ray works beyond death. in: Bonner General-Anzeiger . June 25, 2005.

literature

per Gröning :

against Gröning :

Movies

Web links
Information and evaluation from the church side

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Plagge:  Gröning, Bruno. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 736-739.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  2. ↑ The big reversal , bruno-groening.org, accessed on October 23, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b Evangelical information center of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zurich: Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends , last change 1998.
  4. ↑ a b c d Thomas Busse: Bruno Gröning. Life and teaching. Govinda Verlag, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-906347-82-0 .
  5. ↑ The "Bruno Groening Circle of Friends" , Diocese of Trier, last edited January 19, 2017, accessed on January 28, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Ingrid Geupel: Bruno Gröning - the phenomenon of a miracle healer. Dissertation Medical Faculty of the Technical University of Munich, 1988.
  7. ↑ a b Filmed interview with Gröning on the court process
  8. ↑ a b c d Obituary - Bruno Gröning . In: Der Spiegel . tape  6 , February 4, 1959, p. 61 ( spiegel.de ).
  9. ↑ Give me a horse , Der Spiegel 40/1949, September 29, 1949, p. 7 ( PDF ); accessed November 15, 2019.
  10. ↑ I smell Nazis: Anny Winter also knows something , Der Spiegel , September 15, 1949.
  11. ^ WDR Panorama ( Memento from December 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) about Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Hannes Obermaier: The strange consultation hour of the alternative practitioner Enderlin. Abendzeitung München, Oct. 1950, facsimile at Geupel 1988.
  13. ^ Regional Court Munich II, judgment of July 8, 1952, Az. 2 Ns 324 ab / 52, State Archives Munich, files of the public prosecutor's office 3178
  14. ↑ Groening's reply on November 4, 1953 to an advertisement from Hameln; Interrogation of Gröning at the Bavarian State Police in Grafrath on April 23, 1954, Munich State Archives, public prosecutor's files 3178a; Letter from Groening to the government of Upper Bavaria dated September 27, 1954, State Archives Munich, bay. State m. Volume III, 1954.
  15. ↑ indictment of the public prosecutor to Schöffengericht München-Land of 4 March 1955 Docket 7 Js 214 af / 55, State Archive Munich, acts of prosecutor 3178a
  16. ↑ Schöffengericht München-Land, judgment of July 30–1. August 1957, Az. 2 Ms 42/57, State Archives Munich, files of the public prosecutor's office 3178a
  17. ↑ Regional Court Munich II, judgment from 14. – 16. January 1958, Az. 7 Ns 498/57, State Archives Munich, files of the public prosecutor's office 3178a
  18. ↑

    "[...] what I am going to say right now that I do not advise [you] to go further to your doctor, but, as you are used to, to list all your complaints to this doctor so that he can then go on to treat this.

    I myself am very different from a doctor, from an alternative practitioner. In short, I have nothing to do with what you call illness. I also do not treat the disease as doctors or alternative practitioners treat it, because I see from the start that this is fundamentally wrong. Treating the Evil: This treatment, as far as I know, promotes it. And so I leave aside what you call illness.

    What do I treat, what do I want?
    One can understand a great deal by this word 'treatment'; and how often has this word 'treatment' been held up against me by the judiciary to such an extent that one believes that with this one word 'treatment' I had already violated the Heilpraktikergesetz and thus made it punishable.

    [...]

    Basically, I have been largely misunderstood on your part, as well as how you put yourself in the belief that you must describe the disease to me, otherwise you could not be cured. Otherwise it would not be possible for you to be able to believe in health at all. You, like the gentlemen of science, as well as the gentlemen of justice and medicine, well know that what was dictated to me does not apply - what was done to me. Only one thing has been recognized here: There is a certain risk here, through Gröning, that people will not learn the truth, that it is they themselves who can move towards their own salvation. "

    - Bruno Gröning : tape lecture, Vienna, August 30, 1958, audio recording on YouTube from 1m21s .
  19. ↑ of proceedings by the Bavarian Supreme Court February 18, 1959 -Az. 4 St 168/58, State Archives Munich, files of the public prosecutor's office 3178a
  20. ↑ New ways and counter-forces - businessmen around Gröning ( Memento from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ), bruno-groening.org
  21. ^ Separation from the Gröning-Bund , bruno-groening.org, accessed on November 17, 2019
  22. ↑ Verein-bruno-groening.de
  23. ↑ How did the association "Information Circle: Life and Teaching of Bruno Groening" come about? ( Memento of October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Answer to last question, bruno-groening.net.
  24. ↑ Why do we keep talking about a personality cult in relation to Bruno Gröning? ( Memento of October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Answer to first question, bruno-groening.net.
  25. ↑ Bruno Gröning - Circle of Friends, A Problematic Healing Movement , Diocese of Augsburg, Episcopal Pastoral Office: Department for Religious and Weltanschauung, Weltanschauung 3/2000, November 2000
  26. ↑ Tagesanzeiger Zurich of October 18, 2003, page 14, Xenix in a clinch with a sect
  27. ↑ Michael Utsch: Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends , Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauung questions, December 2015.
  28. ↑ Axel Vogel: The healing ray works beyond death. In: Bonner General-Anzeiger . June 25, 2005, p. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Groening, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grönkowski, Bruno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German faith healer
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Oliva , Danziger Höhe district
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1959
Place of death Paris