• Introduction
• Thich Quang Duc
• Norman Morrison
• Ryszard Siwiec
• Vasyl Makuch
• Sándor Bauer
• Josef Hlavatý
• Jan Zajíc
• Evžen Plocek
• Elijahu Rips
• Romas Kalanta
• Oskar Brüsewitz
• Musa Mamut
• Mohamed Bouazizi
• Rigzin Phüncchog

Oskar Brüsewitz

* 30 May 1929, Vilkyškiai

† 22 August 1976, Halle

“A radiogram for everyone, a radiogram for everyone, the church in the GDR accuses communism of oppressing children and the youth at school.”

Oskar Brüsewitz, 18 August 1976

On 18 August 1976, Oskar Brüsewitz, an evangelical pastor, poured petrol over himself and lit himself on fire to protest against the oppression of Christians in the GDR and against the collaboration of prominent officials in the church with the state authoritites.

On 18 August 1976, Oskar Brüsewitz, an evangelical pastor, poured petrol over himself and lit himself on fire to protest against the oppression of Christians in the GDR and against the collaboration of prominent officials in the church with the state authoritites.  

Oskar Brüsewitz was born on 30 May 1929 to a Lithuanian ecumenical family. His childhood, as well as those of his three siblings, was influenced by the Christian environment surrounding them; Oskar was particularly inspired by his father’s evangelical faith. He received his basic education between 1935 and 1943 and then continued to be trained as a merchant. When he was sixteen, however, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and spent the rest of the war fighting the Red Army in Warsaw, Lithuania, and East Prussia as a panzerfaust operator. In the autumn of 1945, he returned from war captivity, received training as a shoemaker in Osnabrück, and two years later, settled in West Germany with his family. In 1949, he opened his own business as a children’s shoemaker. In 1951, he got a divorce, and three years later, moved to East Germany> where he remarried in 1955. Later he lived in Weiβensee, Thuringia.  It was then that he discovered his profound interest in theology; however health problems forced him to end his studies at the Lutheran seminary in Wittenberg after just a few weeks.

In 1963, his small shoemaker business was turned into a cooperative enterprise, where he briefly worked as a department manager. A year later, he began studying at the Erfurt Lutheran seminary, successfully graduating in 1969. He started off as a second pastor in the small town of Droβdorf-Rippicha in the Zeitz region. He became the town’s pastor in late 1970 and remained in the position until August 1976. Brüsewitz organized radical events against the forced atheisation of society and worked systematically and innovatively with the youth. This irritated the Stasi, who had followed him since the 1950s and labelled him as “a militant pastor.” It also irritated the church officials, who, according to Brüsewitz, failed to react adequately to the communist party’s anti-church policies. In 1975, the pastor received considerable attention because of his reaction to the Party slogan: “Without God and without sun, we will get the harvest done. Brüsewitz displayed a sign reading “Without Sun and without God, the whole world is going to go bankrupt” on his horse buggy and set off for Zeitz, where he caused a traffic jam.

The state apparatus exerted increasingly intensive pressure on Brüsewitz’s superiors. The church began to talk about transferring him and conducting an inspection of his activities. At that time, Brüsewitz was actively researching medical information on the effects of self-immolation. In the summer of 1976, he decided to commit an act that would permanently change many pastors’ and believers’ views of the position of the evangelical church in the GDR. On 18 August, he ate breakfast with his family, listened to his daughter play his favourite piano composition, and hugged his wife. Then he drove to Zeitz, where he arrived shortly after 10 a.m. He stopped in front of the church close to a pedestrian zone in the very centre of the town and spread a banner across his car that read “A radiogram for everyone, a radiogram for everyone, the church in the GDR accuses communism of oppressing children and the youth at school.” He then poured petrol over himself and set himself on fire. Even though the flames were put out by people passing by after a few minutes, he condition was severe. Four days later, on 22 August, Oskar Brüsewitz died, before the Stasi had allowed his wife to see him.

Oskar Brüsewitz’s life story is a classic example of a clash with totalitarian power that feels threatened because its power monopoly is being questioned. Oskar Brüsewitz’s story also proves that the need to protect one’s moral integrity may lead to committing an act that favours integrity over physical existence. The East German society’s reaction to the pastor’s death was not as massive as the reaction of the Czechoslovak people to the death of Jan Palach, yet his sacrifice is still of extraordinary importance. Many people came to the realisation that they could not continue to succumb to the authorities’ pressure, and they began to actively support the church’s unofficial activities.

Ehrhart Neubert, a German historian, rightfully classified Oskar Brüsewitz’s self-immolation as “one of the most relevant events in the history of the East German resistance”.

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