Report and Notes on the Condition of the Evangelical Lutheran Churchs in the Suwałki District 1915-1916
By Pastor August Gerhardt (1875-1947)
Pastor August Gerhardt (born in 1875 in Kaupischken, Lithuania) was commissioned by the Warsaw Evangelical Augsburg Consortium to travel to the various Evangelical Lutheran Churches in southwest Lithuania and northeast Poland (aka the Suwałki Gubernia) to report out on the condition of the churches and the Protestant communities there. He summarized his findings in a report which was delivered to the Consortium in Warsaw in January of 1916. His report provides the reader with an eyewitness account of the experiences of the German minority in southwest Lithuania during WWI.
Scroll below to read the report.
Background on the Text
The final copy of the report that Pastor Gerhardt provided to the Warsaw Evangelical Augsburg Consortium is now considered lost as a result of the heavy damage sustained by the archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Poland during WWII. However, his handwritten drafts of the report have survived and were passed down to his great-granddaughter, the Reverend Kristin-Luana Baumann, who provided scans of the drafts and gave permission to the IAGL to publish them. The text was carefully transcribed by a volunteer and translated into English.
