Eyewitness Christa Hinz

War invalid jumps over a paddock fence

"I heard about Bruno Gröning’s work at the Traberhof from an acquaintance. After that, I also drove over there for two days. There were at least ten to twenty thousand people on the property when I arrived. Bruno Gröning was not to be seen. We waited for him for hours.

Then he arrived and spoke to the people from a balcony. I felt an electrifying, vibrant tingling in my whole body. Other people were also moving noticeably: their limbs seemed to be flying around. I would never have believed that something like this was possible if I hadn’t experienced it myself. A woman began to shout, ‘I don’t need a walking stick any longer! I can walk again.’

Although the crowd was very dense, I managed to make my way through it, because I was so interested in what was happening.

Red Cross workers were helping a man to his feet from a primitive stretcher of wooden boards. He lifted his hands, looking for help. Sweat was running off him in streams. I asked him what was wrong with him and he said, ‘I am a war invalid.’ Later this man was able to leave his stretcher.

Then I saw a crying grandfather with his eight-year-old grandson. The boy had not been able to walk. They had cobbled together a little wagon from simple wooden boards to bring the boy to Bruno Gröning here at the Traberhof. Now, in tears, the old man told me that the boy could walk again.

Nearby, a man jumped over a fence and I said to him, ‘Well, you’re in the wrong place here.’ He replied, ‘Last Sunday I was crippled and was dragging myself around on crutches.’ Five days later this man was jumping over fences! He beamed with happiness and showed me his war invalid ID card.

I also met an old man sitting in a wheelchair. He had lost his healing. People had told him that his healing would not last and that Gröning was a charlatan. He had believed their words.

The place was full of people day and night. The whole time I was at the Traberhof I was not hungry. There was no hysteria among the masses. They all hoped and believed that they would regain their health. When I saw these people lying on stretchers and propped on their crutches, I was so inwardly moved, that I could not talk and could barely look at them.

I think Bruno Gröning had a very special bond with God. I regretted that I was not able to encounter him more often. Today I still often think about what I experienced.”