wfn.org | Bruno Kroker, ecumenical journalist, dead at 93

["Philip Jenks" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

>Bruno Kroker, ecumenical journalist
>who opposed Hitler, is dead at 93

Secaucus, N.J., June 12, 2009 -- Bruno Kroker, 93, who fled his native  Germany during the Third Reich and worked as a journalist in China  before becoming a communicator for the National Council of Churches USA,  the World Council of Churches and the United Presbyterian Church, died  early Thursday here at Meadowlands Hospital Center.

"His life was one of the great novels that never got written," said his  friend, Fred Myers, who also worked on the National Council of Churches  news staff in the 1970s.

Born in Berlin in 1916, Kroker often recalled standing with other youth  journalists in the vast office of Adolf Hitler. But Kroker was no friend  of the Nazis.

"In fact, it was his involvement in anti-Hitler groups that got him  chased out of Germany by the Gestapo in 1935 at the age of 19," Myers  said.  "Bruno had acquired the habit of telephoning his house before  going home.  When one day an unknown male voice answered the phone, he  asked for himself and was told he wasn't there but was expected soon.   'Why don't you come over?' the voice said. 'I know he'd be glad to see  you.'  Bruno got on his bike, pedaled down to the river, and stowed  away on a boat for Denmark, not to return until 25 or 30 years  later.  He never saw his mother again."

Kroker's escape from Germany took him to Denmark and half way around the  world to China.

In the 1970s he was a familiar figure to journalists who covered the  ecumenical movement in the U.S. He moved to the U.S. from Shanghai in  1950 and became an American citizen in 1955.

For a decade after coming to America, he worked with CROP, the food  appeal related to Church World Service. The decade following saw him as  an information officer with the National Council of Churches.

"Bruno played a key role in press coverage for the NCC Commission on  Religion and Race and its part in training rights students who went  south to places like Philadelphia, Miss." Myers recalled. "He was also  deeply involved in planning and covering the 1963 March on Washington  for Jobs and Freedom."

>From 1970 to 1974, Kroker did information work for the Presbyterian  Church. He was senior press officer for the World Council of Churches in  Geneva, and in 1977 became press officer for the U.S. Office of the  World Council of Churches in New York, retiring in 1980.

During what he called his "exile years" from Germany, Kroker studied at  the universities of Copenhagen, Keijo, Japan, and St. John's in  Shanghai. He was fluent in English, German, Danish, Russian and Chinese.

During his 14 years in China, he covered the war between China and Japan  and later the Communist take-over of the Chinese mainland. He was war  correspondent for the London Daily Express and International News  Service at Nanking in 1937, was editor of the China Journal and managing  editor of the Far East Engineer in Shanghai from 1938 to 1941, and from  1946 to 1949.

During his young manhood in China, Kroker was also a scholar, serving as  editor of the Royal Asiatic Society-affiliated China Journal. He studied  Chinese history extensively, and was one of the discoverers of the  Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, dating from pre-Nestorian times.

Kroker is survived by his wife, Linda, of Tenafly, N.J.; a son, Kevin,  of Los Angeles; and two grandchildren.

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office),  646-853-4212 (cell) , pjenks@ncccusa.org