“Report of a Meeting with the Opposition Movement, July 21-23, 1920, in Friedensau”, 1920

Item — Box: 3, No.: 65

Staff Only

Content Description

From the Collection: This collection contains materials dealing with the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement. The Movement arose as the result of a schism over positions taken by the Adventist Church leadership on Sabbath observance and in committing Seventh-day Adventist Church members to the bearing of arms in military service. After the war a Ministerial Meeting took place at Friedensau in July 1920 with the goal of reconciling the official denomination in Germany with the people in the Reform Movement. At the meeting, in front of two hundred German pastors and representatives of the General Conference, war time German Union leaders Guy Dail, Ludwig Richard Conradi, Heinrich F. Schuberth, and Paul Drinhaus withdrew a statement concerning military service they had made during the war and apologized. The Reformers were informed of this and the next day there was a meeting of the Adventist church leadership with the Reform Adventists. General Conference President Arthur G. Daniells urged the reformers to return to the Seventh-day Adventist church but the Reform Adventists maintained that the church leaders had forsaken the truth and the reconciliation failed. In 1925, at Gotha, Germany, the “Reformers” founded the Church of the Seventh-day Adventists, Reform Movement.

In 1951 the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement had a power struggle within their ranks leading to a division of the Reform Church. One group became the International Missionary Society of Seventh-day Adventists, Reform Movement with headquarters in Mosbach/Baden, Germany. The other group took the name Church of Seventh-day Adventists, Reform Movement with their headquarters in Roanoke, Virginia, USA.

Various offshoot groups arose from the Reform Movement. Already in 1916, based upon a prophecy by Gertrud Kersting a small group of Reformed brethren celebrated the feast of tabernacles. By the end of the year they were disfellowshipped from the Reform Movement. The new movement was called Missionsvereinigung der Siebenten-Tags-Adventisten (Laubhüttenbewegung Sacharja 14:16-19) [Mission Society of Seventh-day Adventists (Feast of the Tabernacles Zech 14:16-19)].

In response to the establishment, by the General Conference, of the Deutsche Union [German Union] a group led by Joseph Bach and Julius Wolz formed the International Mission Society of the Seventh-day Adventists at Bremen, Germany. From among their followers arose the group of Adventists of the Third Part. According to their understanding Seventh-day Adventists constitute the first part of Zech 13:8, 9, the Reform Movement the second part, while they consider themselves as the faithful remnant, the third part. A clear characteristic is their rejection of owning and creating pictures, and their demand of a second tithe for poor and needy people.

Wilfried J. Kramer grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement, and served as an elder in the church in Sacramento, Calif. In 1974 he left the Reform Church and asked to become a member in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. During the following decades he did a let of research and writing about the military question in Germany during World War I and World War II, the origin of the Reform Movement, the split into two reform movements in 1951, and unsuccessful reconciliation attempts. Much of that research and the resultant writings are in this collection.

The largest part of this collection was given by Kramer. Another part was given by a certain Mr. Kraus. No further information is available on this individual, and the materials in what he donated were not of a personal nature. Therefore they were merged with the Kramer collection since both collections deal with the same subject, i.e. the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement and related movements.