A Staunch Fighter
for the Truth
MARTIN POETZINGER, a member of the Governing Body of
Jehovah’s Witnesses, finished his earthly course as an anointed Christian in
the early evening of Thursday, June 16, 1988. He had been in failing health for
some time but died without apparent pain at Brooklyn Bethel. His wife, Gertrud,
had been at his side throughout his illness.
Brother Poetzinger was born on July 25, 1904, in
Munich, Germany. He was baptized on October 2, 1928, and entered the pioneer service
on October 1, 1930. In the autumn of 1933, the Watch Tower Society assigned him
to look after Kingdom interests in Bulgaria, but within a year Witnesses who
were nonnationals were deported. Brother Poetzinger’s next move was to Hungary.
Falsely arrested and deported from that country, he was next given oversight of
a group of pioneers in Yugoslavia. After a serious illness, necessitating a
long hospital stay in Zagreb, he returned to Germany.
Brother and Sister Poetzinger were married in 1936,
but in that very year he was sent to a concentration camp for refusal to
renounce his faith. His wife was imprisoned elsewhere, but he was sent to
Dachau and then to the extermination camp at Mauthausen, Upper Austria. There
the Gestapo used starvation diets, whippings, and indescribable brutality to
induce him and other Witnesses to break their integrity to Jehovah God. But
Brother Poetzinger clung to the true faith.
After nine years of cruel imprisonment, Brother and
Sister Poetzinger were reunited in 1945. Shortly after this, he began serving
in the circuit work in Germany, and later Gertrud traveled with him, zealously
working in the field as he served the congregations. In 1958 he attended the
Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, and on his return to Germany, he and his
wife continued in the traveling work until they entered Bethel service there in
1977. In September 1977, Brother Poetzinger was appointed to the Governing Body
and was able to come to the Society’s world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York,
somewhat over a year later. He served with the Service Committee of the
Governing Body and the Service Department Committee.
***
w88 9/15 p. 31 A Staunch Fighter
for the Truth ***