Who was Abd-ru-shin?

Abd-ru-shin (Oskar Ernst Bernhardt) was born on April 18, 1875 in Bischofswerda, Germany. His parents owned and operated an inn, rich in tradition, and located in the heart of the city. This enabled their youngest son to be educated as a businessman. He completed his studies in Dresden, and was married there in 1897. The same year he established a business. From 1903 - 1914, he traveled between the Orient and the West, including the USA. These travels afforded him a rich fund of experiences. His relations with the world and with people of widely divergent cultural levels gave him the material for his literary activity. In addition to accounts of his travels, he wrote narrative and dramatic works.

During a stay in London, he was surprised by the outbreak of World War I. Since he was a German citizen, he was taken prisoner, and interned for the duration of the war on the Isle of Man. During this period, his mother died in 1917, and toward the end of the war his 19-year-old son fell in combat. He experienced during the years of his confinement the inner need of many people, who suffered a great deal and could not find their way out of the collapsing old system of values. The wish awakened in him to help through a knowledge that was alive in him.

In 1919, Oskar Ernst Bernhardt was released and returned to Dresden. At first he continued his literary activity, and several of his plays were presented in Leipzig. However, literature did not prove to be the appropriate form for what he had to say. So he turned to lectures, which he began to publish in 1923, and later, beginning in 1931, collected as his principal work, In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message. As author of the Grail Message, he chose the name "Abd-ru-shin" (a Persian-Arabian name) which generally translates as Son, Workman, or Servant of the Light. He perceived that this name corresponded with his intent.

After divorcing his first wife, Oskar Ernst Bernhardt remarried in 1924. In Maria Freyer (1887- 1957) he found the complementary companion. With her and her teenage children he moved to Upper Bavaria, and in 1928 to Vomperberg in Tirol (Austria), above the ancient silver town of Schwaz. It was a suitable place for writing his major work, and other writings. Soon, people settled near him who acknowledged the Grail Message and wished to build their lives upon its principles.

This development was abruptly interrupted in 1938 when Austria became "German." Immediately the Nazi regime banned the Grail Message, and prohibited its dissemination. Abd- ru-shin himself was arrested, and his property on Vomperberg was expropriated. After several months of imprisonment in Innsbruck, he was expelled from Nazi-occupied Austria. He first went with his family to the vicinity of Gorlitz, then to Kipsdorf in the Erz Mountains. He was forbidden to be active publicly on behalf of his works, and adherents of the Grail Message were not permitted to contact him. The Gestapo kept him constantly under surveillance. He utilized these years of exile to edit In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message into the form he wished to leave as his legacy. This final form of the text is, in accordance with his wish, the basis for all present editions.

The exile and isolation had their consequences. Oskar Ernst Bernhardt died, only 66 years old, in December 6, 1941 in Kipsdorf, and was permitted to be buried in his place of birth, Bischofswerda. At the end of the war in 1945, the Allies returned the Bernhardt property to Maria Bernhardt, and in 1949, the officials of the Soviet Occupation Zone permitted the casket to be exhumed and transported to Tirol. A tomb in the form of a pyramid was now able to receive the casket.