The Phenomenon Bruno Gröning
On the tracks of the 'Miracle Healer'
Bruno Gröning

The life of Bruno Gröning

A newspaper article from back then
In 1949 the name of Bruno Gröning burst into public limelight overnight. The press, the radio and weekly reviews reported. For months the events surrounding the miracle doctor, as he was soon known, kept the new republic breathless. A film was shot, scientific examination committees convened, and, up to the highest instances, the authorities dealt with the case. The North -Rhine Westphalia social minister had Bruno Gröning indicted for infringing upon healing practitioners' laws, but the Bavarian Minister -president, on the other hand, opined that one should not allow such an usual phenomenon as Bruno Gröning to fail because of some legal paragraphs. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior described his activity as a free activity of love .
1949: The movie “Gröning – a film everyone should see!” documents the astonishing healings at the Traberhof in Rosenheim.

Vigorous and controversial discussions took place at all levels of society. Emotional waves ran high. Ecclesiastics, physicians, journalists, lawyers, politicians and psychologists: everybody was talking about Bruno Gröning. For some, his miracle healings were gifts of grace from a higher power, for others mere charlatanism. But the facts of the healings were proven by medical examinations.
Heidelberg, 1949: Astonishing healings (in this case from Bechterew’s disease) are medically documented.

August / September 1949: Up to 30,000 people wait on the Traberhof for Gröning to speak to them.
Bruno Gröning was a simple workman. He was born in Gdansk in 1906 and, driven from his homeland, he immigrated to West Germany after the war. He made a living with all sorts of jobs. He had been a carpenter, a factory and harbour worker, a telegram delivery man and electrician. He now stood suddenly in the center of public interest. The news of his miracle healings spread world wide. Sick people, as well as entreating letters and offers came from every country. Tens of thousands of healing seekers made pilgrimages to the places where he worked. A revolution in medicine began.
But opposing forces were also present. Influential physicians, church dignitaries and former collaborators did everything they could to undermine Bruno Gröning' work. Healing bans persecuted him, law suits were started against him. All efforts to guide his work on to orderly paths miscarried. On one hand, because of the opposition of influential social forces, on the other hand, because of his collaborators lack of ability or greed for profit. When Bruno Gröning died in Paris in January 1959, the very last law suit against him was running full speed. The process was stopped and a final verdict was never reached. But many questions remained unanswered. Bruno Gröning has to answer to the charge of breaking the healing practitioners’ law.