https://www.bruno-groening.

org/en/bruno-groening/biography/bruno-groening-
1906-bis-1959

Bruno Grning (1906-1959)

An extraordinary, yet controversial person

In 1949, the name Bruno Grning overnight

became a household word in Germany. Reports about him appeared in the press, in
newsreels and on the radio. Events surrounding the Miracle Doctor as he soon came to be
called, kept the whole country in suspense. A film was made about him, scientific
investigation committees were set up and government authorities at the highest level gave
the Bruno Grning matter their attention. The Minister for Social Affairs in North-Rhine-
Westphalia had him prosecuted for violating the Non-Medical Practitioners Act, while the
Minister President of Bavaria declared that one could not let such an exceptional
occurrence as Grning flounder because of a few legalities on paper. The Bavarian Interior
Ministry described his work as a labor of love, free of charge.

The case was violently and controversially debated by everyone at all levels of society.
Emotions ran high. Clergymen, physicians, journalists, politicians and psychologists:
everyone spoke about Grning. Some considered his miraculous healings a gift of grace
from a Higher Power; others believed him to be a charlatan. But the healings were fact, as
confirmed by medical examinations.

World wide interest for a simple worker

Bruno Grning, born in 1906 in Gdansk, was an unassuming worker who relocated to
Western Germany as a refugee after World War II. Before the war he held various
occupations, a carpenter, a factory and dock laborer. Then, suddenly, he was the center of
public attention. The news of his miraculous healings spread all over the world. From every
country came the sick, petitions and proposals. Tens of thousands of people made the
pilgrimage to the places where he worked. A revolution in medicine loomed.

In the strangle-hold of prohibitions, court cases and profiteering assistants

But counter forces were at work. They did their utmost to foil his activities. He was dogged
by court cases and healing bans. All efforts to incorporate his work into the existing social
structure failed. On the one hand, there was the resistance of those in authority in the
various levels of the social order, and on the other, the greed for financial profit on the part of
his assistants. When he died in Paris in 1959, the last court case was well under way. The
proceedings were halted and a final verdict was never pronounced. But many questions
remained unanswered.