Moerike Otto & Gertrud

Mörike, Otto Mörike, Gertrud Parish priest – and later dean – Otto Mörike (b. 1897) was one of the members of the Bruderrat (fraternal council) of the Confessing Church in Württemberg. The Bruderrat, in response to an appeal by its Berlin Branch, provided refuge and help to Jews “on the run,” especially during the latter phase of World War II. Mörike, despite a history of previous brushes with the Gestapo – at one time he was even suspended from the pulpit as a result of his anti-Nazi attitude – did not hesitate to assume further risks. In November 1943, he and his wife Gertrud (b. 1904) accommodated the Jewish Krakauer couple in their house in the village of Flacht, together with their own five children, a wounded foster child, and three other persons. To dispel possible suspicion, Mörike appeared with the Jewish couple in public and let it be known that they were Aryan acquaintances and fugitives from Berlin. Though the Krakauers could not stay in Flacht longer than four weeks, because this would have obliged them to register with the police, Mörike took upon himself the overall responsibility for arranging secret accommodations for them until the end of the war – 41 places in all. On November 3, 1970, Yad Vashem recognized Otto and Gertrud Mörike as Righteous Among the Nations.