RMCNews – Loveland, Colorado … Dr. Dick Stenbakken has won a Silver Award for creativity in the Historical Short Subject category at the Houston International Film Festival, his third made-for-TV program, The Nuremberg Chaplain. His previous two awards were in 2014 and 2015.
The Nuremberg story is about Henry Gerecke, a Missouri Synod Lutheran Army chaplain who was assigned to be chaplain-pastor for the German High Command personnel on trial for war crimes at the end of WW II. Gerecke ministered to the most hated men on the earth from November 1945 until the middle of October 1946, then walked with his parishioners up the last 13 steps to the gallows where he had prayer with them before they died.
In order to make the presentation realistic, Stenbakken put together an actual WW II period uniform. He had the distinctive shoulder patch of Gerecke’s 6850th Internal Security Detachment reproduced for the uniform, (pictured below), and was able to speak personally with Gerecke’ s family members to get specific details.
The Army Chief of Chaplains invited Dick to present The Nuremberg Chaplain, and The Dorchester Story as opening presentations for each of the Chief’s major two-day training events across the Army system in 2018-19. “It was a great experience to re-visit many places we had served while on active duty,” Stenbakken commented. A unique location was at Columbia University in New York City, where Dick finished his fourth Masters and Doctor of Education degrees.
The Dorchester Story, which won a Silver Award from the Houston Festival in 2014 in the TV Documentary category, tells about the sacrifice of four Army chaplains who gave their life vests to others while the troop ship Dorchester was sinking after a German submarine attack off the coast of Greenland on February 3, 1943.
Another award-winning made-for-TV presentation, In Flanders Fields, chronicles the story of the Canadian doctor John McCrae during WW I and the war experiences that compelled him to write his epic poem. This presentation won a Bronze Award in 2015 in the Television Historical Programming category.
“It’s remarkable that all three submissions won,” explains Stenbakken. “That is especially true given that each of the presentations is deeply spiritual, and was competing in a secular venue.”
Dr. Stenbakken, a retired Army chaplain (Colonel) who also served as the Director of Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, has done 70 different first-person characters in venues as diverse as the US Senate Bible study groups, Pentagon Prayer Breakfasts, the Army War College, camp meetings, and churches and schools world-wide.
The Nuremberg Chaplain has been aired on Hope Channel.
Dick and his wife Ardis, who served as Director of the Women’s Ministries Department at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, live in Loveland, Colorado.
—RMCNews with Dick Stenbakken, photo by Erik Stenbakken.
