John Louis Nuelsen - Wartime

Wartime

World War I was especially difficult for Bishop Nuelsen. He loved the German Methodists and the German People, and hastened to defend them in the early years of the war. When the United States entered the war, however, matters became further complicated for him. The charge of being “pro-German” was a serious one at that time in the opinion of many Americans during the highly emotional days of 1917-18. Nuelsen was attacked in some American church papers. Even some of his Episcopal brethren were not too understanding of the situation in which he found himself. During the last period of the war he was in fact forbidden to travel, being immobilized in Switzerland for long months. A further complication was the fact that the conferences under his care were divided between nations on the side of Germany and nations on the side of the Allies.