[1] Bernhardt was born in Bischofswerda, in the Kingdom of Saxony, part of the German Empire, in 1875, to a innkeeping family.
[2][1] He was separated from his wife and children and living London when World War I broke out (having recently returned from a business trip to New York) and in 1915 he was interned by the British Government on the Isle of Man due to his German nationality.
On Good Friday 1923, Bernhardt proclaimed that Jesus "came down to the Earth in order to transfer his task of the Mediator between God and mankind to the Son of Man."
[1] Bernhardt claimed to be the Messiah or Son of Man,[3] and fortold an imminent coming of God's Kingdom on Earth in the mid 1930s.
[1] In his own book he presented himself (his own message) as "the last helping hand extended to humanity right before the world’s end",[4] i.e. after Jesus Christ failed in his salvific mission almost two thousands years beforehand.
By the end of the 1920s Bernhardt had managed to attract a following of several thousand people, primarily Germans, Austrians, Swiss and Czechs.
Records confirm that Abd-ru-shin had given an express order to his collaborators, that they should always strictly follow all legal requirements.
He carries the insignias of His high Office: the living Cross of the Truth radiating from Him and the Divine Dove above Him, the same in-signias as were borne by the Son of God.