Werner August Bode

Born September 12, 1890 in Amandapon/Amandapur (South India) as son of German missionary Otto Bode and his wife Olga Breitling.

He joined military service during WWI and registered with missionary schools in Germany and The Netherlands.

Appointed as Pastor with the Indische kerk (Indonesian church) in Buitenzorg (Bogor) near Jakarta. Became assistant preacher in Minahassa. From 1926 onwards he was theology lecturer at the teacher training school (Normaalschool) in Kuranga (NZG), Tomohon, Minahasa. From 1929 he became main translator of the Bible in modern Malay.

He married Lijdia Wilhelmina Diederich. His last place of residence was Soekaboemi (Sukabumi). His death was registered on 9 May 1949 in Batavia (ref. death certificate below)

Probably referred to as F. Bode in Gottlob Weiler's Der Untergang der Van Imhoff-ein Augenzaugenbericht. Evangelischer Missionsverlag, GmbH, Stuttgart, 1953.

In February 2019, Mr. Bode's great-granddaughter Mrs Sascha Hardt wrote the following email to vanimhoff.info.

I happened upon your website while researching the life of my great-grandfather, Werner August Bode, who died on the van Imhoff <...> W A Bode had initially come to Indonesia as a missionary in a place called Airmadidi in North Sulawesi. My grandmother, who is still alive today, was born there in 1922. Later, Bode was recruited by Dr. Hendrik Kraemer of the Dutch Bible Association (Nederlandsche Bijbel Genootschap, NBG) to work on a new translation of the bible into standard Malay (now Bahasa Indonesia). He finalized the Old Testament while already in an internment camp, it was published in 1938 and remained, as far as I heard, the standard translation in Indonesian until the 1980s. The New Testament was never completed, due to his death on the Van Imhoff...

Additional information:
id.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.A.Bode
https://www.van-imhoff.com/portretten/