Monday, October 15 2012
Missionary Moment: The Helmuth Hubener Story--Three LDS Teenagers who Defied Hitler
The announcement made last week at General Conference that
young men could now serve missions at 18 and young women at 19 has been met
with enthusiasm on all fronts. The impact has been immediate as colleges,
families, wards and stakes have seen a rush of excited young men and women
completing their applications and requesting their ecclesiastical interviews.
I've watched my nieces and nephews eagerly jump at
the surprise opportunity to depart for their missions earlier than once
anticipated. I thought of how much courage the youth of the Church have
consistently displayed through the years, starting with young Joseph at
the tender age of 14 and over a million missionaries since then who have
bravely faced opposition and untold hardship in countries around the
globe. I also considered the plight of three young priests who served
together in a priest quorum together in Hamburg,
Germany during
World War II.
Helmuth
Gunther Hubener had grown up in the LDS
Church, and was a member
of the Boy Scouts. His mother and grandparents were also members of the
Church. However, in 1935, the Nazis banned the Boy Scouts in Germany and
required all boys to join the Hitler Youth. Later when the war started,
listening to foreign radio broadcasts was strictly forbidden by the Nazis, who
were concerned that the lies and propaganda broadcast by the allies could harm
the German war effort.
One day in
1941, Helmuth, then 16, found a forbidden shortwave radio his brother
Gerhard had left in a hall closest and he started listening to radio broadcasts
from the BBC about the true state of affairs occurring in the World
War. He invited his two best friends from his priest quorum, Karl-Heinz
Schnibbe then 17, and Rudolph Wobbe, then 15, to listen with him.
What they
heard in the autumn of 1941 shocked them into action. Using the
typewriter that belonged to his branch, young Helmuth and his friends started
composing anti-fascist leaflets and anti-war pamphlets to draw people's
attention to the untruths being spread by the German war machine about World
War II. They also bravely pointed out the criminal behavior of Adolf Hitler, Joseph
Goebbel and other leading Nazi high command leaders. The young priests
even addressed larger topics such as the futility of the war, Germany's
certain defeat, and the evils of the Third Reich.
Over the
following few months, Helmuth wrote over 60 different pamphlets containing
material from the BBC broadcasts. The boys then secretly
duplicated and distributed thousands of their fliers throughout Hamburg, by pinning them
to bulletin boards, inserting them into mailboxes, placing them in telephone
booths, and stuffing them in coat pockets. The fliers often pointed out
specific instances where the German people were being lied to by the German
High Command. Some of his titles were: Down
with Hitler, Hitler the Murderer! Who is Lying! and The Voice of Conscience!
Some six months after their secret efforts
commenced, young Hubener was arrested by the Gestapo at his workplace in
February 1942, while trying to translate some of his pamphlets into French so
that his young friends could distribute them among POWs. Young Helmuth had
been tracked down by Erwin Muessener, a Gestapo agent, after a tip from a Nazi
sympathizer. After several days of beatings and torture, Helmuth
finally disclosed the names of his accomplices, but in an attempt to protect
them from harsher treatment, he claimed to be the mastermind of the conspiracy
and explained that his friends played minor roles in assisting him.
On August 11,
1942, over six months after his arrest, Hubener's case was tried before the
Voksgerichtshof, or Blood Tribunal, in Berlin.
Hubener, the leader of the group, was tried and convicted of conspiracy to
commit high treason and aiding and abetting the enemy. He was sentenced not
only to death, but to the loss of his civil rights, which meant that he could
be (and was) severely mistreated in prison, and given no bedding or
blankets in his cold prison cell. Schnibbe, 18, was sentenced to five
years in a labor camp. Wobbe, 16, was sentenced to 10 years.
Hubener's
lawyers, mother and the Berlin Gestapo all argued for clemency in his case,
hoping to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. They argued on
appeal that he had fully confessed his crimes and shown himself to be
still morally uncorrupted. However, the Reich Youth Leadership (Reichsjugendfuhrung)
would have none of it and contended that the dangers posed by Hubener's
activities to the German war effort made the death penalty necessary.
On 27 October
1941, the Nazi Ministry of Justice upheld the Volksgerichtshof's verdict.
Hubener was told of the appellate court’s decision at 1:04 p.m. on the
scheduled day of his execution and beheaded in the execution room at 8:13 p.m.
the same day, at Plotzensee Prison in Berlin.
He was just 17 years old, one of the youngest executions by the Nazi regime.
Hours before
his scheduled execution, Hubener wrote to a fellow branch member the following
letter: "I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father that my miserable life
will come to an end tonight--I could not bear it any longer anyway. I know that
God lives and He will be the Just Judge in this matter. My Heavenly Father
knows that I have done nothing wrong....I look forward to seeing you in a
better world!"
Years later,
Brother Schnibber would say that the hardest thing he ever did was say goodbye
to his young friend Helmuth. He told Helmuth he would see him again and
hugged him. With tears in his eyes, Helmuth said, "I hope you have a
better life and a better Germany."
Then he cried. Helmuth's sensitivity to the Spirit, even after months of
cruel torture and beatings in his prison cell, is illustrated by a comment he
made in his letter to a friend the day he died when he penned the following:
"I am sorry that I had to break the Word of Wisdom at my last
hour." He regretted being forced by his Nazi executioners to drink
some wine before his beheading.
Schnibbe and
Wobbe spent three years together in a German labor camp, where they suffered
beatings and starvation. They spent freezing winter months wading in
water up to their thighs as they dug in peat bogs. Schnibbe was released
early and drafted into the German Army just weeks before the war ended and was
forced to march with the army to Russia. He was then taken
prisoner by the Soviets and held as a prisoner of war in Russia for four
more years. He did not return to Germany until 1949. When
he returned home, his mother did not recognize him. He weighed a mere 95 pounds
on his 6 ft 2 inch frame; a walking skeleton.
Both Karl
Schnibbe and Rudi Wobbe immigrated to Utah
in the early 1950s, together with Hubener's two half-brothers. Wobbe
later credited the teachings of the Church and good parents as reasons the boys
displayed such courage to take their stand and risk their all for the
cause of truth.
We can
certainly be proud of these three Mormon teenagers who had the courage and
integrity to stand up against Hitler and his cruel policies in spite of
the obvious dangers! After the war ended, Helmuth was recognized as a
martyr for his resistance against the Nazi regime. Among many efforts taken
to preserve the memory of the young hero was the establishment of the Helmuth
Hubener Haus in Hamburg.
A play depicting the struggle of Hubener and his friends in a totalitarian
regime was written and produced by BYU Professor Thomas Rogers.
The story of
the brave young resistance group has been portrayed in German and English
publications, including separate book accounts published in Utah by Rudi Wobbee and by Karl-Heinz
Schnibbe. An hour documentary premiered on BYU Television entitled, Truth
and Conviction. Additionally, Gunter Grass, one of Germany's most
well known intellectuals, has included Hubener's resistance activities in his
writings. In 1985, Schnibbe was honored by the German Government as a
resistance fighter, a year after he wrote his book about his experiences, The
Price: The True Story of a Mormon Who Defied Hitler.
Another major motion picture based on the Hubener Group, Truth &
Treason, is in production.
Schnibbe died
in Salt Lake City
at age 86 in May 2010. Schnibbe spent the last 18 years of his life as a
temple worker in the Salt
Lake Temple,
where he had worked for many years as a painter and craftsman. Wobbe died of
cancer in 1992 after writing his award winning book, Three
Against Hitler.
We certainly
cannot judge those who remained silent in Germany or opposed the efforts of
these three brave LDS young men. The pressures to support the German
government before and during the war were enormous, the propaganda spread by
the Nazis was compelling, and the risks of showing any signs of rebellion were
swift and terrifying. Only God can judge the local branch president who
mistakenly excommunicated young Helmuth after his arrest. Fortunately the
Church leaders in Salt
Lake posthumously
reinstated Helmuth in 1946, shortly after the war ended, for the mistaken
excommunication that did not follow proper procedure.
The young
teenagers going into the mission field in our day also show tremendous courage
and bravery to leave family and friends behind to face unknown languages,
people and cultures near and far. They too must be brave and not hesitate
to open their mouths to spread the beautiful truths of the restored Gospel. May
we never forget the price of freedom and be grateful and supportive of the
thousands who sacrifice so much to spread the cause of truth throughout
the world. Perhaps when a young missionary hesitates or is frightened to
share the gospel message, recalling the bravery of Helmuth and his friends will
be a strong incentive to speak up and preach the Gospel.
