Citation Wikipedia. Jan 8, , Hamburg, Germany; d. Oct 27, After completing middle school in , he began an apprenticeship at the Hamburg Social Authority; made friends and expanded his social circle. One acquaintance was a Communist and listened to enemy radio broadcasts. On August 11, , at the age of 17, he was tried before the Special People's Court in Berlin as an adult; found guilty of conspiracy to commit treason and sentenced to death. Identifier: MSS He also persuaded other like-minded young people to join him in opposition.
He started to o compose various anti-national socialist texts and anti-war leaflets. He also mentioned the mistreatment sometimes meted out in the Hitler Youth.
Do you know the country without freedom, the country of terror and tyranny? Yes, you know it well, but are afraid to talk about it. Yes you are right; it is Germany — Hitler Germany! For several months, Helmut spread the word about lost battles and Nazi lies. It worked, his friends received long prison sentences, but survived the war. His two friends, Schnibbe and Wobbe, who had also been arrested, were given prison sentences of five and ten years respectively.
On October 27, , guards told Helmut that Adolf Hitler had personally refused to commute his death sentence. Hours later, he was beheaded—the youngest person in German resistance to Nazism ever executed by the Third Reich. It was highly unusual for the Nazis to try an underaged defendant, much less sentence him to death, but the court stated that Helmut had shown more than average intelligence for a boy his age.
Nowadays we also have very vocal youngsters, but mostly they are very privileged, especially in the wealthier western countries. I wonder though would they be willing to face harsh punishment and sacrifices for their causes. A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he watched as the leader of his church joined the Nazi Party and the congregation became increasingly supportive of the Third Reich.
It was a common move for Mormon churches in Germany and occupied countries, as many congregations worried they might be persecuted by the Nazis, too. Then he began listening to forbidden radio broadcasts and became convinced that the regime was not just racist and manipulative, but was losing the war. Radio had helped the Nazis rise to power by spreading their messages to a mass audience.
Once the Third Reich took over Germany, they began to use the radio to control the population. They flooded the airwaves with propaganda broadcasts, spreading false reports of glorious victories and bright prospects where there were none. Plaque for Helmut Hubener. However, many Germans disobeyed.
Mathew, I was also privileged to hear Schnibbe recount this whole tale, in German, as he spoke to a gathering of BYU students in around or so — that has stayed with me as a vivid memory ever since. Thanks, John f. Great post. Amazing tribute, John.
Thanks, John, for this powerful piece. This charitable tendency speaks very well of you. Thank you for this, John. I had never heard this story before. He was an incredible young man, his story should be told more often. Thanks, Amy T. Thank you for inviting me to contribute that to your series at Keepa. Thanks Angela. Minert noted that. Georg Branch. Brother Zander was enthusiastic in his support of the Nazi regime—too enthusiastic, as far as President Berndt was concerned.
However, it seemed more important to avoid open conflict that might damage the atmosphere of the St. Georg Branch and perhaps call down the wrath of Nazi Party leaders upon the Church.
Zander apparently eventually emigrated to the United States whereas the anti-Nazi Berndts did not and became a pillar of the Church in West Berlin after the war. Minert added that. In other words, they should join him in condemning but not opposing the government. By the way, Roger P.
Thanks for sharing, John F. I am disgusted that you would leave out his excommunication in this article, except for buried the last footnote. Lying for the Lord by omission. Why am I not surprised? In short you are disrespecting both subject and author in a craven fit of self-righteousness. Try to do better or find another venue for your antics. Oh puh-leeze, Sami. If John were writing a dissertation or journal article and put that in a footnote, you should be concerned, but a blog post is an entirely different literary form.
Thank you, John F.! Around Karl-Heinz Schnibbe attended our ward in Washington state , bore his testimony in Sacrament mtg, then spoke at a Fireside to a packed audience in an auditorium at a local university. He wrote a short book about his experiences called The Price, which I highly recommend. His body was given to the anatomical institute at the University of Berlin for use as a cadaver.
His grave is unknown. There is no evidence that a Church court was officially convened to consider the matter. Perhaps it was felt that our arrests posed a danger to the Church that required the action taken, and maybe that was so.
But I confess that that seemed unlikely to me as an exclusive motivation in view of the feelings I had seen exhibited favorable to Nazism. For all that, I realize that by any stretch of imagination it must have been a tense time for the branch, and I certainly wish to extend to inexperienced local Church leaders working under such extreme circumstances all possible benefits of any doubt.
We were the ones, after all, who had placed the other members in peril. If they can forgive us, we certainly can forgive them. One injustice, at least, had been corrected.
I like the article, but I would like to add that I think the reason the Church has done so little to recognize this in the past is that it struck too close to home.
Here you have a young man who was not only standing firm against Hitler, but against the church. He was excommunicated and this hurt him deeply from several accounts I have read. He was denounced as a trouble maker by other members, and left to die without their support. He was a man of such great integrity that he could not be moved by corrupt government or corruption in the church.
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