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The movie "Truth & Conviction" is a documentary about Helmuth Hübener, a young German resistance fighter during World War II. It was written and directed by Matt Whitaker.

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Helmuth Hübener was born in Hamburg; his mother was a wage-worker who raised him on her own.

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Image of Helmuth as a young boy

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Photograph of Helmuth Hübener

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Born: January 8, 1925 and died Died: October 27, 1942

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It was forbidden to listen to any non-government radio transmissions, like the BBC’s multi-language broadcasts. However, many Germans disobeyed. For people like Hübener, radio from other countries was the only way to learn the truth about the war.Hübener decided to spread these facts to people who didn’t dare listen to the outlawed broadcasts. With the help of three friends, he wrote, printed and distributed up to 60 pamphlets that included information from the BBC and called on Germans to resist Hitler. They stuck the pamphlets in coat pockets, left them in phone booths, and pinned them to bulletin boards.

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Image of Helmuth with his friends

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Hübener and his friends were imprisoned in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison along with other political prisoners. The prison was notorious for its harsh treatment of prisoners and as a site of countless summary executions. For ten weeks, the boys were tortured and intimidated as they awaited trial.

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August 11, 1942, Hübener stood before the notoriously know "People's court" which was also often referred to as “Blood Tribunal.” This was because throughout 1942 and 1945 majority (95%) of the cases were followed with a death sentence or life in imprisonment. In most cases the defendant wasn't allowed to speak and the defense attorney almost never said anything and if the defendant did try to speak up for themselves they were quickly shut down and forced to be quiet. Hübener and his friends with whom he conspired had made a pact that if they were to get caught that they "would do their best to shoulder the guilt individually." They did this to avoid burdening each other with guilt. Helmuth honored his promise and did the best he could in attempts to take most of the blame off his friends. The judges “believed that Helmuth had been particularly bold in court in an attempt to absorb the majority of the guilt and thus draw attention away from his best friends”. So one could assume that his attempts to take majority of the blame weren't in vain, he was then sentenced to death. He then awaited his death which would be in two months(ish).

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On October 27, 1942, guards told Hübener that Adolf Hitler had personally refused to commute his death sentence. Hours later, he was beheaded—the youngest person ever executed by the Third Reich.

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Song remembering the holocaust

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NEVER AGAIN - A song to remember the Holocaust

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Execution day is nearing and so far Helmuth has spent the las two months being mistreated and striped of personal comfort such as things like bedding and blankets. As the date was getting closer, Helmuth began writing multiple letters to friends and family, all but one of those letters survived the "allied firebombing of Hamburg". There are multiple translation's of this letter so this is googles version: "I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father that this painful life is coming to an end tonight; I couldn't bear it any longer. My Father in Heaven knows that I have done nothing wrong; I am only sorry that I had to break the commandment of wisdom in my final hour. I know that God lives, and He will be the just judge of this matter. See you again in a better world!

Your friend and brother in the Gospel

Helmuth." When Helmuth says "I have done nothing wrong; I am only sorry that I had to break the commandment of wisdom in my final hour." he is referring to the wine he would be forced to drink by the Gestapo as standard protocol, I can't seem to grasp how a man can be so close to death and yet still worry so much about sinning I understand wanting to die with a good conscience, but, a sin that he is being forced into committing, a sin so small as drinking a small sip of wine, I find it absolutely fascinating how he remained so calm and so devoted to god, Helmuth truly was a great man. That letter itself says a lot about Helmuth and what type of man he was.

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Helmuth has been honored in several ways since the holocaust, he currently has two schools named after him. One in Berlin & Hamburg.

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Image of Helmuth

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"German boys! 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. They have intimidated you to such an extent that you don't dare talk for fear of reprisals. Yes you are right; it is Germany — Hitler Germany! Through their unscrupulous terror tactics against young and old, men and women, they have succeeded in making you spineless puppets to do their bidding.”
― Helmuth Hübener

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Documentary made about Helmuth hubeners story

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Truth & Conviction: The Helmuth Hubener Story (Teenage Nazi resistance fighter)

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Image from the Helmuth Hübener exhibition.

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https://www.history.com/articles/meet-the-youngest-person-executed-for-defying-the-nazis

https://www.history.com/articles/meet-the-youngest-person-executed-for-defying-the-nazis

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Helmuth Günther Hübener (1925-42), a member of the Church in Hamburg, Germany, was the youngest person of the German resistance to Nazism executed by order of the Special People's Court ( Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin. Beginning in early 1941, Hübener produced a series of anti-Nazi leaflets that included his own political commentary and transcriptions of Allied radio broadcasts. With the help of other teenagers, he distributed leaflets throughout Hamburg. In February 1942, the Court found Hübener guilty of "conspiracy to commit high treason and treasonable support of the enemy" and ordered his execution; the tribunal also convicted his three friends Rudolf Wobbe, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, and Gerhard Düwer of "listening to a foreign radio station and distributing foreign radio news." Hübener was executed at the age of 17 eight months later. Wobbe, Schnibbe, and Düwer were sentenced to hard labor and remained in prison camps until the end of World War II.

Hübener was born in Hamburg in 1925. His single mother, Emma Guddat Kunkel, worked to support Helmuth and his two older half brothers, Hans and Gerhard. As a result, Helmuth and his brothers spent much of their youth with their grandmother Wilhemine Sudrow, who lived nearby. In 1939 Emma married Hugo Hübener, a construction worker and Nazi Party member, who later adopted Helmuth. Emma's new husband disliked the Church, and, probably to appease him, her activity became intermittent after their marriage. Helmuth and his brothers, however, continued to attend church with their grandmother.

Like their neighbors, German Latter-day Saints initially viewed the Nazi Party's promises of renewed economic stability and increased national pride with hope. Some Church members joined the party while others actively opposed the regime. Still others remained neutral. Helmuth Hübener witnessed this spectrum of party participation firsthand. His branch president, Arthur Zander, was a Nazi Party member who compelled branch members to listen to the party's radio broadcasts, threatened to report members for anti-government activities, and, in 1938, posted a sign on the meetinghouse door informing Jews they were not welcome. A handful of members wore their Nazi military and civil service uniforms to Church meetings. On the other hand, Otto Berndt, the Hamburg district president, preached against government policy from the pulpit, privately encouraged member resistance, and frequently walked to and from meetings with Jewish converts. Although Hübener initially participated in the local Jungvolk (the Nazi-organized group for children too young to join the Hitler Youth), he came to reject the party's ideology.

In the spring of 1941, Hübener discovered a shortwave radio belonging to his brother Gerhard and used it to listen to nightly news broadcasts from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)-a crime under Nazi law. Occasionally, two friends from church, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudolf (Rudi) Wobbe, joined him. Hübener soon began producing anti-Nazi leaflets that relayed information from the broadcasts alongside his own commentary. Using carbon paper and a pair of typewriters borrowed from the branch, Hübener made copies of these leaflets, which he, Schnibbe, and Wobbe tacked to Nazi Party bulletin boards, dropped on busy streets, and slipped into mailboxes. Hübener soon recruited several other teenage acquaintances to help. Gerhard Düwer, who worked at the Hamburg Social Authority ( Sozialbehörde), where he and Hübener were apprentices, helped to expand the distribution. Through an unknown connection, Hübener also arranged for a printer in Kiel to copy leaflets in larger numbers. Over the course of 10 months, Hübener produced as many as 60 different leaflets challenging party rhetoric and disputing official accounts of the war. He also took direct aim at party officials. The Führer "will send you by the thousands into the fires in order to finish the crime he started," Hübener wrote in one leaflet. "By the thousands your wives and children will become widows and orphans. And for nothing!"

In February 1942, Gestapo agents arrested Hübener, Wobbe, Schnibbe, and Düwer on charges of various crimes under Nazi law, including "preparation to high treason." On August 11, during a trial lasting just over nine hours, the four were tried before the three-member Special People's Court in Berlin. All four were found guilty. Hübener was sentenced to death, while Wobbe, Schnibbe, and Düwer were sentenced to 4 to 10 years in labor camps. Hübener was put to death by guillotine on October 27, 1942.

Gedenkstätte Plötzensee Memorial Wall in Berlin, Germany, where Hübener was executed.

Shortly after Hübener's arrest, branch president Arthur Zander wrote "excommunicated" on Helmuth's membership record. However, district president Otto Berndt refused to countersign the action. Anthon Huck, a member of the European Mission presidency, provided a second signature. Several Church leaders later said they intended to distance the Church from Hübener to protect Latter-day Saints from the wrath of Nazi officials. After World War II ended, Hübener was posthumously reinstated in the Church and, in 1948, given temple ordinances by proxy.

In the decades following World War II, Helmuth Hübener became a national hero in Germany. "Helmuth has become one of the best-known members of the German Resistance," Karl-Heinz Schnibbe remembered. "Hundreds of books and articles ... contain references to the Hübener Group, and Helmuth is a frequent character in major post-war German literary works." Hübener was also memorialized by a youth center, school, and two streets in Hamburg, each bearing his name. Since the 1940s, political, social, and religious groups have held various celebrations on January 8 (his birthday) or October 27 (his execution date) commemorating his heroism. On January 8, 2020, the Plötzensee Prison, where Hübener was executed, now a reformatory school for boys, was renamed in his honor.

Bibliography

The following publications provide further information about this topic. By referring or linking you to these resources, we do not endorse or guarantee the content or the views of the authors.

Karl-Heinz Schnibbe with Blair R. Holmes and Alan F. Keele, When Truth Was Treason: German Youth against Hitler: The Story of the Helmuth Hübener Group, 2nd ed. (Provo, Utah: Stratford Books, 2003).

Rudi Wobbe and Jerry Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 1992).

Related Topics: Germany, World War II

Notes

1. Erin Blakemore, " Meet the Youngest Person Executed for Defying the Nazis," History Stories, Aug. 31, 2018, https://www.history.com/news/meet-the-youngest-person-executed-for-defying-the-nazis. Rudi Wobbe and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe published memoirs on their experiences resisting the Nazi regime alongside Hübener; see Rudi Wobbe and Jerry Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 1992), republished as Three against Hitler (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 1992); Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, Alan F. Keele, and Douglas F. Tobler, The Price: The True Story of a Mormon Who Defied Hitler (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1984). Countless other books (fiction and nonfiction), articles, and essays have been written about Hübener.

2. People's Court, Verdict, Document 52 in Blair R. Holmes and Alan F. Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason: German Youth against Hitler: The Story of the Helmuth Hübener Group, 2nd ed. (Provo: Stratford Books, 2003), 219-20; District Court Hamburg, Arrest Warrant, Document 16 in Holmes and Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason, 174-75; Rudolf Wobbe, Statement, Document 66 in Holmes and Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason, 259-62; Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 74. See also Topic: World War II.

3. Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 14; Richard Lloyd Dewey, Hübener vs. Hitler: A Biography of Helmuth Hübener, German Teenage Resistance Leader, 2nd ed. (Provo: Academic Research Foundation, 2004), 1-2; Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, 20.

4. Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, 20; Dewey, Hübener vs. Hitler, 5-6.

5. See Dewey, Hübener vs. Hitler; David Conley Nelson, Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015), 99-104. While Nelson claims that Church members' support for party ideology went beyond "mere protection," most eyewitnesses described a "reluctant participation" brought on by the desire to protect themselves, their families, and the Church from government intrusion, imprisonment, or worse. For example, see Otto Berndt, Statement, Document 65 in Holmes and Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason, 257.

6. Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 28-32; Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, 22-24.

7. Dewey, Hübener vs. Hitler, 23-24, 27-28, 61, 71-73; Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 15, 31-32, 39; Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, 16, 22.

8. Wobbe, Statement, 259; Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, 25-27; Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 34-39.

9. Holmes and Keele, eds., When Truth Was Treason, 336n8.

10. Helmuth Hübener, "I've Calculated for Everything," Document 42 in Holmes and Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason, 208.

11. District Court Hamburg, Arrest Warrant, 174-75; Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 66-67. "Gestapo" was short for Geheime Staatspolizei ("Secret State Police").

12. Wobbe and Borrowman, Before the Blood Tribunal, 69-76; Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, 51-54.

13. People's Court, Verdict, 219-31; Attorney General's Office of the People's Court, Report of Execution, 27 Oct. 1942, Document 62 in Holmes and Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason, 241-42.

14. Berndt, Statement, 258-59. Otto Berndt explained: "This was done to avoid further difficulties with the [Nazi] party. The Saints who believed in the ideals of the New Germany ... did what they did because they believed it to be in the best interest of the Church and the country. Repentance and forgiveness has been manifested by all concerned after the war" (Berndt, Statement, 258-59). See also Dewey, Hübener vs. Hitler, 174.

15. Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, ix. For other accounts relating to Hübener, see Holmes and Keele, eds. and trans., When Truth Was Treason. Hübener's story has also appeared on stage, film, and television and in fiction written in German (for example, Günter Grass, Örtlich Betäubt: Roman [Berlin: Hermann Luchterhand, 1969]) and English (Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow [New York: Scholastic, 2005] and The Boy Who Dared [New York: Scholastic, 2008]).

16. Schnibbe, Keele, and Tobler, The Price, ix; " Schule der Berliner Jugendstrafanstalt wird Helmuth-Hübener-Schule," https://presse-de.kirchejesuchristi.org/artikel/schule-der-berliner-jugendstrafanstalt-wird-helmuth-huebener-schule.

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Helmuth Günther Hübener (1925-42), a member of the Church in Hamburg, Germany, was the youngest person of the German resistance to Nazism executed by order of the Special People's Court ( Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin. Beginning in early 1941, Hübener produced a series of anti-Nazi leaflets that included his own political commentary and transcriptions of Allied radio broadcasts.