Helmuth Hübener

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Helmuth Hübener (8 January 1925 – 27 October 1942) was the youngest opponent of the Third Reich to be sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed (though a number of younger people were summarily executed by the Nazi's).

Contents 1 Life 2 Church reaction 3 Books, drama, and movies 4 Quotation 5 Announced feature film 6 Sources 7 References

[edit] Life

Helmuth Hübener came from an apolitical family in Hamburg. Like his mother and grandparents, he belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His adoptive father gave him the name Hübener.

Helmuth Hübener was once a Boy Scout, but after the organization was suppressed by the Nazis, he belonged to the Hitler Youth, although he was not always comfortable with its drilling, nor did he find Kristallnacht to his liking. When the church congregation to which he belonged undertook to bar Jews from its religious services, Hübener found himself repelled by the new policy.

After Hübener finished middle school in 1941, he began an apprenticeship in administration at the Hamburg Social Authority (Sozialbehörde). He met other apprentices there, some of them with a communist family background, and they got him listening to enemy radio broadcasts, which was strictly forbidden in Nazi Germany, being considered a form of treason. In the summer of that same year, Hübener began listening to the BBC by himself, and used what he had heard to compose various anti-fascist texts and anti-war leaflets, of which he also made many copies. The leaflets were designed to bring to people's attention how skewed the official reports about World War II from Berlin were, and also to point out Adolf Hitler's, Joseph Goebbels's, and other leading Nazis' criminal behaviour. Other themes covered by Hübener's writings were the war's futility, and Germany's looming defeat. He also mentioned the mistreatment sometimes meted out in the Hitler Youth.

In the autumn of 1941, he managed to involve three of his friends in his unlawful listening, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudolf Wobbe, who were later also co-workers, and later Gerhard Düwer as well. Hübener also had them help him distribute about 60 different pamphlets, all containing material from the British broadcasts, and all consisting of typewritten copies. They distributed them all over Hamburg, using such methods as surreptitiously pinning them on bulletin boards, sticking them through letterboxes, and stuffing them in coat pockets.^[1]

On February 5, 1942, Helmuth Hübener was arrested by the Gestapo at his workplace at the Hamburger Bieberhaus. While trying to translate the pamphlets into French, and trying to have them distributed among prisoners of war, he had been noticed by a Nazi Party member, Heinrich Mohn, who had denounced him. (Mohn was jailed after the war, but freed by the Bundesgerichtshof by the early 1950s).

On 11 August 1942, Hübener's case was tried at the Volksgerichtshof in Berlin, and on 27 October, at the age of 17, he was beheaded by guillotine at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.^[1] His two friends, Schnibbe and Wobbe, who had also been arrested, were given lengthy prison sentences of five and ten years respectively.

As it says in the proclamation (at right), Hübener was found guilty of conspiracy to commit high treason and treasonous furthering of the enemy's cause. He was sentenced not only to death, but also to permanent loss of his civil rights.

It was highly unusual, even for the Nazis, to try an underaged defendant, much less sentence him to death, but the court stated that Hübener had shown more than average intelligence for a boy his age. This, along with his general and political knowledge, and his behaviour before the court, made Hübener, in the court's eyes, a boy with a far more developed mind than was usually to be found in someone of his age. For this reason, the court stated, Hübener was to be punished as an adult.

Hübener's lawyers and his mother appealed for clemency in his case, hoping to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The Berlin Gestapo did as well. In their eyes, the fact that Hübener had confessed fully and shown himself to be still morally uncorrupted were points in Hübener's favour. The Reich Youth Leadership (Reichsjugendführung) would have none of it, however. They said that the danger posed by Hübener's activities to the German people's war effort made the death penalty necessary. On 27 October 1942, the Nazi Ministry of Justice upheld the Volksgerichtshof's verdict. Hübener was only told of the Ministry's decision at 1:05 p.m. on the scheduled day of execution and beheaded at 8:13 p.m.

A youth centre and a pathway in Hamburg are nowadays named for Helmuth Hübener. The latter runs between Greifswalder Straße and Kirchenweg in Sankt Georg. At the former Plötzensee Prison in Berlin, an exhibit about young Helmuth Hübener's resistance, trial, and execution is located in the former guillotine chamber, where floral tributes are often placed in memory of Hübener and others put to death by the Nazis there.

[edit] Church reaction

Hübener was arrested by German authorities and two days later was excommunicated by local authorities of the LDS Church. His excommunication was later retracted by church officials because it was performed without authority. LDS excommunications must be brought about by a specific process, and this was not followed. When the Church authorities were informed of the excommunication, they revoked the excommunication.

His arrest was in connection to his political and anti-Nazi activities. Due to some of the local church leader’s political actions at the time of his excommunication it is most often seen as the reason why he was excommunicated. Some branch leaders allowed political broadcasts during some church meetings and refused to allow Jews to attend meetings. This was done to show that members were good German citizens. One of Hübener's local church leaders, Otto Berndt, was sympathetic to Hübener, and was suspected of having assisted and encouraged the boy. Berndt was questioned and released with an ominous warning: "after Jews, Mormons will be next."

Hübener's activities could be seen as conflicting with the LDS Church's 12th Article of Faith, which states, "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." However, his behavior could also be seen as justified by his faith, as he was fighting in defense of rights supported by the LDS Doctrine & Covenants Section 134. Perhaps one of the most notable statements he made regarding the matter was to a fellow member of his church showing his belief that his actions were right in the beliefs of his religion. The day of his execution he wrote to the fellow branch member, "I know that God lives and He will be the Just Judge in this matter... I look forward to seeing you in a better world!" — from a letter written by Hübener, the only one believed to still exist^[2]

Though he was excommunicated by his local leaders; his leaders were out of contact with church leadership in the U.S. at the time. Hübener was posthumously reinstated in the LDS Church in 1946, with the note "excommunicated by mistake."^[3]

[edit] Books, drama, and movies

Hübener's story has been the subject of various literary, dramatic, and cinematic works. In 1969, German author Günter Grass wrote the book Örtlich betäubt ("Local anesthetic"), later translated into English, about the Hübener group.^[4]

Brigham Young University professor Thomas Rogers wrote a play titled "Hübener," which has had several runs in various venues. Schnibbe attended some of the performances on the BYU campus.

Hübener's story was also documented in the 2003 movie, "Truth & Conviction," written and directed by Rick McFarland and Matt Whitaker. The movie, later released on DVD, was sponsored by the BYU College of Humanities.^[5]

The book "Faith in Conflict, Vol. 1: Hübener vs. Hitler; A Biography of Helmuth Hübener, Mormon Teenage Resistance Leader," by Richard Lloyd Dewey, was published in January 2004.

"The Boy Who Dared," by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, a historical biography for middle school readers that is based on Hübener's life, is scheduled to be published in February 2008

"Truth & Treason" is a movie in pre-production for a 2008 release. Haley Joel Osment has been cast as Helmuth Hübener. The script is by Ethan Vincent and Matt Whitaker who is also the director.

[edit] Quotation

"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." — from one of Helmuth Hübener's many pamphlets, subsequently also published in When Truth Was Treason: German Youth against Hitler, Editors Blair R. Holmes and Alan F. Keele.

"I know that God lives and He will be the Just Judge in this matter. I look forward to seeing you in a better world!" — from a letter written by Hübener, the only one believed to still exist^[2]

[edit] Announced feature film

Matt Whitaker also directed a documentary called Truth & Conviction, based on the men who defied Hitler. Whitaker then decided to make a film of the events. Veteran actor Max von Sydow was cast first, followed by Haley Joel Osment a couple of months later. Osment is set to play Hübener. Truth & Treason starts filming early 2008.

[edit] Sources

• The linked German Wikipedia article
• Protecting the National Community From Juvenile Delinquency: Nazification of Juvenile Criminal Law in the Third Reich, by Wayne Geerling (Melbourne University)
• Gedenkstätte Plötzensee (Brigitte Oleschinski, published by the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, and also listed in the German article).
• Lights in the Darkness: Resisters of the Nazi Regime — Youth Dissent
• Review of Ulrich Sander's book Jugendwiderstand im Krieg. Die Helmuth-Hübener-Gruppe
• Truth & Treason at the Internet Movie Database
• The Price: The True Story of a Mormon Who Defied Hitler, by Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, with Alan F. Keele and Douglas F. Tobler. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1984.

[edit] References