HELMUTH HÜBENER – Was he disobedient or was he a Hero?

Nov 16

LDS Hero - World War II?

In the past while, I came to have an interest to research some of this Church’s history in Germany during World War II, under the Nazi rule of Hitler. This is because a comment was made to me that the members of the Church in Germany were obedient to the government of that time, a comment made in an attempt to illustrate the “order of the Church”.

This comment struck an interest in me to find out as much as I can, the state of affairs in Nazi Germany, to see if any dilemma existed between obedience to the local government and laws and the doctrines of God. I found a good example.

Helmuth Hubener

I believe this is a controversial subject of the Church’s past. Helmuth Hubener has been declared by many outside the Church as a hero, but the Church continues to remain silent on whether to praise or denounce him, at least as I have found thus far.

Helmuth was a 16 or 17 year old youth member of the LDS Church and was a boy scout in Germany until the Nazi Government disbanded the boy scouts and placed him into the Hitler Youth Organization. It was in Hitler’s Youth Organization that he apparently developed a distaste for the Nazi regime and all it’s evils. His response to that government was to become an activist of sorts by distributing leaflets and pamphlets denouncing the Nazi regime and practices. In short, after a time, he was discovered by the Gestapo, arrested, interrogated, tortured and tried for treason. The German court judged him as a guilty and sentenced him to death.

His actions as a member of this Church, a third generation Mormon, was contrary to the prophet’s direction to remain obedient and compliant to the laws of the Nazi government. The result of his arrest by the Gestapo caused the local branch Bishop to immediately excommunicate him, which was approved by the local Branch President, Arthur Zander, who by the way favoured Hitler’s beliefs.

When the First Presidency received news of his excommunication, they overturned the decision, but made no further comment to it until (about) 1946, where they reinstated Helmuth for reasons of “excommunication by mistake”.

During that time, the majority of the membership remained law-biding, but this event with Helmuth Hubener certainly posed a dilemma that the Church and it’s members had to face day after day during World War II. To this day, the Church remains silent as to Helmuth’s state of righteousness as to whether or not he was right or wrong in his actions.

When President Heber J. Grant directed the German stakes and branches to remain obedient to the current government, I agree to his decision. He had to give a direction for the benefit of all the members, taking into account the risks involved and to do what was best for the Church overall. Yet this direction cannot over rule the doctrine of personal consciousness and free will. That is only subject to the individual and answerable to God. It was Helmut’s personal decision to obey or disobey and I see that his circumstances clearly bring into question any blanket expectation that members were suppose to blindly obey even when obedience means to condone, support or do unrighteousness.

To obey or disobey unrighteousness when placed or forced into this paradoxical situation is, I believe, an individual decision and not subject to the direction by any other person. This says that Helmuth decided for himself and he would be answerable to God for his own actions as we all are.

I speak about this matter because it concerns me that some persons do take these doctrines blindly and at times, tend to exercise these doctrines to the point of having no regard to whether their decisions or actions are truly justifiable. I use the example of Arthur Zander, who was the branch president during the time of Helmuth Hubener. As I read, he personally supported the Nazi movement to the point of locking members into a room to listen to Hitler’s speeches and was a member of the Nazi party. Where one time in 1938 Zander posted a sign on the Church door that Jews were not welcome. He undoubtedly knew that some members would be adverse to Hitler’s words, yet he forced them to listen to them and this was not a good thing to do. Further, he also disobeyed DC 46:3, where he was not to cast any person out of the “public meetings, which are held before the world. ” and this was all to show the Nazi government that they were obedient. It may have worked, but at what cost?

The right of free conscience is embedded into the Lord’s doctrine. It is read throughout and salvation depends on it as The Kingdom of God shines with it.

I praise Helmuth Hubener and I send blessings to him. That is the least I can do. I understand that this Church may choose to remain neutral at this time about Helmuth, but to benefit others I say the following.

The right of conscience is given to each person. No one can rule over this, not even the prophet or the Church. Yet with this comes great responsibility, meaning that each person has the inherent responsibility to abide in God’s principles and laws “FIRST” before anything else of the world. This is the first commandment. I do not condone or support, now and never, civil disobedience. I do not support any disobedience to this Church. I say this because I do not want anyone who reads this to claim that I promote discord with Church leaders.

I believe that each member has the opportunity to deal with “dilemmas of conscience” by seeking the Spirit of God for answers and direction and to abide always in any direction given by the Spirit.

No one knows if Helmuth abided in the Spirit of God, so there is no use to debate it, but he certainly exercised his freedom of conscience in a set of circumstances that did threaten personal righteousness and in those circumstances, I could not discredit him.

Amen

References
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