Mormon Church

In 1941, three Mormon teenagers decided it was time to do something about Hitler. They felt people needed to understand what he was really doing. Helmuth Hübener, age sixteen, and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, age seventeen, listened regularly to an the BBC’s German broadcast, an act that was illegal because it wasn’t approved by the Nazis. They noted that what they learned from their newscasts was very different from what the BBC said, and decided the Nazi broadcasts were untrue.

Hübener began writing about the differences in information and handing out the articles around town. Although nervous about this activity, Schnibbe and Rudolf Wobbe, who was only fifteen, began to help him. Hübener was captured and tortured until he gave the names of his two friends, but he saved their lives by insisting he did all the work and his friends only handed out whatever he gave them. Hübener became the youngest person murdered for resisting Hitler. He was beheaded. Wobbe was sentenced to a labor camp in Poland for ten years and Schnibbe for five years. There, the two boys were beaten and starved, and worked long hours standing in freezing water as they dug. However, as the war was coming to an end, three years after their arrest, the Russians invaded the camp and took Schnibbe prisoner for four years. When Schnibbe was released, he was six foot two inches, but weighed only 95 pounds. He was sent home only because he was too weak to continue to work.

Schnibbe immigrated to the United States in 1952 and wrote a book about his life. He was a painter and craftsman and did gold leafing for the Salt Lake City Mormon temple. He was also a volunteer temple worker. A PBS documentary about the three boys was made in 2002, and a movie is being filmed in late 2010 for release in 2011.

The experience had a tremendous emotional impact on him, but he learned to forgive, and this helped him through the trials. He spoke often to youth groups, encouraging them to stand up for what they know is right, whatever the consequences. He assured them he would gladly do it all over again, even knowing what would happen to him.

Schnibbe was always reluctant to take any credit for the activities of the group. He credits Hübener as the true hero, the one who wanted Germans to think.

Schnibbe died recently in Salt Lake City, Utah from complications of Parkinson’s Disease.

Tags: famous Mormons, Helmuth Hubener, Hitler, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, Mormon heroes, Mormons, Nazis, World War II

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