Teens Against the Total State - morganhighhistoryacademy.org

Against
Teens
theTotalState
the braveactionsof threeteensprovedthat evenHitlefsThird
In 1941NaziGermany,
the truth.
anddisseminating
Reichcouldnot detersomeyouthfromdiscovering
by Warren/lfass
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belongsto us already,"'Hitler declaredin sociations,such as the Boy Scouts.As the
Nazis consolidated their power, they
a 1934 speech."What are you? You will
pass
however,
now
spared no effort to persuade,beguile pressure"
has
ps\
Your
become
a
on.
descendants,
eer
5 6 T\
In a short time they and ultimately, to compel - parentsto enEspecialstand
in
the
new
camp.
buzzu'ordchological
Y
ly when applied to teenaseru.it will know nothing else but this new ro11their children in the party's youth
I
affiliates.
suggeststhat the members of a peer group community."
By 1938 - five years after the Nazi
have neither the independenceof thou*eht
party's
ascentto power - the ranks of the
sense
to
oppore
the
colPeople
Taryeting
Young
nor the common
had swollento1,728,259.The
power
HitlerYouth
in
1933,
the
herd.
Hor,rer.er.
his_
Even
before
coming
to
of
the
mindset
lective
tory abounds with inspinng stonies of Nazis had organized the Hitlerjugend following year, Hitler made membership
young peoplewho havecoufitgeouslygone (HitlerYouth) as aprty auxiliary.In 1932, in the organizattonmandatory by enacting
againstthe tide creatednot onll by their the last year of the Weimar Republic, the a law conscripting all German youngsters
peersbut by forcesevenmore threatemin-e. HitlerYouth numbereda mere I07 ,956;by into it.
Once in the hands of Hitler's totalitariTo appreciatesuchdemonstrable*--trurage. way of contrast,more than 10 million Gerlet us take ourselves back to Hanr,burs. man youth were active in nonpolitical as- an state,German youth were systematically indoctrinated in the regime's antiGermany, in I94I. 11ilnbu1-su as
God ideology. An anguishedletter
then Germany's most important inwritten on June 19, 1939 by
the
largest
seadustrial center and
Theophil Wurm, the Lutheran bishport on the European Continent.
op of Wurttemberg, recorded: "In a
Like all Germans, the residents of
number of municipalities, standardHamburg were suffering the effects
bearersof the Hitler Youth ordered
of World War II and, even worse. the
their subordinatesto seeto it that relloss of most of the freedomsther'
atives of the Hitler Youth members
once enjoyed. Germany had been
withdrew from religious instruction
transformedinto an oppressivepoclassesand applied for ideological
lice state in 1936, when Hitler had
instruction within three weeks."
order
appointing
SS
signed an
As Dr. Judith Reisman obseles,
Reichffihrer Hernrich Himmler as
the Hitier Youth program was dethe "Head of German Police in the
signed to exterminate the individual
Reich Home Office." As a result of
conscience- God's law. as written
that order, the SS gained control
on the human heart - while emanover all police departmentsin Gercipating base impulses such as harnany. Government spies kept a
tred and lust, and placing them at the
closewatch on all citizens.
serviceof the total state."Nazi youth
The Nazis had also passeda lauc)
were
taught that brutalizing, even
punishable
in 1939 making it
by
_o
'- killing, was their right as superrnen
Jeath to listen to unauthorized forc
a and that their parents'religious beeign radio broadcasts.To enforce
.c
c) liefs were irrelevant," notes Dr. Reis:his law, short-wave radios were
I
=6 man. As Hitler himself summarized
ranned and confiscated, and legal
v
:adios were pre-set to receive only
b his program: "Propagandamust be
addressedto the emotions and not to
,. three government-controlledstao the intelligence,and it must concen.rons. But the National Socialist
O
::gime was not content merely to Ualiant
youth:Karl-Heinz
withhisfriends trateon a few simplethemes... with
along
Schnibbe,
::ntrol the contentof the media.Its Helmuth
HUbener
ananti-Nazi lurid photographsof the ... sexual
andRudiWobbe,composed
:rost important targetwas the minds resistance
to beknown
astheHtibener and physical."
cellthatlatercame
It was a seductiveproposition for
Devout
inGodandgenuine
German
, i German youth. "When an oppo- Group.
believers
':nt says, 'I will not come over to patriots,
produced
theboyscovertly
anddistributed
German youth, some of whom had
to getthetruthtotheirfellow
citizens,
,rur side,'I calmly say,'Your child handbills
memories of the starvation and
N
a
c)
t
l
--=
NEWAMERICANo MAY31,2004
chaos that had beset their nation in the aftermath of WorldWarI: By abandoningthe
values and beliefs they had learned from
their parents,and surrenderingtheir will to
their "divine" Ftihrer, they would rule the
world. If they served the state faithfully,
nothing would be denied them.
Yet some German youth were not
swayed by the seductive propaganda.
Some, defying Hitler's boast of 1934,
'lstand in the new
steadfastly refused to
camp'oand to "know nothing else but this
new community." Some clung to the values taught them by their parents,including
an immutable faith in God the State could
not diminish or destroy.And some, motivated by their religious faith, did what they
could to oppose the Nazi regime, recognrzrngthatthey risked losing everythingincluding even their lives - while standing no chance of overthrowing the Nazis.
Yet these young people possessedthe
strength of characterto do what was right
because it was right and for no other
reason.
Among those German young people
who resistedHitler while living inside the
Nazi behemoth were three teenagefriends
in Hamburg: 16-year-oldHelmuth Hiibener, l7 -yearold Karl-Heinz Schnibbe,and
I{-year-old Rudi Wobbe. There were others of course,but the courageousactions
their entire church community. Still others,
like Helmuth and his friends. electedto resist more actively.
Helmuth had received a short-wave
radio from his brother, who was in the militarl' and had brought the receiver back
frorn Franceduring a leave.Becausehe did
not get along with his step-father,who was
a staunqh \azi supporter, Helmuth had
moved into his grandparents'house,
where
he started lisitenin-eto BBC news broadcastsfrorn England late at night after his
grandparentshad gone to bed. Fascinated
by the information he was receiving, he invited his friends to sharein listening to the
broadcasts,a crime under the Reich's 1939
"Decree About Extraordinary Radio Measures."The boys immediately detecteda
huge contrastbetween the BBC news reports and those broadcastby the Nazi-approved German stations.The BBC noted
war casualties, victories and defeats on
both sides, but the German news reports
conspicuouslyignored the Reich's casualties and setbacks.
But the trio's disenchantmentwith the
Nazi regime went much deeper than its
misreporting of war statistics.Yearslater,
Karl-Heinz Schnibbewould recall vividly
the November9, 1938pogrom called Kristallnacht - "Night of the Broken Glass"
- when gangs of Nazis roamed through
Jewish neighborhoodsbreaking windows
of Jewish businessesand homes,burning
and looting. In a May 10 insynago-sues
ten,iew with Tse NBw AunRtcRN,
Schnibbe recalled: "The hunting of the
Jews - that just disturbedme. My mom
askedwhy I u,aslate.I told her what I saw,
and I started to cry and ask what is going
'You better forget what you
on. She said.
saw.This will be our life from now on.'I
could not forget it." Witnessing that horrific event had made an indelible impression on him.
of thesethree friends, :ui'194I, illustrate the
great principle that the State can never beguile an entire generation into denying
their God-giveninstinct to seekout and act
upon the truth.
uitlt Paty Une
YouthDisenchanted
Helmuth, Karl-Heinz and Rudi .*-ereall
members of the sarne branch of The
Church of JesusChrist of Lanerday Saints
(LDS, or Mormon) in Hamburg. Helmuth
had belonged to the HitlerYouth as a boy,
but as he marured he began secretly to
question the \azi ideology. The extent of
the Nazi er-il u'as not totally apparentto
most Germansduring the early yearsof the
re-eime.and many churchgoers,including
membersof Helmuth's local branch,tried
theirbest to resolvethe impossibleconflict
presented to them. How could they be
good German citizens and at the sametime
defendthe God-given rights of the German
people againstincreasingly brutal Nazi oppression? Not everyone approachedthe
conflict in the same way. Many Germans
deceived themselves into believing that
loyalty to the Nazi State was the same as
loyalty to country. Others recognized the
Nazis for what they were but deemedit unwise to oppose them openly. They were
concemed,for instance,that their opposition could invite brutal retaliation against
ol Ttuth
Wielding
theWeapon
Helmuth, as secretaryto the presidentof
his local LDS branch. was able to take a
church typewriter home with him to type
mostly letters
o) up church correspondence,
C
of encouragementto men serving in the
military. On many occasionsLateat night,
(6
: he secretlylistened to BBC broadcastsand
t0 carefully noted what he had heard. Wellsuccumbed
manydesperate
Germans
bywaranddepression,
into$avery:Battered
$oduced
"work
pagan
promised
gospel
national
TheNazis
andbread" armed with factual information, he then
socialist
movement.
ofthe
thefalse
- inexchange
- anda return
used the typewriter to produce a seriesof
greatness
forfreedom
to national
andpeace.
a
a
a)
3B
THENEWAMERICAN . MAY 31, 2004
r,'.irh r ti'.r nrohlgms. but
,.":r-Nazileaflets,making multiple carbon
that the entire structure
. :ies. The teenagerhad somehou'ob\\ as thoroughh rotten.
--red an official rubberstampusedto r er" documentsas being approred br the
'":zr Party, and he affixed the othcial T h e G e s t a p o t o o k u h a t
-.rmp to each leaflet. The tities for his later became knou n as the
":rcts included: "The Voice of Con- H i i b e n e r G r o u p s e n o u s l r
, : ience,""Hitler the Seducer"and "Hitler enough that ther manased
:e Murderer."The provocativenatureof to track down the source of
rese titles guaranteeda harsh reaction. the resistance earlr in the
le 1939Nazi decreehad specificallystat- next year, Februarr 1911.
-i: "Whoever willfully distributesthe Helmuth had decided that it
:roadcastsof foreign stationswhich are would be advantaseous to
.::signedto endangerthe strengthof resis- have his writings translated into French so
.:r1ceof the Germanpeople,will, in par- that they could be read br French prison,.:ularly severecases,be punished with ers of war, and so he r lsrted a Frenchspeaking associate n'ho ri t-rrkedin a govr:ath."
When Heimuth first proposedhis plan emment office to solicit hl: Lrelp.However,
:r distribute his homemade, anti-Nazi Helmuth's visit was noticed br a senior of:aflets to his trustedfriends, Karl-Heinz ficial who then dra-e-sedthe paniculars out
",.asaghast.As Karl-Heinz recalledvears of the potential translator. torcrng him to
-it€rin a narrativepublishedrnWltettTt'urlt tum over the documents thet Helmuth had
"i,asTreasonhe askedHelmuth incredu- given him. From that n-ioment. the fate of
rusly:"Man. are\ ou nuts?Are r ou com- the Hiibener Group u as settled.
:ietel1' off r our rockerl \\ hat ar- \ rrlr
llotin Spirit
in Body,
:rinking of-l Surelr i ou dr-r:':s.tl,lrr:eIhat lmprisoned
or
enhro",.
:he
ir:ne
l"
The
and subiectedto
can
itri
i-t
trio
were
arrested
e
three
",
K a r l - H e i n Z \ \ . a ' \ \ r : 1 1 - ' . 1 : .r-: : :r : ' . : d brutal interrogation methods at HamBecauseof
hen Helmutherplaine: :h;t ]3 r --'rt3n-rl-burg'sGestapoheadquar.ters.
- at ed n o th i n - es o r as h. F { 1 s:r-e :" 1e r- the sophisticatedthinkine anclmannerof
the
: , iin e dh i s p l an:" \ \ e c ar . ni i -,:mrc rp l e . expression found in the leat-1ets.
that lhere;r: ir-,J:s
-.-.dcandemonstrate
:o are opposed;then manr p3r:r]r.>.-.rfl
: irfito talk andsay,'Have1ou heri ,rlolit
..s.)That is amazing!"'
Ignoring the danger.Karl-Herrr "rrd
: :di agreedto help Helmuthdisinhr.r;hi:
r:rerS surreptitiously- pinning I:]ir-L,^--ril
- -lletin boards,inserting them in rnarl
: .,\es,andslippingtheminto coatpukeis.
'f
Later,in his memoir,publishedin i i:,',i
. tth Was Treason, Karl-Heinz ri oulJ
-=--a1l:
r r l r r r
We never believed that we were in u
:osition to overthrow the \azr
regime,by no means,but Helmuthalsaid to us: "What we can do is
"r'ays
ro warn the people. We can u ake
ihem up, we can bring them to the
:oint of askingquestionsand sal,ing:
'Wait
a minute, something is not
:ight. I want to hearthat myself.'And
.ihen enoughpeoplehearthe truth or
:re interestedin the truth. then w'ho
,.fiowS?"We wantedto show people
'rat it was not a benevolentresime
- " 'IEW
AMERICAN. MAY31,2OO4
( r
r ! r i
y r v L ,
inedto hisfriendsKarl-Heinz
heplanned
toresist
theNazis
thetruth:"Wecaninform
thatthereare
d candemonstrate
thenmany
r areopposed;
you
totalk:and
say,'Have
? Thatisamazing!"'
Gestapo found it impossible to believe
that mere teenagershad composedthem
The interrogators
without adult assistance.
tortured the boys in a futile attempt to get
them to reveal the identity of the adults
who were supposedlybehind their resistance movement. Eventually, the interrogators were forced to accept that the
boys had actedalone.
In a taped interview included in the
video-documentaryTruth & Conviction:
The Helmuth Hiibener Story, Karl-Heinz
Schnibbe vividly described the two
Gestapoagentswho cameto his workplace
to whisk him into a totalitariannightmare.
They were hulking men around six-feetthree or -four inches tall who wore black
leathertrench coatsand had "hands as bis
c)
_o
'()
a
c
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c
'a)
I
l
Y
b
6
o
E
=
o
r)
(left)andRudiWobbe,
members
surviving
ofthe
Karl-Heinz
Rmisters'
reunion:
Schnibbe
photograph
HUbener,
whowasbeheaded
Helmuth
bythe
Hubener
flanka
ofthemartyred
Group,
(whodiedofcancer
in1992)
wereconsigned
to prison
Nazrs
in1942.
BothSchnibbe
andWobbe
forfreedom.
theirboldstand
None
everregretted
camps
bytheNazis.
ofthethree
JY
Karl-Heinz, in a moving
part of his taped interview, described how he had tearfully
said goodbye to his good
friend Helmuth u'ith the
u'ords: "I hope r-ou leave a
better life - and a bener German\."
The end of the uar should
have ended Karl-Heinz's suffering in the labor carnps,
Most such prisoners u'ere liberated by the Allies. But an
ironic twist of fate prolonged Karl-Heinz's
terrible ordeal for severalmore years.
Several weeks before the end of the
war, Karl-Hernz was drafted into the German arny. (His friend Rudi was not drafted into the army becausehe still had more
than half of his 10-year sentenceleft to
serve.)Along with other conscriptedpolitical prisoners, he was forced to march
to the Russian front, where he was captured and held as a prisoner of war for four
years by the Soviet army.The totalitarian
Soviets were, if anything, even less respectful of human rights than their former
allies,the Nazis.
When he was finally releasedfrom the
Soviet labor camp in 1949,at the ageof 24,
Karl-Heinz Schnibbewas a walking, sixfeet, two-inch skeleton of 98 pounds. He
had spent a total of sevenyears in German
and Soviet prisons.
TheHiibener
Legacy
Group
\'Ir. Schnibbe lives in Salt Lake City with
his u'ife and continues to speak to many
audiencesabouthis experiences,including
church audiences,youth groups and German schools. Rudi Wobbe lived in Salt
Lalie until he died of cancertn 1992.
The \azi regime imprisoned and brutalized the bodies of the young resisters
and even endedthe earthly life of one. But
the regime could not suppressthe spirits or
touch the soulsof thesenoble young men.
Like the paganRoman imperialists that the
Nazis patterned themselves after, the
agents of the Third Reich did not seem to
fathom that iron bars and chains can neither imprison immortal souls nor dampen
the spirits of Christian believers.
The Hiibener Group set an example of
courage in the face of totalitarian rule that
we hope our own youth wrll not find necessary to emulate. However, their irrepressiblespirit should inspireAmericans of
all agesto be steadfastrnpreventingtyrannv before it becomesfirmlv entrenched.I
astoilet seats."He recalledbeing forced to
wait for his interrogation sessionsin a
"white room" with glaring walls painted
with glossy white enamel illuminated by
powerful spotlights that almost blinded
him each time he entered.
In August, the boys were transportedto
Berlin, where they were tried before the
highest court in Germany - the so-called
People's Court, more appropriately known
as the "Blood Tribunal." Also tried with
them was Gerhard Di.iwer, a friend of Helmuth who had played a somewhatlesser
role in the boys'activities. All were found
guilty of high treason and of aiding and
abetting ,,6ileenemy. Gerhard was sentenced to four years at a labor camp, KarlHeinz was sentencedto five
years,Rudi to 10 years,and
Hiibener, the leader of the
group, was sentenced to
death.
After they were seuf€nced,
each was asked, in turn, if he
had anything to say. All declined except Helmuth, who
remained courageousand defiant to the end. He told the
judges directly: "Now I nlust
die even though I have committed no crime. So now it's
my turn, but your turn will
come."
Severalappealswere made,
including one to the Fiihrer
himself. but Helmuth Hiibener was executedby guillotine
on October 27, 1942.He lost
his head. but the Nazis were
unable to imprison his soul,
o
which, even during the last
moments of his earthly existence, was still dedicatedto Bearing
to audiences
of
frequently
speaks
Nowliving
inSaltLake
Karl-Heinz
Schnibbe
witness:
City,
Utah,
young
people
theirfreedoms.
God and country.
anddefend
themto understand,
appreciate,
bothhereandinGermany,
urging
,l
F
40
THENEWAMERICAN o MAY 31, 2OO4