Helmuth Hübener’s 100th Birthday Commemorated in the German Cities of Hamburg and Berlin

“Do not allow your free will, the most precious thing you possess, to be taken away from you.” This sentence from a leaflet written by Helmuth Hübener in 1941 was once quoted by Joachim Gauck, then Federal President of Germany. The same quote was heard on the Deutschlandfunk radio broadcast series “Kalenderblatt” on Wednesday, January 8th, 2025—exactly 100 years after Helmuth Hübener was born. On this anniversary, congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the German cities of Hamburg and Berlin commemorated the courage of this teenage member of the resistance against national socialism.

Helmuth Hübener’s appeal is one of the “most remarkable quotes in the history of resistance against national socialism,” said Professor Johannes Tuchel, Director of the German Resistance Memorial Center, during the Deutschlandfunk broadcast.

Helmuth Hübener’s views were shaped by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the broadcaster said. “The idea of free will is firmly anchored in the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” said Elder Niels O. Jensen, Area Seventy of the Church. “Agency is a gift that God grants every individual. Helmuth Hübener demonstrated that it is possible to show backbone and stand for one’s convictions in the most unfavorable and challenging circumstances imaginable. To this day, long after his death, he still serves as a role model and an example for many young people.”

Two German schools are named after Helmuth Hübener, one in Hamburg and the other in Berlin.

On January 8, the Stadtteilschule Helmuth Hübener, a school in Hamburg, kicked off an anniversary year dedicated to the young man it had been named after in the schoolʼs auditorium, which was filled to capacity. “Helmuth Hübener showed that courage does not mean having no fear. It means doing the right thing despite fear. Let us take this lesson to heart—we owe it to him and to all those who have offered resistance amidst great peril,” said principal Bianca Thies on this occasion. Professor Alan Keele, who had traveled from the United States, spoke on behalf of a delegation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Helmuth Hübener was a human being who refused to be dehumanized,” said the German philologist. Professor Keele taught at Brigham Young University and did extensive research on the life of Helmuth Hübener.

In the morning, members of the Church had participated in transferring the Stolperstein for Helmuth Hübener, a cobblestone-sized memorial, to his actual last voluntary place of residence at what is now 18 Sachsenstrasse. The Stolpersteine, an art project by the sculptor Gunter Demnig from Cologne, Germany, are considered the largest decentralized memorial in the world. Various places in Hamburg, the city of his birth, commemorate Helmuth Hübener’s efforts.

In the evening, the Church invited its members and interested parties to a guided tour of the permanent exhibition on Helmuth Hübener at the Hamburg School of Administration. Helmuth Hübener attended this school until his arrest.

In Berlin, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered at the Plötzensee memorial. Dr. Daniel Fingerle, Country Communications Director in Germany, Hartmut Woite, high councilor in the Berlin Germany Stake, and Dr. Ralf Grünke, Assistant Area Communications Director in the Europe Central Area, participated in a wreath-laying ceremony with local members present.

Between 1933 and 1945, more than 2,800 prisoners were beheaded or hanged in the former Berlin-Plötzensee prison. Helmuth Hübener met his violent death there on October 27, 1942. He is considered the youngest member of the resistance against the Nazi regime in Germany to be executed on the orders of the People’s Court in Berlin. “The Nazis must have felt not only insulted by a 17-year-old, very brave and clever adolescent, but also denounced and exposed,“ explained the German public service broadcaster NDR.

In 2018, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints paid tribute to Helmuth Hübener during a visit to the Plötzensee memorial with the following words: “Helmuth Hübener’s courage and willingness to stand for what is good will always serve as a reminder and an invitation to follow the teachings of Christ.”

An essay on the Church’s website provides details of Helmuth Hübener’s life and his connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.