Helmuth Huebener: Timeless Template of Courage

In a day when politician flakes and frauds — some eerily reminiscent of Adolf Hitler — dominate the headlines, it is with a sense of relief and even moral longing that one learns of true heros like the young German boys pictured below. The film that tells their story, “Truth & Conviction,” first aired at BYU in 2003, but it’s well worth a look today as a morality tale for our own times. Here’s an excerpt from BYU Newsnet:

The documentary was written and directed by Rick McFarland and Matt Whitaker and sponsored by the college of humanities at BYU.

It tells the story of Helmuth Huebener, 16, and his two friends, Rudolph Wobbe, 15, and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe,17, who distributed anti-Nazi fliers opposing Hitler. . .

While in his youth, Huebener was a member of the Hitler Youth organization, which promised a “better life and better Germany,” but after a few years, Huebener realized the Nazis were lying. . . .

In the summer of 1941, Huebener defied the Nazi regiment by listening to outside news reports from the BBC in London.

Taking action to let Germans know the truth about Hitler, Huebener typed fliers, using a church typewriter, that contradicted the German government’s decision about war and that called Hitler an “Anti-Christ” and seducer of the people.

Doing this cost Huebener his life.

After distributing fliers for six months, the three teenagers were caught by the Gestapo. . .

More on this story at BYU News Net.