The heroic final words of the Mormon boy beheaded by the Nazis for brave defiance - and how even the Gestapo protested 17-year-old's sentence

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

It was a sentence so barbaric that even members of the Gestapo appealed for leniency.
But, in the twisted world of Nazi justice, such a sentiment was beyond the pale.
And so on October 27, 1942, the beheading of 17-year-old boy Helmuth Hübener, who was a Mormon, went ahead as planned.
His crime? The distribution of anti-war leaflets around the city of Hamburg.
Despite the immense feeling of fear that must have gripped him, Hübener was stunningly brave in the face of his sentence.
Moments after it was handed down, he told the judges: 'Now I must die, even though I have committed no crime. So now it's my turn, but your turn will come.'
He was the youngest of more than 16,500 people who were beheaded using the guillotine during the rule of Adolf Hitler.
Now, the story of the teenager's heroic life and tragic death is being turned into a new film.
Truth & Treason, which is set to be released in October, stars Ewan Horrocks in the lead role.
The guillotine became Nazi Germany's preferred method of execution in 1936.
Twenty of the devices were ordered and sent to prisons across the Reich.
Hübener was, like his mother and grandparents, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
His path to 'criminality' began in 1941, when he found a radio in a cupboard at his home and started using it to listen to radio broadcasts from the BBC.
Such an act had been banned after the start of the Second World War, but Hübener was not deterred.
Shocked by what he was hearing, Hübener invited two friends, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe then 17, and Rudolph Wobbe, then 15, to listen with him.
The trio then started writing anti-fascist and anti-war leaflets to defy Nazi lies.
Over the course of several months, the boys distributed thousands of leaflets across Hamburg. Their methods included the brazen stuffing of coat pockets.
One leaflet read: 'German boys! Do you know the country without freedom, the country of terror and tyranny?
'Yes, you know it well, but are afraid to talk about it. They have intimidated you to such an extent that you don't dare talk for fear of reprisals.
'Yes you are right; it is Germany – Hitler Germany!
'Through their unscrupulous terror tactics against young and old, men and women, they have succeeded in making you spineless puppets to do their bidding.'
Although Hübener did his best not to be caught, his luck ran out in February 1942.
Arrested after a tip off, he was beaten and tortured until he revealed the names of his accomplices.
Although he eventually gave in to the torture, he still insisted that his friends had been mere accomplices and that he was the main instigator.
His actions likely saved their lives.
On August 11, 1942, his trial took place at the so-called People's Court in Berlin.
It was there that Hübener was sentenced to death. Worse, judges also stripped him of his civil rights, meaning he could legally be severely mistreated in prison.
His friends, Schnibbe and Wobbe, were given five and ten months of hard labour respectively.
Hübener's lawyers, his mother and even the Gestapo pleaded that his death sentence be revoked. But the Nazi ministry of justice upheld the verdict.
He was beheaded at 8.13pm on October 27, 1941 at Berlin's Plotzensee Prison, the site of hundreds of other similar executions.
Hours before his death, Hübener told a friend in a letter: 'I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father that my miserable life will come to an end tonight–I could not bear it any longer anyway.
'I know that God lives and He will be the Just Judge in this matter.
'My Heavenly Father knows that I have done nothing wrong….I look forward to seeing you in a better world!'
BEfore Germany's defeat, Schnibbe and Wobbe spent three years suffering beatings and starvation in freezing conditions.
Schnibbe was released a few weeks before the end of the war and forced to fight in the army.
But he was captured by Soviet troops and would spend a further four years behind bars.
He and Wobbe then emigrated to Utah in the 1950s with two of Hübener's half-brothers.
Schnibbe's book, The Price: The True Story of a Mormon Who Defied Hitler, was published in 1986.
He died in 2010 aged 86, 18 years after Wobbe's death from cancer. Wobbe too wrote a book about his experiences with Hübener and Schnibbe.
Truth and Treason has been written and directed by Matt Whitaker. Schnibbe is portrayed by Ferdinand McKay, whilst Daf Thomas depicts Wobbe.
Hübener's execution was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to savage treatment of dissidents.
Better-known than his case is the similarly tragic story of Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans, who were put to death in 1943 for being leading members of the peaceful White Rose movement.
Their group had committed the 'crime' of distributing anti-Nazi leaflets to university students in Munich.
The Scholl siblings were beheaded just hours after being found guilty by the notorious judge Roland Freisler, who was rampantly pro-Nazi.
Sophie's last words are said to have been: 'How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?
'Such a fine sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?'
Hans is said to have shouted 'long live freedom!' as he was led to the guillotined.
Both siblings were put to death by Nazi Germany's executioner, Johann Reichart.
He later claimed that Sophie was the bravest person he had killed.
In 2014, the specific guillotine that was used to execute the Scholls was found in the basement of the Bavarian National Museum in Munich.