Chapter 27
God Is at the Helm
“Come to my house tonight. I want you to hear something,” sixteen-year-old Helmuth Hübener whispered to his friend Karl-Heinz Schnibbe. It was a Sunday evening in the summer of 1941, and the young men were attending sacrament meeting with their branch in Hamburg, Germany.
Seventeen-year-old Karl-Heinz had many friends in the branch, but he particularly enjoyed spending time with Helmuth. He was smart and confident—so intelligent that Karl-Heinz had nicknamed him “the professor.” His testimony and commitment to the Church were strong, and he could answer questions about the gospel with ease. Since his mother worked long hours, Helmuth lived with his grandparents, who were also members of the branch. His stepfather was a zealous Nazi, and Helmuth did not like being around him.1
That night, Karl-Heinz quietly entered Helmuth’s apartment and found his friend hunched over a radio. “It has shortwave,” Helmuth said. Most German families had cheaper radios provided by the Nazi government, with fewer channels and limited reception. But Helmuth’s older brother, a soldier in the German army, had brought this high-quality radio home from France after Nazi forces conquered the country in the first year of the war.2
“What can you hear on it?” asked Karl-Heinz. “France?”
“Yes,” Helmuth said, “and England too.”
“Are you crazy?” Karl-Heinz said. He knew Helmuth was interested in current events and politics, but listening to enemy radio broadcasts during wartime could get a person thrown in jail or even executed.3
Helmuth handed Karl-Heinz a document he had written, filled with news about the military successes of Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
“Where did you get this?” Karl-Heinz asked after reading the paper. “It can’t be possible. It is completely the opposite of our military broadcasts.”
Helmuth answered by switching off the light and turning on the radio, keeping the volume down low. The German army worked constantly to jam Allied signals, but Helmuth had rigged up an antenna, allowing the boys to hear forbidden broadcasts all the way from Great Britain.
As the clock struck ten, a voice crackled in the dark: “The BBC London presents the news in German.”4 The program discussed a recent German offensive in the Soviet Union. Nazi papers had reported the campaign as a triumph, without acknowledging German losses. The British spoke frankly of both Allied and Axis casualties.
“I’m convinced they’re telling the truth and we’re lying,” Helmuth said. “Our news reports sound like a lot of boasting—a lot of propaganda.”
Karl-Heinz was astonished. Helmuth had often said that Nazis could not be trusted. He had even engaged in political discussions on the subject with adults at church. But Karl-Heinz had been reluctant to believe his teenage friend over the words of government officials.
Now it seemed that Helmuth had been right.5
On December 7, 1941, Kay Ikegami and his family waited for their Japanese Sunday School to begin at a small chapel on King Street in Honolulu, Hawaii. When Kay first began attending the class with other Japanese American Saints, it had been small. But after the organization of the Japanese Mission in Hawaii four years earlier, the number of Japanese Sunday Schools had grown to five in Honolulu alone. Kay was the superintendent of the Sunday School that met on King Street.6
There were fewer people than usual in class this morning. As they waited for the meeting to start, Jay C. Jensen, who had replaced Hilton Robertson as president of the Japanese Mission, rushed through the door. “Japan is attacking Pearl Harbor,” he said.
Kay’s face went ashen. “Oh no,” he said. “It can’t be true.”7
Although born in Japan, Kay had lived in the United States since he was a child, and his own children had been born there. The thought of his native country attacking the nation he and his family called home was deeply disturbing.8
At eight o’clock that morning, President Jensen had been attending another Japanese Sunday School that met near Pearl Harbor, a large U.S. naval base near the city. Outside, planes were flying back and forth in formation, and some of them were dropping bombs. He had assumed the U.S. military was conducting training maneuvers, so he did not think twice about the commotion. When he returned home, though, his wife, Eva, rushed outside and told him Pearl Harbor was under attack.
Doubtful, he had turned on the radio—only to learn that she was right. “Keep off the streets!” a radio announcer had warned. Japanese planes were still in the air and dropping bombs. But he and Sister Jensen were worried about Kay and his Sunday School, so they had rushed to King Street.
“Hurry home and take cover,” President Jensen told Kay. The class quickly broke up and everyone fled the building. A short time later, a bomb landed just one hundred yards away, setting several structures on fire.9
In the days that followed, the United States declared war on Japan and its ally Germany, ending American neutrality in the conflict. The government placed Hawaii under strict martial law, closed public schools, censored newspapers, and screened all outgoing mail. Everyone on the islands was subject to a curfew, but Japanese people who were not U.S. citizens were required to be home each night by eight o’clock, one hour earlier than all other residents. The government also banned the use of the Japanese language in public.10
During this time, Kay’s fifteen-year-old son, David, was unsettled by the sudden change in his family’s life. “The days are all dead,” he wrote in his journal. “I wish there was school once again.” He tried to get to his school building, hoping to retrieve a library book from his locker, but soldiers were blocking the road.
Worried about future attacks from Japan, people on the island began constructing small underground shelters for protection against enemy bombs. Kay and his wife, Matsuye, asked David to help them build a shelter in their backyard. They started digging a trench for the shelter a little over a week before Christmas. The labor was hard and slow, especially when they had to remove rocks from the ground. After recruiting more help, the family was able to finish building the shelter on Christmas morning.
David was relieved the backbreaking work was over, yet he struggled to enjoy the rest of the holiday. “You can’t get in the spirit because of the war,” he lamented.11
A few weeks had passed since the bombing, bringing no further attacks. But it was hard not to look to the sky, searching for planes marked with the Japanese emblem of the rising sun.12
One Sunday evening, back in Germany, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudi Wobbe waited for Helmuth Hübener to arrive for sacrament meeting at the Hamburg Branch.13 For the past few months both Karl-Heinz and fifteen-year-old Rudi had been helping Helmuth distribute anti-Nazi flyers around the city. As a branch clerk, Helmuth had the branch typewriter at his house so he could write letters to Latter-day Saint soldiers, and he often used it to produce the flyers, which had bold headlines like “They Are Not Telling You Everything” or “Hitler, the Murderer!”14
Distributing the flyers was high treason, a crime punishable by death, but the young men had so far evaded the authorities. Helmuth’s absence from church was troubling, however. Karl-Heinz wondered if perhaps his friend was sick. The meeting went on as usual until branch president Arthur Zander, a member of the Nazi Party, asked the congregation to remain in their seats after the closing prayer.
“A member of our branch, Helmuth Hübener, has been arrested by the Gestapo,” President Zander said. “My information is very sketchy, but I know that it is political. That is all.”15
Karl-Heinz locked eyes with Rudi. The Saints seated near them were whispering in astonishment. Whether they agreed with Hitler or not, many of them believed it was their duty to respect the government and its laws.16 And they knew any open opposition to the Nazis from a branch member, however heroic or well intentioned, could put them all in danger.
On the way home, Karl-Heinz’s parents wondered aloud what Helmuth could possibly have done. Karl-Heinz said nothing. He, Rudi, and Helmuth had made a pact that if one of them should get arrested, that person would take all the blame and not name the others. Karl-Heinz trusted that Helmuth would honor their pact, but he was afraid. The Gestapo had a reputation for torturing prisoners to get the information they wanted.17
Two days later, Karl-Heinz was at work when he answered a knock at the door. Two Gestapo agents in long leather overcoats showed him their badges.
“Are you Karl-Heinz Schnibbe?” one of them asked.
Karl-Heinz said yes.
“Come with us,” they said, leading him to a black Mercedes. Karl-Heinz soon found himself squeezed in the back seat between two agents as they drove to his apartment. He tried to avoid incriminating himself as they questioned him.
When they finally arrived at his home, Karl-Heinz was grateful that his father was at work and his mother at the dentist. The agents searched the apartment for an hour, flipping through books and peering under beds, but Karl-Heinz had been careful not to bring any evidence home. They found nothing.
But they did not let him go. Instead, they put him back inside the car. “If you lie,” one of the agents said, “we will beat you to a pulp.”18
That evening, Karl-Heinz arrived at a prison on the outskirts of Hamburg. After he was shown to his cell, an officer with a nightstick and pistol opened the door.
“Why are you here?” the officer demanded.
Karl-Heinz said he didn’t know.
The officer hit him in the face with his key ring. “Do you know now?” he yelled.
“No sir,” Karl-Heinz answered, terrified. “I mean, yes sir!”
The officer beat him again, and this time Karl-Heinz gave in to the pain. “I allegedly listened to an enemy broadcast,” he said.19
That night Karl-Heinz hoped for peace and quiet, but the officers would not stop throwing open the door, turning on the lights, and forcing him to run to the wall and recite his name. When they finally left him in darkness, his eyes burned with fatigue. But he could not sleep. He thought of his parents and how worried they must be. Did they have any idea he was now a prisoner?
Weary in body and soul, Karl-Heinz turned his face to his pillow and wept.20
In February 1942, Amy Brown Lyman sat before a microphone in the dimly lit Salt Lake Tabernacle, preparing to record a special message for the one hundredth anniversary of the Relief Society. Only a handful of people were there to witness her recording, and her thirty years as a Relief Society leader had given her plenty of opportunities for public speaking. But this was a new experience, and she was nervous.21
Amy had been set apart as Relief Society general president on January 1, 1940, just a few weeks before Heber J. Grant suffered his stroke. Since then, President Grant’s health had continued to improve.22 Yet the safety and well-being of people around the world had never been more precarious. War had spread to virtually every part of the globe as the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and their allies fought against the forces of Germany, Italy, Japan, and their allies.23
As American soldiers prepared to fight overseas, the U.S. government asked its citizens at home to sacrifice in support of the war effort. In January, the First Presidency announced that Church organizations like the Relief Society should cancel all stake conventions in Canada, Mexico, and the United States to reduce expenses and save fuel.24
For this reason, Amy was recording her message rather than delivering it in person. Originally, she and other Relief Society leaders expected to throw a grand centennial celebration in March 1942, the anniversary of the first Relief Society in Nauvoo. The Relief Society had also planned to hold a three-day conference in April, sponsor nine performances of a pageant called Woman’s Century of Light, and host a concert of fifteen hundred “singing mothers” in the Tabernacle.25
After those events had been called off, the Relief Society general board encouraged individual wards and branches to hold their own small gatherings and consider planting a “centennial tree” as a way to commemorate the occasion instead.26
The board had also decided to send a twelve-inch phonograph record containing Amy’s words as well as a brief message from President Grant to all Relief Societies in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Although the war made it difficult to send the recordings to women in other nations, the Relief Society planned to send records to them once conditions improved.27
When the time arrived to give her speech, Amy spoke clearly into the microphone. “Even though the shadows of war hang heavy over many lands,” she said, “this hundredth birthday is not forgotten.” She then spoke of the tremendous work of the Relief Society, its history of service and faith, and the challenges of the present day.
“In 1942, as we begin a new Relief Society century,” she said, “we find the world full of tumult and trouble. It is evident that people everywhere will have to make sacrifices—sacrifices the like and extent of which many have never dreamed.”
“In these trying times Relief Society women will not be found wanting,” she continued, “and they will never doubt but that finally knowledge and peace will triumph over ignorance and war.”28
After finishing her speech, Amy was grateful she was able to communicate with women who lived thousands of miles away—women who could not have attended the conferences and pageants in Salt Lake City, even in peacetime.
Amy had expected 1942 to be a year of Churchwide rejoicing for the Relief Society. Instead, it was sure to be a year of sacrifice, suffering, and the acceptance of new responsibilities. Still, as her message went out to the women of the Relief Society, she urged them to trust in the Lord and labor in His cause.
“Let us this day rededicate ourselves to our own special work and mission,” she said, “and to the advancement of the gospel of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.”29
Meanwhile, in Tilsit, Germany, twenty-one-year-old Helga Meiszus supported the war effort by delivering streusel cakes to soldiers and visiting wounded men on Sundays between her Church meetings. One day, while visiting a nearby hospital, she met a wounded Latter-day Saint soldier named Gerhard Birth. Soon she was receiving letter after letter from him.
Although they had met only once, Gerhard invited Helga to come to his hometown and spend Christmas with his family. At first, she did not think she should accept the invitation. Then her brother Siegfried, who worked with her at a local eyeglasses shop, changed her mind. “They are members of the Church, and they invited you,” he said. “Why don’t you?”30
So Helga went and enjoyed getting acquainted with Gerhard and his large family. The young man was clearly in love with her, but she did not see their relationship developing into something more.31 Faced with war and an uncertain future, young people often rushed into marriage. If Helga did the same, she and Gerhard would likely have little time together before he was sent back to the front. And the war was not going well for Germany. Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, but a few weeks before Christmas, the Soviet army and a harsh Russian winter had repelled the Nazis at Moscow.32
Soon after Helga returned to Tilsit, she received a letter from Gerhard, this time proposing marriage. She wrote back, laughing off his proposal. But in his next letter, he assured her of his sincerity. “Let’s be engaged,” he wrote.
Helga was reluctant at first, but she eventually accepted his offer. She liked and admired Gerhard. He was the oldest of eleven children and was devoted to his parents and the Church. He also had a fine education, plenty of ambition, and an excellent singing voice. She could see them sharing a good life together.
One Sunday a short time later, Helga returned home from a Church meeting to find a telegram from Gerhard in her mailbox. He had been called back to the front, and his train would be passing through Tilsit, of all places, on its way to the Soviet Union. Gerhard wanted to meet her at the train station and then get married in town.
The thought of going alone to the station to meet a soldier embarrassed Helga, so she asked a friend named Waltraut to go with her. On the appointed day, they found Gerhard at the station with a group of soldiers. He seemed happy to see her, but she greeted him with a simple handshake. Helga then turned to Waltraut, perhaps hoping she would ease the awkward reunion, but Waltraut had disappeared, leaving them alone.
Gerhard received permission to remain in Tilsit a few days while his unit headed off to the front. On February 11, 1942, he and Helga went to the courthouse to get married. It was cold but beautiful outside, and as they walked, they could hear the snow crunching beneath their feet. At the courthouse, family members and friends from the branch joined them for the ceremony.
The following Sunday, Gerhard sang a solo at church. The Tilsit Branch was much smaller now that many of the men had been drafted into service. Helga’s own father had been drafted soon after the invasion of Poland, though he had since come home. Her brother Siegfried was old enough to fight, though, and soon her brother Henry would be as well.
As Helga listened to Gerhard sing, she was moved. “Life’s pleasures soon will pass away,” the words of the hymn reminded the small branch. “Its joys at best are only few.”
After the meeting, Helga took her husband to the train station, and they said goodbye. Gerhard wrote her almost every day for a month and a half. Then, a few weeks after his letters stopped, she received the news that he had been killed in action.33
That April, President J. Reuben Clark stood before a small general conference audience in the Assembly Hall at Temple Square. Because of travel restrictions, only general authorities and stake presidencies attended the meeting in person. Saints who lived in Utah and the surrounding area could listen on the radio, while those who lived farther away had to wait for the talks to be published and distributed in the Church’s conference report. Saints who lived in some war-torn nations, meanwhile, would have no access to the talks at all. Still, President Clark felt that his message, delivered on behalf of the First Presidency, should speak directly to all Latter-day Saints, no matter where they lived.
“In the present war, righteous men of the Church in both camps have died, some with great heroism, for their own country’s sake,” he declared.34 His son-in-law Mervyn Bennion was one who had lost his life during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor just four months earlier. President Clark loved Mervyn like one of his own children, and his death had shaken him deeply. But as difficult as Mervyn’s death had been, President Clark had been consoled by the Spirit in his grief, and he knew he could not succumb to feelings of anger, malice, or revenge.35
“Woe will be the part of those who plant hate in the hearts of the youth and of the people,” he said. “Hate is born of Satan; love is the offspring of God. We must drive out hate from our hearts, every one of us, and permit it not again to enter.”
He then quoted from section 98 of the Doctrine and Covenants: “Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace.” Strife between nations should be settled peacefully, he declared. “The Church is and must be against war.”36
The conflict had caused heartache and suffering in the lives of Saints around the world and impeded the Church’s growth. The Saints in Europe and the missionaries who served among them had spent the two decades since the last war spreading the gospel and building up the Church. Now many branches were struggling to stay together.
The Saints in the United States struggled as well, though not to the same degree. Government rationing of gasoline and rubber restricted how often the Saints could meet together. All men between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four had to register for military service. Soon far fewer young people were available for missionary service, and Church leaders limited full-time missionary work to North and South America and the Hawaiian Islands.37
As much as the First Presidency opposed war, they also understood that Latter-day Saints had a duty to defend the countries where they lived. And despite the painful loss of his son-in-law to a sudden enemy attack, President Clark emphasized that Saints on both sides of the war were justified in answering the call of their respective nations.
“This Church is a worldwide Church. Its devoted members are in both camps,” he said. “On each side they believe they are fighting for home, and country, and freedom. On each side, our brethren pray to the same God, in the same name, for victory. Both sides cannot be wholly right; perhaps neither is without wrong.”
“God will work out in His own due time and in His own sovereign way the justice and right of the conflict,” he declared. “God is at the helm.”38