Posted on 03/05/2015 4:44:32 PM PST by Colofornian
David Conley Nelson has spent years researching the LDS Church during the Third Reich, resulting in the new book Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany.
Though it’s not officially out until February 26, the book will be launched Sam Weller’s in Trolley Square, Salt Lake City, tomorrow evening.
It’s not right to say I “enjoyed” this book, because it was disturbing to discover how deeply some Mormons bought into Nazi ideology. But it’s required reading for anyone interested in Mormon history and the larger question of a religion’s responsibility to procure justice for the oppressed – even when it means putting that religion’s own institutional advancement at risk. — JKR
RNS: You note in the book that Mormons in the 1930s were not just tolerant of Hitler but downright enthusiastic about his policies, including things like getting rid of brothels and passing laws against homosexuality. Why were Mormons such strong supporters of Nazism?
David Conley Nelson: Ordinary Mormons were ordinary Germans. Hitler was very popular, so they supported the government. There’s nothing unusual about that. But also, the LDS mission presidents recognized the vulnerability that an American-led church had under this dictatorship, and they put together a program to formalize the church’s support of the government. By doing so, they resurrected the 12th Article of Faith, which the Mormons had not obeyed before during their history of missions in Germany. Between 1851 and 1918, Mormons had been banned in a lot of the German states, so to get around that they would register as English teachers, students, or commercial developers instead of as missionaries.
So in the 1930s the mission presidents formulated this program to keep the church safe, but then found opportunities that were too good to pass up, especially in genealogy. In the past they had been banned from German archives because pastors did not want their records used to baptize the dead as Mormons. But during the Reich, suddenly all these ordinary Germans had to prove their ancestors were not Jews, so the Church’s genealogy program experienced newfound freedom. By the time Nazi Germany was in full swing, just about every branch had a genealogical president, two counselors, and a secretary.
The shocking thing is that there seemed to be very little sensitivity to the racial reasons for genealogical research. Newspaper articles would appear in the Deseret News, bragging about how much success the Church was having in Germany with the new government. The same newspaper was also running AP articles about the plight of the Jews. So the Church knew what was going on in Germany, but emphasized cooperating with the Third Reich.
RNS: One of the sadder stories in the book is of LDS First Counselor J. Reuben Clark, whose anti-Semitism seems to have been off the charts. Even after the war, he was still handing out copies of the anti-Semitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Nelson: Mike Quinn says it best: J. Reuben Clark was an anti-Semite, but it was an anti-Semitism fueled by the xenophobia and nativism of the Progressive Era. Through his legal and business work Clark had the conflicting view that Jews were Communists on the one hand, but that they also embraced capitalism and were cheating in their businesses. I’ve seen no evidence that he changed his mind about Jews after the war.
RNS: In the final portion of the book you lay out the case of teenage activist Helmut Hübener, one of the few Mormons who opposed the Third Reich (and was ultimately executed for it). Was Hübener motivated by a desire to save the Jews?
Nelson: No. I have not found in the writings any evidence of his being philosemitic or ever denouncing what was happening to the Jews. Although Hübener can be considered an idealist, I think he saw the Jewish question as one where he could never persuade people. So many Germans were in agreement with Hitler about the Jews that he would have instantly lost his credibility with his German audience. I don’t think he was anti-Semitic, but he was pragmatic.
Hübener was motivated more by what he saw as Hitler’s influence coming into his own branch, the St. Georg branch in Hamburg, where the branch president and first counselor were Nazi enthusiasts and others were members of the SA and SS.
RNS: It seems plausible that after WWII, Mormon leaders would want to be seen as embracing Hübener’s story, but you note in the book that the Church actually suppressed a play and other writings about Hübener until the 1990s.
Nelson: Hübener is what I call the consummate memory beacon. He was someone whose story could be brightened or dimmed according to what was needed at the time after the war.
When the play originally happened at BYU in the tumultuous 1970s, there were some sensitivities. Some within the LDS hierarchy worried that Hübener’s story would motivate young Mormons in South America to rebel against their own governments.
Also, there was sensitivity at home. Some 4,000 German Mormons had emigrated after the war. Most of those people had suffered in the war, but some of them were perpetrators whose hands were dirty. Many didn’t like the Hübener story, because they embraced the 12th Article of Faith as justification for what they had done in the war: Good Latter-day Saints help the government and trust in God. They saw Hübener as a traitor.
“And when the Nazis took over Belgium they began to make use of John Browning’s designs against the Allies.”
Exactly which designs are you referring to?
L
Indeed...the discussion wasn't so much focused on the 1940s...like when Bonhoeffer's more forward opposition led to his arrest...the discussion was more circa 1938 & before that.
Thanks for that history, very interesting.
Yes, Himmler encouraged SS and officers abroad to produce Aryan children; she was a product of a union that was encouraged by that very program.
I was addressing the other poster’s comments that Himmler’s Aryan propogation program was not widespread or successful. It bore fruit, and the women involved, after the war, often had their heads shaved and sent their children away to be raised by others.
To my knowledge, your information is correct, I just tied in the Reich’s policy on the topic. So we are clear, she was not the child of a brothel worker.
Yes. If people would actually read the article I posted and assume it's all "anti" Mormon, they would read that Hubner is mentioned prominently in the article.
Wasn't a need to link to info I already posted, was there?
But, interesting anecdotal info on your grandfather.
Thank you for sharing...and we appreciate his role on behalf of the FBI.
Well I guess I should clarify. Was her father a SS officer?
The Germans obviously viewed occupied Norway as Aryan territory along with Denmark. In fact the 5th SS Panzerdivision Wiking was made up of Danish and Norwegian “volunteers”.
Hübener's story is in the 2003 documentary Truth & Conviction. In the extras on the DVD you can read original copies of some of his pamphlets in German with the English translation)
Nelson's Dissertation was to show Mormon support for the Nazi's and he earned his PhD, so he has demonstrated he is smart. But I wonder why he didn't use original documents (like Hubener's pamphlets). In historical research it is considered best to go to the original sources.
Grandpa has a great story and “take” on that time in history. Would make for an interesting book. Thanks for sharing!
Browning hi-power and other old FN Browning designs. I used to have a nazi marked 1922 .32 ACP Browning.
Also, then Polish RADOM used Browning’s slide to barrel lockup. Also made by the Nazis.
I do not know the answer to that question; my information was that she and her mother were initially told he was dead. They were told this as after he evacuated by boat, the boat he was supposedly on was hit and sunk. It turned out later that he was not on the particular boat he was thought to have been, and was still alive. I do not know if they met after this discovery, as he died within a relatively short time after this discovery was made. I don’t have “hard and fast” evidence on this, but it comes from a reasonably knowledgeable source.
When I was a teen I had a crush on her. And later I found I had some interesting sources that coincidentally knew these things.
There were many Catholic priests who were supportive of the Nazi’s.
The big issue was that the majority of the Protestants in Germany belonged to the State Church. The pastors were paid employees of the state. Bonhoeffer and others left and created a “confessing” church, and many others who were in Free Churches (not state supported) had little love of the Nazi’s.
What is interesting is that so few of the lay members of any confession stood up, while many of the front line soldiers in the regular army tried to kill Hitler numerous times. Many reported that after they beat the Russians, they wanted to invade Berlin. My source for the above was the book “The Order of the Death’s Head, The Story of Hitler’s SS” by Heinz Hohne.
It also detailed why the Waffen SS had some many famous last stands. The regular army would send them in first, then pull back (they had no love for the SS).
“I used to have a nazi marked 1922 .32 ACP Browning.”
I wasn’t aware the Nazis were in power in 1922.
L
Brownings were made from the early 1900s until around 1980s. When the Nazis took over the FN factory that made lots of Browning’s firearms, they continued to make them for the Nazi armies.
The smaller ones were banned in the USA because of the 1968 Gun Control Law against smaller foreign made pistols. The Hi-Power is still available.
I was told that children orphaned during the earlier campaigns in the eastern areas of Europe (excluding the USSR) were basically kidnapped and taken to Germany proper — if they fit a certain profile. This happened roughly from 1938 to 1945. These kids were re-educated and had to learn and speak German. In many cases they remained where they were and did not reunite with their biological families after the war.
Having to speak German, in their case, was just a small part of it. They do not know who they really are (biologically and culturally).
There is a bizarre story in Germany of a woman (who was of half African, half German descent, and she was a looker) who discovered her German parentage: from the Reich’s hierarchy. I believe a UK tv channel has part of story.
There is also a youtube video of Himmler’s niece speaking about being related to such a person. She seems ordinary in every sense.
No she wasn't. Himler's "Lebensborn" eugenics project was converted into orphanages for children stolen from Eastern Europe. Bastard children of SS officers - and there were a lot of those - also wound up in these orphanages. Frida wasn't one of those however. Her mother had sex with a German seargent in exchange for a sack of potatoes. After the war her mother took her to Sweden. Frida was never in a Lebensborn home.
As for Ernst Rohm, yes he was a poofter. If an official from the Regan administration were outed as one would you say the Republican party wasn't an advocate of family values? The Nazi's preached good standard moral practices and enforced them on the general public. That doesn't mean you can't find plenty of examples of immoral behavior. They were men after all.
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