Mormon Nazis: New book uncovers LDS support for the Third Reich

Religionnews.com ^ | Feb. 19. 2015 | Jana Riess

[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.

[Elsie]

I'm, not sure what the word means anymore in the classical sense.

Well; the classics NEVER change.

[Elsie]

Ain’t peein’ on an electric fence FUN!!

[Elsie]

That is the same information I have. The reason behind my interest is that my Brother in law is a Dane who's father was German. At the time his mother went to school in Jutland which is Danish territory, but was forced to speak German.

UB; Got any pertinent info you'd like to share?

[Elsie]

Gosh it just doent get any better than that!

Then there is the Illinois ones...

[Elsie]

I tend to ignore his posts, they are a constant drug beat against all things Mormons.

Yeah; stuff like this does tend to irritate the more tolerant among us...

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[laplata]

I should have noted both nutts and nuts.

[greyfoxx39]

Ping

[ravenwolf]

I believe it is common knowledge that the Mormons have always been for the establishment of the home land for the Jews, in fact there is a lot of speculation of the Mormons being direct descendants of the Jews.

While this geology thing seemed to be started by the Mormons it has spread to other denominations as well and I have kin that happen to be Christian and not Mormon who will flat deny being a descendent of Israel.

I also have Mormon kin who acknowledge being descendants of a tribe of Israel.

However if this story had of been made known in the fifties it would probably have caused quite a stir, but printing it at a time when over half of the Christian population except for Mormons voted for a communist whose goal it is to put America in a third world category??????

[StormPrepper]

Well... if were going to talk about history.



hmmm don't think those are Mormons to the right of Joseph Goebbels.

99% of all Germans in 1930's identified as "Christian". 54% were Lutheran and 33% Catholic. Rest were Methodist, etc..

Some years ago I met a German emigrant who had been a Col of tanks in WW2 in the German army. I can imagine him standing in a Tiger tank. He later converted and became a Latter-day Saint. Unfortunately, he refused to talk about his experiences in the war.

[ravenwolf]

I think Colofornian is a closet Mormon with a weird complex. Or nutts.

---

This should not be about Colofornian.

[ravenwolf]

Well... if were going to talk about history.

---

Yeah, you just had to spoil a good discussion by bringing up facts.

[laplata]

Whatever.

[Colofornian]

...printing it at a time when over half of the Christian population except for Mormons voted for a communist whose goal it is to put America in a third world category??????

Say what?

(Not sure where your source of info on the above is...)

Per: How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis

* Protestant & "other Christians" voted Romney's way 57-42% -- and they alone were 53% of the electorate makeup!!!
(Of course, "Evangelicals" are included among these 53% ...they were 23% of the electorate & voted vs. Obama 79-20%)
Catholics were 25% of the electorate and voted 50-48% Obama...

So...you're saying that because 12.5% of the electorate (who happened to be Catholic)...
...and another 22.3% of the electorate (who happened to be Protestant)...
...voted for Obama (and please note, btw, that almost 40% of this group were black Protestant voters)...
...that this combined 34.8% of the electorate somehow equaled "over half of the Christian population"???

What?

We know that almost 44% of the electorate were Protestants & Catholics who voted for Romney!

So if you lined up 11 voters...3 would be "Christian" obama voters...vs. 4 who were "Christian" Romney voters...

The rest, %-wise were:
* 12% of electorate...religiously unaffiliated
* 7% of electorate..."other faiths"
* 2% Jewish...

So over 1 in 5 voters were one of these 3 groups...and they voted for Obama collectively by over 3-to-1 ratio. (About 1 of every 8 voters was one of these...almost 1 in 3 of the Obama voters...if you throw in black voters, these 4 groups were 1 in 4 of the overall voters...and about 1 of 2 of Obama voters)
* And then 3% were Catholic or Protestant who didn't vote for either Obama or Romney.

[svcw]

Yep

[svcw]

True
morons where on the ground in Germany and supported him till the end

[svcw]

This is about morons in Germany who supported hitler till the end.

[svcw]

This is the religion forum, it would seem if you are bothered with the threads you would avoid this forum

[CommerceComet]

No one around in 1938 could have imagined what the future held for the Nazis so I tend not to worry about who did or did not approve of Hitler prior to the war.

Mein Kampf was published in 1925. Pretty big red flags there that would have to be ignored to support Hitler. It might be more that the supporters were naive and not partners in evil but they were fools nonetheless.

[Tailback]

He (my brother in law) doesn’t seem to want to talk about his father. I got into a political discussion with him about our federal reserve monetizing debt and I compared it to the Weimar Republic prior to WWII. He had no idea what the Weimar Republic was and, when I informed him, his hackles really got raised. There’s some deep seated issues there, but I really like him, he’s been married to my sister for over 25 years now and treats her like a princess.