Mormonism in Germany

The first German speaking converts to the Mormon Church joined in England.  German immigrants to England were converted during the lifetime of the Prophet Joseph Smith in the London and later moved to Nauvoo, Illinois where they established their own German-speaking Mormon congregation.  Some even helped Joseph Smith learn German so that he could read Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, which, Joseph later remarked, was the best translation he had read.  The first Germans to join were Jakob Zundel and Alexander Nejbauer.  Nejbauer, also spelled Neibauer, later wrote down notes on a speech given by Joseph Smith and that text remains one of the earliest written accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the first written down by someone other than Joseph Smith himself.

In 1840, Brigham Young, later second Prophet and President of the Mormon Church, who was then Mission President of the British Mission, sent James Howard to the German speaking lands.  At that time there was of course no Germany, but rather 31 independent states ruled by various princes.  He had no success and returned to England shortly thereafter.  The next year, in 1841, Orson Hyde, one of the original Apostles arrived in Germany on a missionary tour through Europe.  Gifted with languages, he spent 9 months preaching in Germany and published a pamphlet about the Book of Mormon and modern prophets, “Ein Ruf Aus Der Wüste.”  His preaching created quite a stir and received attention in the German newspapers, but few listened to the message.  However, in 1843, one convert Johann Greenig organized a group of Mormons in his home in Darmstadt, the first Mormon Church meeting in Germany.  Greenig was a native of Stockstadt on the Rhine and had joined the Mormon Church while in the United States, returning in 1843 as a Mormon missionary.  Pressure from the government closed the small branch quickly and in 1844 Greenig and the other Mormons in Darmstadt moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, then the headquarters of the Mormon Church.

In 1851, elder George Dykes, who had been preaching in Denmark, baptized the first German converts to Mormonism to join in Germany in Schleswig-Holstein.  Dykes traveled to London where he met with Apostle John Taylor, who later became third president of the Church, and in October 1851, they returned to Germany and preached the Gospel in Hamburg.  Other missionaries preaching in Italy, Denmark, and France had preached in some of the bordering German speaking territories and found a few converts.  In mid 1852, the first Mission of the Mormon Church was established in Hamburg with Daniel Carn (some histories list it a Garn) as President.  Taylor, who was from England, already knew French, German, and Italian and so in 1852, he translated the Book of Mormon into German and began publishing a German language newspaper, Zions Panier.  In 1852, Dykes and many other Mormons were expelled, but in Hamburg the Mormons remained.  By August of 1853, the first congregation (called a Zweig), was established in Hamburg with a couple dozen members.  Carn even miraculously healed a few persons but by mid 1853 he was arrested and imprisoned.  Another congregation was organized in 1852 in Schlesvig, Germany by Hans Jensen from Denmark.  Over the next two years 128 people were baptized, but the missionaries were repeatedly arrested by German officials as they traveled throughout Hamburg, Prussia, Saxony, and Württemberg.  In 1853, Daniel Carn was expelled from Hamburg, though other Mormon missionaries continued working there.  Carn moved to Mecklenburg-Shwerin and baptized 25 people.  That same year the first organized emigration of Mormons left Germany on August 13, 1853 bound for America.  Most of those who had left previously had been forcibly expelled.  Even though by 1854  hundred had been baptized into the Mormon Church in Germany, most had left and by late 1854 most Mormon missionaries had been arrest and imprisoned and their tracts and publications had been confiscated leaving only 69 Mormons in all of Germany in four cities: Hamburg, Boizenburg, Schlesvig, and Flensburg.

For such a small group, they made many enemies and much hate literature was published.  225 miles from Hamburg, in the East German city of Dresden, a school teacher named Karl Gottfried Mäser (later changed to Maeser when he emigrated) read some anti-Mormon hate literature which was circulating throughout Germany.  Intrigued by what could bring out such hatred, Maesar wrote and requested that some Mormon missionaries visit him.  After corresponding with Elder John Van Cott in Copenhagen, Elder William Budge and Mormon Apostle Franklin D. Richards visited him and baptized him in October 1855 and he organized the first Mormon congregation in Dresden that winter.  Richards, who did not speak German and Maeser, who at the time spoke no English, miraculously were able to speak to one another without a translator.  Maeser was so impressed that he became convinced he had joined the true church.  He was not only the first in eastern Germany to join the Mormon Church, but also the first member of German aristocracy to join the Mormon Church.  Maeser was born on January 16, 1828 Meissen, Saxony.  He attended the Friedrichstadt Schullehrerseminar in Dresden and graduated with high honors in May 1848.  He became a school teacher in Dresden and a private tutor to wealthy families in Bohemia (Bayern).  In 1854, he married Anne Mieth, the daughter of his school’s director (see BYU news to learn about Maeser’s chalkboard which still exists with some of his own writings at BYU).

In 1854 and 1855, all Mormon missionaries and Mormon converts were expelled from Hamburg and the surrounding regions.  In 1855, Karl Maeser also left Dresden with his family, but preached along the way.  It took him to years to arrive in Utah, because he was so enthusiastic about the restored Gospel that he first went to London and taught German immigrant workers there, where he organized a German speaking congregation in London and was appointed to preside over all of Scotland for a year.  He earned his passage and traveled to America where he worked in Philadelphia to earn money and preached throughout Philadelphia and Virginia.  In Utah, Maeser once again became a school teacher and continued to work with German converts who had arrived in Utah.  He organized some of the first schools in Salt Lake City and was a private tutor for Brigham Young’s children.  Later he was the organist for the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  From 1867 to 1870 he returned to Germany and Switzerland where he preached throughout the German speaking lands and for a time was Mission President.  During his time in Germany 600 Germans joined the Church and a congregation was established at Karlsruhe, but because of persecution most immigrated to Utah.  Maeser also translated many Mormon hymns into German and wrote some of his own which still appear in the German hymnal of the Mormon Church (HLT Gesangbuch).  Even after German unified, persecution was severe under the Kaisers and Mormon missionaries were routinely expelled.  However, the Mormons did manage to publish a periodical called Der Stern which started in 1869.  It has been published continuously since then except during World War II.  During World War I all copies of Der Stern being shipped to German-speaking Mormons in England and America were confiscated by the Allied powers who believed they were German propaganda.  In 1967, the magazine was brought under the control of the Church’s magazine program in Salt Lake City and printed some articles that appeared in the Ensign, the official English language magazine, as well as articles just for Germans.  In 2000, the name of the magazine was changed to Liahona.  While most Germans who joined the Mormon Church quickly left for America, significant groups remained in small pockets and continued to print Der Stern.

When Maeser returned to Utah in 1870, he became a teacher at the University of Deseret (now University of Utah).  In 1876, Brigham Young asked Maeser to go take over the struggling Brigham Young Academy in Provo and make it into a worthy school.  At the time, there were only 29 students, some of whom could only read at an elementary level.  President Brigham Young counseled him “not to teach even the alphabet or the multiplication tables without the Spirit of God.”  For the next few years Maeser served as teacher, principal, chorister, organist, fund raiser, and janitor.  By the time he retired in 1892, the school had several hundred of students, several departments and became the leading school in the territory, eventually changing its name to Brigham Young University.  The historic Maeser building on BYU campus honors him.  After leaving BYU, Maeser oversaw all Church schools and later earned an honorary Doctorate of Letters.  In 1898 he published a book on education called School and Fireside.  He died in 1901. 

From the 1870s to early 1900s, missionary work was very slow in Germany.  In fact, the German Mission had been closed in 1861 and incorporated into the Swiss-Italian Mission because intense persecution in Germany made it difficult to establish a permanent presence.  In 1897, with Germany united and more freedom of religion established in Germany, the German Mission of the Mormon Church was re-established with districts (similar to Mormon stakes, but smaller) organized in Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, and Stuttgart. By 1910 there were 60 small congregations throughout Germany and German speaking Switzerland with only 1,028 Mormons.  During World War I, Mormons fought on opposing armies for the first time and for many it was struggle.  75 German Mormons died in WWI and 65 British Mormons.  Nevertheless, the Mormons in both countries continued to live the Gospel as best as they could.  Some Germans even joined the Church during the war.  Gustav Weller was an ace pilot for the German air force.  After an accident he went home to Chemnitz, Germany where his sister, recently converted to the Mormon Church took him to Church.  He was immediately baptized and after recovering he worked for a flight school in Schneidemühl, Germany where he personally converted and baptized dozens of families.  He later moved to Utah where he founded a bookstore which is still owned by the Weller family in Salt Lake City.  Today it is called Sam Weller Bookstore and is recognized as one of the best bookstores in Utah.

During the harsh times which Germany faced in the 1920s under the Weimar Republic, the Mormon Church grew exponentially and for a time, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland led the Church in convert baptisms.  By 1930 there were over 11,000 Mormons in those countries.  This was aided as the Church and the members of the Church in France and Belgium purchased truckloads of food and delivered it to the needy Mormons in Germany.  By 1924 the first official Mormon chapel was built in Hamburg (prior to that time they had met in houses or rented buildings).  That same year 2,000 people joined the Mormon Church in Germany.  Also at this time, Mormon missionaries in Brazil and Argentina had their greatest success among German immigrants, including Wilhelm Spöt in Sao Paulo who became one the greatest leaders of the Mormon Church in Brazil and later President of the Sao Paulo Temple. 

In the 1930s the Nazis rose to power in Germany, and for a time, the Mormons in
Germany remained cautious, but still participated in the civic life of Germany.  Mormon missionaries were even asked to help coach German basketball players in preparation for the 1936 Olympics to be held in Germany.  More unfortunately, the Nazis seized Mormon genealogical records to help them determine who had Jewish ancestry.  Mormonism teaches that God deserves our highest loyalty, but also encourages its members to be active in their communities and to seek to do good in them.  A few Mormons joined the Nazi party, though the vast majority did not, and the few Mormons who did join were only low ranking officers.  A few rumors have circulated that Mormons colluded with the Nazis or that the Nazis based their youth programs on the Mormon youth programs.  None of these are true, but because Mormons tried to be good citizens, the Mormon Church was the only “foreign” church allowed to continue meeting regularly and publicly during the Third Reich.  With 12,000 Mormons living under Nazi rule, it was inevitable that there should be problems, but over all the Mormons’ reactions to the Nazis paralleled that of most other groups.

By the mid 1930s more and more freedoms were taken away and the Mormons and the Church leadership in America became more alarmed.  The Church’s youth programs and children’s programs were suspended by the Government and Mormon youth were required to join the Hitler Youth.  All references to Zion and Israel, which occur frequently in Mormon scriptures and hymns, were banned.  Most Mormons had their homes searched and any book that mentioned Israel was confiscated.  In 1937 President Heber J. Grant, the Prophet and President of the Mormon Church visited Germany.  He reassured the Mormons that they should remain in Germany and build up the Church there.  He promised them safety if they lived righteously.  Because of missionary success, Germany was divided into two missions during this visit, West Germany and East Germany headquartered in Frankfurt and Berlin respectively.  He also told the members that would have to learn to be independent and that they would have to bear much of the responsibility for the missionary work.  In August of 1939, only one week before Hitler invaded Poland, all 150 foreign missionaries were withdrawn from Germany and the members took over all the work.  Joseph Fielding Smith, an Apostle and future President of the Church prophesied that all Mormon missionaries would escape Poland and Czechoslovakia without injury and that the war would not start until they were all out.  The last Mormon missionaries left Eastern Europe on August 31, 1939.  Hitler’s army invaded Poland the very next day.  There are many stories of miraculous escapes and rescues as the Mormon missionaries fled from the oncoming Nazi Army.

During World War II, only the Lutheran, Catholic, and Mormon Churches were allowed to remain open, although meetings of the Mormon Church were watched by SS officers and the Gestapo routinely interrogated all Mormon leaders.  In desperation, the Mormons in Germany quoted the Twelfth Article of Faith which says that Mormons seek to be loyal citizens.  Tens of thousands of Mormons were drawn into this conflict on every side of the war.  The Church was affected worldwide, but the Prophet, Heber J. Grant, counseled the members to help one another in enduring the conflict and to stick together.  Mormons in Germany for the most part remained safe, though some died as soldiers in the war.  One incident in Munich (München), however, caused a great stir. 

Helmuth Hübener was born on January 8, 1925 in Hamburg.  His grandparents and parents had been members of the Mormon Church.  He was raised in the Church and was a Boy Scout until the Nazis disband it and forced every young person to join the Hitler Youth.  He hated the Hitler Youth, but was forced to attend.  In the late 1930s, he was appalled by the treatment of the Jews, even among members of the Church who, for fear of their lives, barred people of Jewish descent from attending Church services.  This appalled him and he openly opposed such behavior.  Hübener finished middle school in 1941 and started his apprenticeship at the Hamburg Sozialbehörde.  While there, some friends introduced him to radios and he began listening to the BBC.  An incredibly bright and capable boy, Hübener and two friends from Church, Rudolf Wobbe and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe listened to the BBC and began translating the broadcasts and composing anti-Nazi leaflets.  The leaflets specifically attacked Hitler, Goebbel, and other high ranking officials.  He attacked the war and pointed out the brainwashing effects of the Hitler Youth.  They went through Hamburg at night delivering the pamphlets into mail boxes, pinning them on walls or leaving them in public places.  Altogether they printed 60 different pamphlets attacking the Nazis.  In February 1942, while only 17 years old, he was arrested by the Gestapo while translating his pamphlets into French to give to prisoners of war.  On August 11, 1942, he was tried before the Volksgerichtshof in Berlin.  He was beheaded on October 27 at Ploetzensee prison, the youngest person ever tried and executed by the Nazis.  Schnibbe and Wobbe were arrested and imprisoned. 

Hübener’s family and even the arresting officer had begged for mercy, but the court ruled that Hübener had proven himself to be as intelligent as an adult and capable of much harm.  Today in Hamburg a youth center and street are named after him.  Wobbe and Schnibbe were eventually freed from the prison camps by the Allied soldiers.  Schnibbe is still alive and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The members of Hübener’s congregation in Hamburg feared for their own lives as the Gestapo investigated them all.  In an effort to save their lives, the local Bishop excommunicated Hübener and disavowed his actions.  This spared the lives of the members; however, since Church policy says that no member can be excommunicated without being present, the ruling was overturned after Hübener’s death.  While it might be easy to criticize the actions of the members of his congregation for lacking bravery in standing up with the brave Hübener, it is important to remember that they had families and children to protect.  It would have been noble to stand up to the atrocities occurring, but they can hardly be blamed for seeking to save their families.  Today, Hübener is honored as one of the greatest Mormons in Germany history, honored by Mormons and non-Mormons alike.  Books and documentaries have been made about his life and numerous things have been named in his honor.

Other Mormons in Germany faced difficulties, too.  One Mormon officer, Walter Krause, refused to execute prisoners of war, an act he viewed as murder.  Faced with military discipline, a friendly senior officer who respected Krause helped him get reassigned to be the company chef, a demotion.  He accepted.  45 Million peopled died in World War II world wide, but miraculously only 600 of the more than 12,000 German Mormons died and virtually all of those casualties came during the bombing of Hamburg by Allied planes in 1943.  However, more than 600 joined the Church during the war and so the Mormon Church actually grew in Germany during World War II.  Heber J. Grant’s prophesy had come true. 

After the war, even though few Mormons had died, virtually all had suffered and lost much.  The chaos that followed the war was in some cases more difficult than the war itself.  Throughout the 1940s, however, President Grant had urged the Mormons in America to stockpile food, blankets, clothing, and other necessities to give to Europe after the war.  Almost as soon as the armistice was signed Apostle Ezra Taft Benson was sent to Europe to oversee the Church there and to assist rebuilding.  The Mormons in Holland collected 60 tons of potatoes and sent them to the Mormons in German.  The U.S. military provided boats to ship over the tons of food, clothing, blankets, and medical equipment that the Church had collected during the war.  By 1947, Mormon missionaries had returned to Germany, but the Russians forbade any foreigner from entering East Germany or East Berlin.  For the next few decades, the several thousand Mormons in East German would be virtually cut off from the rest of the Church, but most remained faithful.  During the initial years of reconstruction, Mormon military personal from America and Britain spent their free time helping German Mormons rebuild their homes and chapels and through their efforts, baptisms increased dramatically following the War.  Ezra Taft Benson even got permission to visit German speaking Mormons in western Poland.  Perhaps the most unusual contribution of a Mormon to the reconstruction effort came when the Russians shut off West Berlin.  During the Berlin Airlift (Luftbrücke), Colonel Gail Halvorsen from Utah became one of the pilots.  He delivered tons of food to the East Germans, but soon noticed that the little children had no candy.  He began bringing chocolate and chewing gum with him on every journey.  To announce which plane was his, he would rock the wings back and forth and then drop candy.  He became known as the Schokoladen Flieger or the Candy Bomber. 

Over the next several years, the Church continued to grow steadily.  In 1954 the Church received the status of legally recognized society (as Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts).  In 1961 stakes (similar to Archdioceses) were created in Berlin, Stuttgart, and Hamburg.  More and more German youth began serving as Mormon missionaries both in other parts of German speaking Europe and throughout the world.  In 1955, the first Mormon Temple in Europe was built in Bern, Switzerland which allowed German speaking Mormons to visit their own temple.  It was the first time that English was not the primary language spoken in the temple.  Gordon B. Hinckley, then an employee of the Church Media department, and current President of the Mormon Church, helped oversee the building and helped design the various things necessary to allow the temple to operate in multiple languages.  It was the first temple to have headphones and videos to help present the ceremonies.  Along with the dedication ceremony the Mormon Tabernacle Choir toured Europe and even performed in Berlin with special permission by the Russian Government.  More chapels were also built at this time throughout Germany.  In fact, the first Mormon chapel built in Europe after World War II was built in Berlin-Dahlem in the 1950s.  Other Mormons in Germany who had been forced to meet in rented school houses or restaurants got their chapels.  Virtually every congregation had one by 1959.

During this time, the Mormons of Germany began to mature in the Gospel and in their leadership skills.  Many members of the Quorum of the Seventy have come from Germany.  The most prominent have been F. Enzio Busche from Dortmund, who owns Busche Printing, the largest offset printing firm in Germany, and Dieter F. Uchtdorf from Zwickau Germany (though he was born in Ostrava in the Sudetenland of the Czech Republic).  He was a pilot for Lufthansa and has since become the first German Apostle in the Mormon Church.

East Germany had a different history.  As West Germany grew and Mormon missionaries continued to preach with the result that the membership in West Germany nearly tripled in the following decades, in East Germany, however, 3,500 Mormons had been trapped behind the Iron Curtain after World War II.  They were permitted to worship, but had little contact with members either in America or West Germany nor could they leave to attend the Temple in Bern.  In 1969 at a special conference of the Church held in Görlitz, Elder Thomas S. Monson of the Quorum of the Twelve prophesied that if the East German Mormons remained faithful, they would have the temple blessings.  In 1975, the Mormon Church began having local members serve as missionaries and the Church grew and a few foreign missionaries were permitted, the only Church permitted to do so.  In 1982 a stake was organized in Freiberg and a second was organized in Leipzig in 1984. Most miraculous, however, was the building of the Freiberg Mormon Temple.  Since Mormons could not leave the Soviet Block to attend the Temple in Bern, Thomas S. Monson worked with East German officials.  Their hearts were softened and the Temple was built in 1985.  In fact, the Freiberg temple was even easier to build than the Frankfurt Temple in West Germany.  90,000 people toured the Freiberg Temple before it was dedicated which represented 20 times more than the number of Mormons in East Germany. 

When the wall fell in 1989, German Mormons were among those celebrating the freedom of meeting long lost friends.  Immediately missionaries were sent back in full force to East Germany.  Already in the spring of 1989 as East Germany began to loosen visa requirement, the Church organized the Germany Dresden Mission and sent in about 20 missionaries.  Strict rules required that they not preach in public nor go door to door, but the missionary work of the members meant that by the end of the year 669 people joined the Church.  As Germany reunited in 1990, it became the first country besides the United States to have two Mormon temples. 

In the last 20 years the Church in Germany as matured and though baptism have not been at the pace they were in the 1920’s, 1930s and 1950s, Germany has continued to grow.  Today there are nearly 37,000 Mormons with 184 congregations and 158 Mormon chapels and two temples in the Bundesrepublik.  The headquarters for the Mormon Church’s European operations are now established in Frankfurt am Main near the Frankfurt Temple.  German Mormons are noted for their dedication and hard work and returning missionaries from German remark that when a German commits to the Church, it is for them a serious commitment and few fall away.  German congregations of the Mormon Church have developed their own traditions over the years including numerous theatrical and musical groups some of which have toured through Germany and had exchanges with Mormon choirs and dance groups from BYU.  German Mormons are noted for their commitment to humanitarian causes.  In 2002, European Mormons, including Germans raised 110,000 Euro for the German Red Cross to aid the victims of a volcanic eruption in Zaire.  More recently, the German Mormons have raised $635,000 dollars worth of food, water pumps, sanitation equipment, blankets, and clothing to aid the victims of flooding in Europe. 

In 2002, two Mormon girls from Germany, Sabine Ruckauer and Stephanie Wartosch played Hockey for Germany in the Salt Lake City Olympics and became a mild sensation in Germany because they were the first Mormons to become national sports stars.   A flurry of articles, some positive and some negative, followed in the major German newspapers like Der Spiegel, Die Welt, and Die Zeit.  In 2003, a Museum in Kornwestheim held an exhibit on the German Mormons of the 1840 and 50s who immigrated to America.  The exhibit focused on Karl G. Maeser since he became the founder of the largest private University in the United States, BYU.  Mormons also helped sponsor the 2004 exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Germany.  In 2005, Germans celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Temple in Bern and the 20th anniversary of a temple in Germany.  Mormons in Germany have been active over the last decade in helping Germany organize its records, especially genealogical records.  Since Dieter F. Uchtdorf became an Apostle of the Mormon Church, he has met numerous times with high German officials, including the Chancellor and has helped move the work of the Church forward. 

Today Mormons in Germany are no longer forced to flee nor risk being thrown in jail for their beliefs and tens of thousands have joined the Church knowing it to be the true Church of Jesus Christ.  However, there is still much criticism and condescension directed at Mormons in Germany because as the country has grown less religious and more secular, Mormons both in Germany and in America have stood out as standing against that secularizing trend and for many non-religious Germans this is a best quaint and old fashioned, but others compare Mormons to religious extremists like Al-Qaeda and many books and pamphlets and websites are produced in German attacking Mormons.  German Mormons, however, have continued to grow in faith and have increased in numbers.  Germany has also been important in Mormon history. It has had the longest running magazine in the Mormon Church (Der Stern), and has produced some of the greatest leaders of Mormonism like Maeser, Weller, Spöt, and Uchtdorf.  German Mormons have also had an impact on Germany history through their service, charity, and their willingness to do what is right. 

 

See also:
Scharffs, Gilbert. Mormonism in Germany: A History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany between 1840 and 1970. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1970.

Links to check out:
The official website of the Mormon Church in Germany
Literature about the Mormon Church (in German)
To find a chapel near you in Germany