What Happen to People Who Spoke Agains Hitler

Sixteen-year-former Helmuth Hübener couldn't believe his ears. Every bit he crouched in a closet in Hamburg, secretly listening to his blood brother's forbidden curt-moving ridge radio, the voice of the BBC announcer painted a moving-picture show of Nazi Germany that was dramatically different from the 1 he had been told to believe.

When Hitler and Nazi officials went on the radio to talk to Germans similar Hübener, they spoke of impending victory and praised the greatness of their country. Simply the Frg the BBC described—and the progress of the war its reporters tracked—sounded like it was on the brink of disaster.

Equally he listened to that forbidden radio broadcast in 1941, Hübener decided to tell his fellow Germans the truth almost Nazi Germany. Within months he would be expressionless—the youngest-e'er victim of the Tertiary Reich's infamous People'south Court.

Hübener's short life was shaped by the ascent of fascism in Germany. The Nazis changed well-nigh every facet of everyday life for Germans, and the male child was no exception. A devoted Boy Scout, he was forced to get part of the Hitler Youth, the youth arm of the Nazi Party, when the Nazis banned the organization in 1935.

Germany's immature fascists receive famous salute during a mass march in Berlin, 1934. (Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)

None of this saturday well with Hübener, and in 1938, when he was 13 years one-time, he quit the Hitler Youth when they participated in Kristallnacht, a dark of terror during which Nazi sympathizers destroyed synagogues, fix fire to Jewish holding and attacked Jews.

He was disturbed by other changes, too. A fellow member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-twenty-four hour period Saints, he watched as the leader of his church joined the Nazi Political party and the congregation became increasingly supportive of the Third Reich. Information technology was a common move for Mormon churches in Germany and occupied countries, equally many congregations worried they might exist persecuted by the Nazis, as well.

These events upset him, and the teenager began to question the Nazis' hatred of Jews and the Third Reich's growing control of German society. As he became older and started working equally a trainee in social assistants, Hübener realized that others had the same doubts. Then he began listening to forbidden radio broadcasts and became convinced that the regime was not just racist and manipulative, but was losing the war.

Hübener's actions were extremely risky. Radio had helped the Nazis rise to power by spreading their messages to a mass audience. One time the Third Reich took over Germany, they began to use the radio to control the population. They flooded the airwaves with propaganda broadcasts, spreading false reports of glorious victories and bright prospects where there were none.

Plaque for Helmut Hubener. (Credit: Hinnerk11/Wikimedia Commons/CC Past-SA four.0)

Information technology was forbidden to listen to any non-authorities radio transmissions, like the BBC'south multi-linguistic communication broadcasts. Nonetheless, many Germans disobeyed. For people like Hübener, radio from other countries was the just way to acquire the truth nearly the war.

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Hübener decided to spread these facts to people who didn't dare listen to the outlawed broadcasts. With the help of three friends, he wrote, printed and distributed up to threescore pamphlets that included information from the BBC and called on Germans to resist Hitler. They stuck the pamphlets in coat pockets, left them in phone booths, and pinned them to bulletin boards.

Co-ordinate to High german propaganda, the Pearl Harbor assault had destroyed the United States' ability to fight a war in Europe. Hübener provided details to the reverse, assuring Germans that rumors of American military weakness were lies. He disputed official accounts of the war on the Eastern forepart, besides, revealing that despite Germany'southward insistence that battles in Russia had been won, they were still raging weeks after propaganda reports that victory had already been achieved.

Hübener's pamphlets countered the Nazi message of victory in battle. They also fought dorsum against Nazi propaganda that encouraged all Germans to support a war attempt that was not just justified, but certain to succeed.

Roland Freisler, the President of the 'National Socialist People's Court' (Volksgerichtshof). Here he is reading out the verdict against the eight suspects of the assassination try on Hitler, the so-called July Plot, at the court in Berlin, 1944. (Credit: DPA/Picture-Alliance/AP Images)

"The Führer has promised yous that 1942 will be decisive and this time he will finish at nothing to go along his promise," he wrote in 1 pamphlet. "He volition transport you by the thousands into the fires in gild to stop the crime he started. By the thousands your wives and children will become widows and orphans. And for nil!"

For months, Hübener spread the give-and-take about lost battles and Nazi lies. Simply in February 1942, a coworker who saw him writing the pamphlets turned him in to Nazi officials. He was arrested and tried before the Volksgerichtshof, or People's Court, a Nazi-controlled tribunal that dealt with matters of treason.

Hübener and his friends were imprisoned in Berlin's Plötzensee Prison along with other political prisoners. The prison house was notorious for its harsh treatment of prisoners and as a site of endless summary executions. For ten weeks, the boys were tortured and intimidated as they awaited trial. When the Nazi head of Hübener'southward congregation plant out about the arrest, he excommunicated the boy from the Mormon Church.

Finally, the trial arrived. Hübener, who was just 17 years one-time, was tried equally an adult. Rather than argue for his release, the male child instead confronted the judges well-nigh the Nazi regime and the war. When a judge asked him if he actually thought Frg would lose the war, he asked, "Don't you lot?" His friends subsequently told family members that they idea Hübener was purposely baiting the judges so they'd give the other boys less severe sentences.

Memorial in the execution room at Ploetzensee Prison house, Berlin, Germnay. (Credit: Siegfried Grassegger/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock)

That's exactly what happened. His friends were sentenced to imprisonment in labor camps, but Helmuth Hübener was convicted of conspiracy to commit high treason and treasonous furthering of the enemy's causes and sentenced to death by beheading. Because his crime was considered and so serious, Hübener's sentence gave the Nazis legal justification for both his execution equally a pocket-size and the torture he had already withstood.

When asked if he had anything to say before his sentencing, Hübener confronted the judges again. "I have to die now for no criminal offense at all," he said. "Your plough is next!"

On October 27, 1942, guards told Hübener that Adolf Hitler had personally refused to commute his death judgement. Hours later, he was beheaded—the youngest person ever executed by the Third Reich.

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Source: https://www.history.com/news/meet-the-youngest-person-executed-for-defying-the-nazis

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