From reports compiled in the years before World War II, quite a lot is known about the membership of the Church in the two German missions. The missions were similar in population and in geographical size (see map above). No stakes of Zion had been established in Europe by 1939, thus the Saints were organized in districts and branches. Each German Mission had thirteen districts; each district included from three to eleven branches. The largest district in either mission was Berlin (East German Mission) with ten branches and 1,270 members. The smallest district was Hindenburg (East German Mission) with only four branches and sixty-five members.

The average size of a branch in the Church in Germany in 1939 was slightly more than one hundred members. Each branch had a presidency, clerks and secretaries, a Sunday School, a priesthood group, a Relief Society, a Primary organization, and youth groups. Each district had a presidency, with clerks and leaders for each of the auxiliaries. Districts also had genealogical specialists, choir leaders, and in some cases, recreational specialists.

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German Latter-day Saints as Citizens under Hitler

Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party officially (and legally) came to power in January 1933. In August 1934, German president Paul von Hindenburg died, and Hitler combined the offices of chancellor and president. By 1935, he had outlawed the Communist Party and neutralized all other political parties, which gave him control of the parliament (Reichstag). He also won the loyalty of the German military by strengthening the army and the navy and establishing an air force—all in contradiction to the Treaty of Versailles, which had severely restricted the German military following World War I.

In Hitler’s Third Reich, Latter-day Saints in Germany and Austria (annexed by Germany on March 12, 1938) were expected to be model citizens like all other Germans. In other words, Saints were to be Germans first and to have no secondary allegiance. Nazi Party programs were developed for every member of society old enough to say “Heil Hitler!” By 1936, everybody was encouraged—and some strongly pressured—to join the corresponding Nazi organization; there were distinct groups for men (Sturmabteiling), women (Frauenbund), boys (Hitlerjugend), girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel), athletes (Sportbund), truck drivers (Kraftfahrerkorps), teachers (Lehrerbund), and so on. Each group had its own uniform and insignia; to belong to none of them was to invite negative attention. Nevertheless, many adult Latter-day Saints were able to slip by without associating with the party, often by making excuses about spending their free time in some kind of humanitarian service or by working overtime.

The two prevailing faiths—Catholic and Protestant—comprised more than 95 percent of the German population in that era. Many smaller churches also existed in Germany, but apparently were not large enough to warrant concern on the part of the government or the party; Latter-day Saints fell into this category. The two major churches were too powerful to be successfully attacked by the Nazi Party, while the smaller ones (commonly called Sekten, ‘sects’) were disregarded by both the government and the common people. The small number of Latter-day Saints in the Third Reich (just over thirteen thousand among a population of eighty million) may have been an advantage in this regard, because Church units were never large enough to attract attention. Indeed, in many cases, their meeting rooms were often located in buildings behind the main structure at that location (Hinterhäuser). Signs identifying the existence of the Church were usually small and unobtrusive. One usually had to be an insider to know that the Church existed in a given town or city.

One of the most visible ways in which a citizen could perform his or her civic duties was in the military. Perhaps as many as 1,800 Latter-day Saints in Germany and Austria performed active military service between 1939 and 1945 (but few ever volunteered). Many more served in reserve units, including hundreds who had served in the German army during World War I. There was no option of civil (non-military) service in Hitler’s philosophy, and the concept of the conscientious objector was unknown.

Community service was expected and commonly rendered by citizens in Nazi Germany, and LDS Church members were consistent and often willing participants. They collected old winter clothing for soldiers at the front, fed the homeless in soup kitchens, hurried to fight fires and rescue buried victims after air raids, and took refugees into their homes when no other housing was to be found. Of course, those functions were carried out by Germans of all religious persuasions who simply believed in helping because it was the right (patriotic) thing to do (or feared that non-participation might lead to the conclusion that they did not support the effort).

In a negative sense, being a good citizen in the Third Reich also included assisting the government in identifying and apprehending those persons who were considered enemies of the state, such as criminals, traitors, spies, and malcontents—but principally Jews. Several eyewitnesses interviewed in connection with this history remembered scenes of destruction after the “Night of Broken Glass” (Reichskristallnacht, November 9–10, 1938), when organized Nazis raided Jewish stores and invaded Jewish homes. Some eyewitnesses later saw Jewish neighbors and friends being taken away in trucks, but—like most Germans of the day—had no idea what terrible treatment awaited those Jews under the secret German program termed the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” (the murder of European Jews). Several Latter-day Saints decided for one reason or another that obedience to Hitler and his state was not required of a good member of the Church. Several died in concentration camps and several more spent time there.