75 years ago today - May 16, 1936

Dr. Max Haenle, a German non-Mormon, who visited Utah in the late twenties and became a friend of Anthony W. Ivins, speaks to a District Conference in Dresden on "Utah, Land of the Mormons." DER STERN reportes Haenle made "comparisons ... throughout the whole lecture between the Mormon state founded 86 years ago by Brigham Young in Utah and Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. . . . In its political productivity, its organization forms, and its unswerving successes in the various areas of governmental, social, and communal life," Haenle proclaimed, "Utah bears a really striking similarity to our Germany of today. Here as well as there, the unshakable faith in and willingness to die for their Fuhrer [respective leaders] is the foundation and prerequisite for all further development."

[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]