80 years ago today - Feb 5, 1942

LDS teenager, Helmuth Heubner, Rudi Wobbe, and Karl-Heinze Schnibbe is arrested in Hamburg for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. Ten days later Heubner's branch president (who had once put a sign saying "Jews not allowed to enter" over the chapel door and also allowed broadcasts of Hitler to be part of church services) writes "Excommunicated" on Heubner's records. Seventeen-year-old Heubner, the "ringleader" is beheaded by the Nazis on Oct 27. His membership is later reinstated and his excommunication is termed a "mistake." Two teenage co-conspirators of Heubner, Rudi Wobbe and Karl-Heinze Schnibbe are both sent to labor camps. They both emigrate to the United States after the war. On Jan 8, 1985, Heubner's sixtieth birthday, they return to Hamburg where they, are treated as heros by the government of Hamburg. They place a wreath at the site of Heubner's execution. Says Wobbe, "After forty years, to come back to a city that had actually put us away in concentration camps and prisons ... now to be honored and taken around as guests of the city with the members of the government . . . it was surprising-even a bit uncomfortable."