Helmuth Hubener and How to Make a Difference

I can’t make a difference. I’m just one person. A kid, even. There are eight billion people out there. Nobody will ever listen to me. I’m small; I’m insignificant; I’ll never make a difference in this world.

We’ve all heard this before. We’ve probably all thought this ourselves. This world is so big. How can I ever make a difference? The truth is that we get too caught up in what we can’t do instead of focusing on what we can do. Even if you can’t make a huge difference, what’s stopping you from making a small difference? Even if you can’t impact millions of lives, why can’t you change one life? It’s true that there are a lot of people in the world we live in, but the act of changing millions of lives starts with changing one life. Just as the proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Helmuth Hubener

There was once a boy who probably felt at one point that he couldn’t make a difference. His name was Helmuth Hubener. Unlike many people, though, instead of letting his feelings of doubt overcome him, Helmuth conquered them, and he did indeed make a difference. Helmuth was born in Germany in 1925, and throughout his teenage years he witnessed the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich and the events of World War II. However, Helmuth saw these events in a different light from the normal German population because he asked questions and sought out truth. As most Germans were being deceived by their own government, Helmuth set out on a quest to educate his fellowmen on what was really happening and who Hitler and his Nazi Regime really were.

Let us take a step back for a moment. Before Helmuth could educate people on what was happening, he needed to educate himself. How did he do this in a society of secrecy and deceit? First of all, Helmuth made a decision to open up his eyes. He was observant as the Nazi party persecuted the Jews, took over the government, and forced their politics on the German citizens. Helmuth’s brother Gerhard had previously worked for the radio industry, and as a result he had purchased a special shortwave radio that reached past the German radio stations. While his brother was off fighting in the war, Helmuth discovered this radio in his closet and began listening to and learning the truth from British radio stations, such as BBC. 

At this point, listening to shortwave radio was strictly illegal in Germany and considered a type of treason, but Helmuth wasn’t worried about that. Knowing the truth was much more important to him than the risk of being imprisoned or even killed. Helmuth was able to gather information and become educated through many more resources, such as his job at the library. While putting books away, he would sometimes find access to the rooms of forbidden books. With what time he had and a little extra from staying after hours, Helmuth was able to educate himself on a variety of subjects, and this would eventually help him in his attempts to educate others.

The risks of undertaking the project that Helmuth had decided he would commence were tremendous. The consequences ranged from imprisonment and torture to death. Think of all of the odds that were stacked against him. He was just a teenager among millions of Germans. The Nazi Regime threatened his freedom and even his life if he would go through with this project. I’m sure there were many times when Helmuth felt overwhelmed and helpless at the task in front of him, and yet he still pushed through. 

What can we learn from this? We tend to make excuses in the world in which we live. We tend to downplay our true potential and the opportunity that we have to make a difference. In reality, the truth of the matter is that if we simply made the best efforts that we possibly could, we would be that much closer to where we want to go. Too many people focus their efforts on trying to see how far away their goals are instead of actually working to get there. Surely Helmuth Hubener had all odds stacked against him. Nevertheless, he took action. We ought to do the same.

One of the biggest reasons that Helmuth was able to do what he did was his calling in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Helmuth served as a clerk in his ward, and as a result he had access to a typewriter and a mimeograph (copying machine). He used these resources to write and copy flyers to distribute to his German community. This, of course, had to be done in secret, but such a big task would have been very difficult to complete alone. Over the course of a few months, Helmuth recruited his friends Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudi Wobbe in this important work. The three of them would get together as often as they could to listen to BBC radio and write, copy, and distribute flyers in places such as people’s coat pockets, bulletin boards, mailboxes, and everywhere else possible. Helmuth really was making a difference by educating his community.

In the process of trying to expand his project by recruiting more workers and translating his flyers to French, Helmuth was very careful, because he knew the consequences of being caught. Eventually though, because of a simple communication failure on the part of Gerhard Duwer (one of Helmuth’s friends that was helping distribute flyers), the dreaded finally happened. The Gestapo caught the four distributors that were involved, and after months of imprisonment and brutal torture, Helmuth was convicted of treason and sentenced to death; his friends each received prison sentences. Helmuth paid the ultimate price for truth, but he completed the task that he had set out to do: he made a difference. Helmuth may never know the impact that he had on the citizens of Germany. He may never know how many people actually read his flyers and researched the truth for themselves because of it. However, the fact that I can look at his example today and try my best to educate people because of it shows that, even though people may consider him a small and insignificant speck on the timeline of history, Helmuth truly made a difference.

So the only question left for us to answer is this: how can we become like Helmuth Hubener? How can we overcome our circumstances? How can we make a difference in the world without letting anyone convince us that we can’t? The truth is that each of us has the power to make a difference, whether that means changing one life or one billion lives. All we have to do is what we can. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from making a change. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too young, or that there are too many people, or that your capabilities aren’t adequate. You don’t have to be famous to make a difference, and just because you are famous doesn’t mean you are making a difference. Just do everything you can, start small, and let everything else follow, just like Helmuth Hubener did. That is how you change the world.