The Dresden Branch was divided in about 1942 to become the Altstadt Branch and the Neustadt Branch. Because no membership figures are available for branches of the East German Mission after 1939, there is no way to know the membership of each branch at the time of the division. The total membership in the Dresden Branch when the war began was about 365.

Siegfried Dietze (born 1930) lived with his family in a northern suburb of Dresden. He recalled some difficulties with the National Socialists before the war:

My father was persecuted by the Nazis in 1936 for doing business with the Jews, and I had to be removed from school because it was not safe, or so the teacher said. Once I was pushed into a swimming pool and almost drowned because the kids were told that I was a Jew friend, . . . so we had to move. And we actually moved to a place called Friedewald, which is just slightly outside the city of Dresden.[1]

Siegfried’s sister, Erica (born 1924), later provided more detail about the problems her father experienced in his store:

One day, my mother found a notice in the local newspaper, telling people to not go to my father’s store because he was a friend to Jews. My father dealt with Jews because he got the best products from them. [The Nazis] were against us because of that. But it turned out that we had more business after that than before.[2]

During the war, Brother Dietze criticized Hitler within the walls of their own home. Erica recalled him saying, “How can we win this war when we have the whole world against us? That Hitler, he’s crazy!”

The fact that Latter-day Saints were still active missionaries in wartime is evident from the story of the conversion of the Burde family of Dresden Neustadt. As daughter Margot Burde (born 1931) explained:

We lived in a large apartment house, and there were three families living in one apartment. And there was a soldier by the name of Heinz Bürger who gave my father the Book of Mormon. [Heinz] was a member of the Dresden Branch. . . . My father was always interested in the truth, and he wanted to learn about it more. And also my mother. They were very religious people. So on October 18, 1941, my parents and I were baptized in the Elbe River. It was freezing cold. There were huge big cracks in the ice. I remember I slipped. . . . But, when I came out, I remember to this day how warm it felt. It was such a peaceful feeling, such a spiritual feeling.[3]

The Neustadt Branch met in rooms at Königsbrückerstrasse 93. Margot Burde provided the following description:

There was a front building, and then it went down a little way, and there was one house in the middle, like a garden house. . . . We had one large room and that was the chapel and one room in the front. So we had two rooms, that little room was more like where Relief Society people met, and the priesthood holders, and the Primary, which we had during the week. There may have been thirty people in church on a typical Sunday—maybe more, counting the children.

“There was a sign out front showing the name of the Church and the times of the meetings,” recalled Edith Schade (born 1919). “The rooms we used were previously a carpentry shop.”[4]

The branch observed the traditional meeting schedule, with Sunday School in the morning and sacrament meeting in the evening. During the week, they met for Relief Society, Primary, MIA, and priesthood meetings. As Margot recalled, “We had old sisters teaching us in Primary on Wednesday afternoons. We loved them. We had fun times, even during the war.”

At the age of ten, Margot and her schoolmates were inducted into the Jungvolk. They learned knitting and crocheting and sang lots of songs, especially patriotic songs. She was glad that the Monday meetings did not prevent her from attending church.

Richard Burde was an artist, a painter. Nevertheless, in Hitler’s Germany, Brother Burde was valued more as an infantry soldier. In France, Belgium, and Russia, he was fortunate to never fire his rifle at the enemy. However, he was away from his family almost constantly from the time he was drafted in 1940 to the spring of 1945.

The Neustadt Branch in 1940 (K. Bartsch)

The Burde family lived at Königsbrückerstrasse 41, just three blocks up from the Church. Margot spent her playtime with other girls of the branch, either at their homes or in church, “which was our second home anyway,” she explained.

At the age of twelve, Siegfried Dietze was baptized by Karl Wöhe, the branch president, on August 29, 1943. “I was baptized in the Elbe River at six o’clock in the morning because we were not supposed to do anything in public,” he later explained. His father was not very active in the Church, so Siegfried often walked to church alone, a trip that took him an hour and a half in one direction. “I stayed there all day long on Sunday. . . . [Between meetings] many of us young people would talk together, walk together, read together, and enjoy our friendship.”

Harald Schade (born 1930) recalled that in the last year of the war, he was the only deacon available to pass the sacrament, and Karl Wöhe was the only elder attending meetings. Brother Wöhe worked for a newspaper and was on duty on Sundays now and then. He resorted to inviting inactive brothers to help out in his absence. Harald described the situation in these words:

To get help, the branch president brought back inactive older men, usually elders, who could help us bless and pass the sacrament when our president had to work. One of them could not read anymore, so I knelt with him and read the prayer, and he recited it after me.[5]

During the war, Edith Schade developed excellent skills in typing and also became experienced in genealogical research. She assisted families in the branch and conducted research in Church offices in the vicinity. She later recalled that on several occasions, she walked all the way to the town of Nössige (twelve miles to the west). “I remember walking two hours. . . . The branch was astonished that I took the time on my Sunday to go and help them.”[6]

At the age of fourteen, Margot Burde was called to be a teacher for the six- to eight-year-old children. At first, she was disappointed to leave the class of her girlfriends, but she soon fell in love with her new calling:

We had a lot of polkas and sang songs, and we did not have any visual aids like in America when you’re teaching your Primary. No pictures, nothing. We just taught out of the Bible and out of the Book of Mormon. We had nothing to show. And the children—they just sat so still, they were so disciplined. They never went out to the toilet or went home or anything like that.

The terror of an air raid was still vivid in the mind of Erica Dietze when she gave this account of an attack on her neighborhood in 1944:

There were fifteen of us in the basement. The bombs were already falling, and my dad said, “Everybody on the floor lengthwise! Open your mouth, because if a bomb hits us our lungs will rupture, and we’ll be dead right away!” So we did that, and the bombs fell around us, and the house shook, and all of a sudden the biggest noise you could hear, a bomb fell directly on the house, and the whole house was on fire. And we were in the basement. Dad said, “Everybody up! Quickly!” Then we ran outside and jumped into a bomb crater made a few days earlier. There we waited until the air raid was over. We were safe, and nobody was hurt.

During the Christmas season of 1944, Martha Schade and her children worried about what to do with the Soviet army already on German soil. They packed a wagon and prepared to leave town, but Sister Schade had some last-minute concerns. Edith recalled the discussion:

My mother asked us to pray with her one more time. She then said that Heavenly Father had protected our home so much that he must not want us to leave it behind now. We made the decision to stay and to [maintain] a place of peace and quiet for those who might come seeking help. That is what we did, and it was the right decision.

During the first weeks of 1945, refugees from eastern Germany began to stream into and through Dresden. Edith Schade recalled that some were Latter-day Saints, and the Schade apartment was soon full to overflowing:

We did not invite them, and nobody asked us to take them in, but we did. They were all members—some from Görlitz and others from Bautzen. . . . Right before Dresden was attacked [on February 13], fourteen people slept on our floors. I think most of them stayed for about three weeks.

Many refugees passed the Burde apartment on Königsbrückerstrasse. Margot Burde described them as resembling “pioneers with handcarts. They filled the basement of our building when the air-raid sirens went off that night [February 13]. So many people!”

Just a week prior to the firebombing of Dresden, the residents still felt quite safe, having seen only one instance of bombs dropped on the city prior to that time. They believed that their city was of no military importance, so they must have been surprised to see the streets covered one day with papers dropped from the air with a cynical rhyme in German: “Die Dresdner Zwerge kommen zuletzt in die Särge.” Literally translated, it stated that “The Dresden dwarfs will be the last in the coffins.” Margot Burde and other readers could hardly have imagined what the message would mean just one week later.

The infamous firebombing of Dresden, the “Florence on the Elbe,” began late in the evening of February 13, 1945, and lasted through noon the next day, as described in the Dresden Altstadt chapter. When the attacks began, Harald Schade was staying in the home of an older sister near the northern outskirts of town. He watched from afar as the city was set on fire and later gave this description:

The city burned for at least three to four days. We did not have fire stations anymore, and there were no functional water lines left. Mother had stayed at home, so we went home [in the Neustadt] to find out what had happened to her. We found her in her bed, safe and sound. Our family home was not destroyed, but the air pressure burst the windows.

When the air-raid sirens began to wail on that fateful evening, young Peter Hans (born 1940) was living in Dresden Neustadt with his mother and had a good suggestion for her:

I told my mother that we should kneel down and pray when the alarm went off on February 13, 1945. There was a lady who had told us that we should go into the basement with her. But we decided to go into the army post in Dresden Neustadt. We later saw that her house had been destroyed and that she had been killed. I have never forgotten it.[7]

Edith Schade had just finished assisting the Hubold family with genealogical research in their apartment in the southeastern suburb of Seidnitz when the first attack began. At the very periphery of the bombing area, that neighborhood suffered little damage during the first attack, but was hit hard three hours later. Edith had been trained in firefighting tactics and had heard of firestorms in other cities—where the fires sucked in so much oxygen that a wind was created—but she experienced it now for the first time when she went outside to assess the damage to the building:

There was a hurricane-force wind blowing, and we could hardly stand. We made our way around the house to see if there were any more fires. The place looked like a battlefield. . . . Burning debris was flying through the air. We could not put out any of the ensuing fires because there was no more water, and more and more burning objects were flying through the air and landing everywhere. . . . The fire and the wind became so furious that there was nothing more to do but go back into the apartment building.[8]

At seven o’clock the next morning, Edith Schade set out for home, wondering if her family in the Neustadt had survived. Despite being in very good physical condition, she needed five hours to negotiate the three miles through the rubble of the city. She passed along the eastern edge of the city center then crossed the damaged but still usable Albert Bridge. She had crossed the bridge many times before, but now the task was hazardous:

Wherever I put my feet I felt danger, insecurity, and fear. When I finally had the bridge behind me, I looked down at the once beautiful grassy meadows that had formed the bank of the river. It was indescribable. Human bodies—or were they corpses?—lay everywhere. During the bombing, many people had run for the river—burning [human] phosphorus torches—hoping to save them selves in the water, but fighter planes had repeatedly come low over the river and strafed these helpless people. This was repeated the next day, and there lay the bodies.[9]

Most of the Altstadt was destroyed, and the damaged territory extended north across the river into the Neustadt for about one mile—to within one block of the Burde apartment. When Margot and her mother heard the all-clear sirens and emerged from the basement of their building after the final attack, they were greeted by scenes of horror. The fire and the smoke were so close that they threw water-soaked blankets over their heads to prevent suffocation. Many people were running from the flames and screaming, while a few began frantically to rescue residents trapped in basements.

Even little children can ask questions about the violence of war, as was the case when Peter Hans was near the Elbe River with his mother shortly after the attack:

After the big attack on Dresden, we also saw how German soldiers had jumped into the river Elbe to flee but how low-lying American planes still shot them, and that is how they were killed. I could not understand this as a little child. My mother held me in her arms, and only when I had gotten older did I slowly start to understand. I was so scared.

Siegfried Dietze lived far from the Dresden downtown, but was not spared a close-up experience with the firebombing. He was attending high school in Radebeul at the time, and the principal of his school sent the students downtown “to help the people in Dresden. No direction. No information. Just go help,” he explained. They took the streetcar to the Neustadt, but police prevented them from entering the Altstadt. Siegfried began carrying suitcases for a woman with two children, when the American attack began just after noon on February 14. “We all panicked, and I panicked, and I just dropped the suitcases and ran. I was just barely fourteen years old.”

Siegfried found shelter in a hotel basement but soon felt insecure and ran back out into the street. For a few moments, he stood next to a high retaining wall by a railroad bridge over the river. Just when it seemed that the last bomb had fallen, “something said to me, ‘Run!’ and I ran.” Seconds later, one last bomb fell just above where he had been standing, and rocks rained down on him. His story continued:

I fell down, of course, all of these incendiary bombs kept falling all around me, bombs that explode and started burning. And there were some other people lying around crying, and I didn’t lie there too long, there were no bombs falling. It became a little quiet. I got up and I ran to the overpass behind me, and sure enough there was a little truck there with [the driver] saying, “Let’s get out, let’s get out!” . . . I tell you, the Lord saved me right there.

Although artist Richard Burde never fired his rifle at the enemy, he was close enough to the action on the Eastern Front in January 1945 to be shot in the knee, and he very nearly missed being taken on a hospital train heading back to Germany. He arrived in Dresden in very serious condition just before the firebombing took place. Somehow word came to his wife that he was in a local hospital, and she and Margot hurried to visit him. She described the scene there—as all over town—as sad and chaotic: “So many soldiers were bleeding, and there was crying and screaming. It was awful!”

Because the precise bombing of the Allied airplanes had spared most of the Dresden suburbs, no members of the Neustadt Branch were killed. During that catastrophic air raid, the rooms of the Altstadt Branch at Königsbrückerstrasse 62 were destroyed, and the members of that branch who remained in the city joined with the Neustadt Branch. They held meetings only on Sunday evenings for the next few months. The windows of the rooms at Königsbrückerstrasse 93 were destroyed, and the members sat in cold rooms. Harald Schade recalled watching his sister, Edith, play the pump organ wearing gloves.

Following the firebombing, Harald and his mother lived without gas and electricity for several months. They had to draw their water from a well. Refugees streamed through the city as the war drew to a close. Some were Church members from the east who attended the branch meetings for a while, then moved on when they found places to live.

The devastated city of Dresden offered no resistance to the invading Red Army in the last week of the war, the first week of May 1945. As Harald Schade recalled:

We heard artillery fire far away, then ever closer. One shell landed close to our house, and then suddenly they were there. No Russian soldier came into our house. We had heard about their deeds. We often heard women scream in the neighborhood, but the women in our house were spared. I was not sad when I heard that Hitler had died

Margot Burde was closer to the action the day the Red Army arrived in Dresden. She later wrote that the surviving members of the Church were attending a district conference in a local Lutheran church because the rooms of the Altstadt Branch had been destroyed and those of the Neustadt Branch were filled with refugees:

As we sat together worshipping the Lord, we heard the droning of the Russian tanks and artillery—the so-called “[Stalin] organs.” They were approaching the city, but we went on with our conference. On Monday, May 7^th, the Russians entered Dresden, and we saw some street fighting. . . . My mother and I watched from the window. We saw war going on in front of our eyes, soldiers shooting out of their windows.[10]

“It was May 7, 1945, and we were expecting the Americans to come,” recalled Siegfried Dietze. His story continued:

So I saw some tanks across from us going through a village which was maybe a mile away, and I shouted to my father, “The Americans are coming!” Of course, we didn’t know that this wasn’t the case, but an hour later a Russian soldier comes up to our house just dressed in leather pants and a leather jacket with a pistol in his hand and says, “Schnaps!” So my father gives him some liquor and some meat and puts the white flag out. . . . [There were] twenty-five Russians living in our house, sleeping overnight, raping [women]. . . . [They] took most of our stuff, my father’s car, all of our bikes.

As luck would have it, after the fighting subsided, Soviet soldiers (apparently Mongolians) were parked in front of the door of the Burde apartment. Brother Burde was still in the hospital and therefore could not protect his family. When the soldiers began to loot the homes and attack the women and girls, Sister Burde braided her daughter’s hair in an attempt to make her look substantially younger than her fourteen years. On one occasion, she hid Margot under a bed and was able to convince a soldier that he was mistaken in thinking he had seen another young girl in the building. The terror lasted at least a week and resulted in death for some, as Margot recalled, “Several girls were raped so many times that they died.”

Not all experiences of Latter-day Saints at the hands of the invaders were tense or tragic. Edith Schade told of Soviet efforts to help the residents find food and other assistance. She called their actions “exemplary.” “Most of the officers also spoke German, so we could understand them.” At the same time, Edith and her sister were also realists who avoided walking around alone.

The Dietze store was out of business when the invaders came. The Soviets confiscated their three automobiles and their bicycles. Products were not to be had, so the family ceased business operations for a time. Regarding the thefts committed by the invaders, Erica later explained, “They don’t tell you why, they just feel they are winning the war and everything belongs to them now.”

The personal effects of Werner Dietze were returned to his family in Friedewald in February or March 1945. His parents had written him to report that they survived the terrible attack on Dresden, but the letter apparently arrived too late. He had been awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class on February 5. According to Siegfried, “My parents were totally devastated. Werner was supposed to come home two weeks later, but there was an attack by Russians, and he got shot in the stomach, and he bled to death.”

When she recalled the spiritual condition of the Dresden Latter-day Saints during those perilous times, Margot Burde explained:

Our Heavenly Father saved us and blessed us so much. Our prayers became more intense and our faith became unshakable. We were united in our faith. We as brothers and sisters did a lot of fasting and praying together. . . . We were such strong members of the Church. We were like a family.

Given the terrible carnage of the firebombing of Dresden, it is nothing short of remarkable that not one member of the Dresden Neustadt Branch is known to have died during that fateful night.

In Memoriam

The following members of the Dresden Neustadt Branch did not survive World War II:

Martha Louise Clauss b. Pirna, Dresden, Sachsen 30 Jun or Jul 1868; dau. of Franz Tobias Clauss and Wilhelmine Henriette Schramm; bp. 15 Jun 1934; conf. 15 Jun 1934; m. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 1888, Franz Foerster; 1 child; 2m. Dresden 18 or 28 Dec 1912, Karl Robert Jahn; d. old age Dresden 14 Sep 1943; bur. St. Paul’s Cemetery 18 Sep 1943 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 71; CHL LR 7093 22, 32; IGI)

Gustav Bruno Friedrich Dietrich b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 10 Nov 1863; son of Arno Willibald Toepfer and Auguste Clara Dietrich; bp. 2 Jul 1927; conf. 2 Jul 1927; ord. elder 4 Sep 1932; m. Dresden 8 May 1863, Maria Theresia Kuehnel; m. Dresden 9 Feb or 11 Dec 1900, Minna Kamilla Doering; d. old age Kamenz, Sachsen 21 Oct 1943; bur. Kamenz 25 Oct 1943 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 214; CHL LR 7093 22, 32; IGI)

Werner Martin Dietze b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 5 Jun 1925; son of Max Martin Dietze and Hulda Liddy Bernhardt; bp. 11 Sep 1934; conf. 11 Sep 1934; k. in battle Riga, Latvia 25 Jan 1945 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 229; IGI; PRF; S. Dietze)

Max Hermann Eggert b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 26 Mar 1905; son of Arthur Karl Richard Eggert and Ida Ernestine Luise Steinert; bp. 11 Aug 1940; ord. deacon 25 Dec 1940; m. Dresden 22 Dec 1932, Marie Linda Goehler; 2 children; k. in battle Cadico, Futa Pass, Italy 18 Oct 1944 (IGI)

Ernst Kurt Gerlach b. Meissen, Sachsen 20 Oct 1900; son of Paul Gerlach and Marie Breitsche; bp. 21 May 1912; conf. 21 May 1912; m. 18 Jun 1932, Emma Kasselt; k. in battle 10 Feb 1945 (CHL CR 375 8 2458, 744; IGI)

Hermann Haschke b. Karbitz, Aussig, Böhmen, Austria 10 Jul 1892; son of Franz Haschke and Theresia Patzner; bp. 1 Oct 1929; conf. 1 Oct 1929; m. 31 Mar 1918, Hedwig Schreiner; d. heart attack 27 Mar or May 1941 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 51)

Clara Wilhelmine Hoffmann b. Gelenau, Chemnitz, Sachsen 18 Aug 1859; dau. of Friedrich Christian Hoffmann and Christiana Wilhelmina Spielmann; bp. 8 Oct 1908; conf. 8 Oct 1908; d. old age 18 Mar 1942 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 66; IGI)

Emma Bertha Hornauer b. Belyern b/ Torgau 22 Sep 1883; dau. of Friedrich H. Hornauer and Marie Winkelmann; bp. 1 Sep 1928; conf. 1 Sep 1928; m. 14 May 1937, —— Kunze; d. accidental asphyxiation 16 Jan 1940 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 80) (NG-IGI, AF, PRF)

Christine Eva Huertig b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 31 Oct 1940; dau. of Reinhold Helmuth Huertig and Eva Marianne Schade; d. lung ailment 16 Sep 1941; bur. St. Mark’s Cemetery, Dresden Neustadt, Dresden, Sachsen 20 Sep 1941 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 207; CHL LR 7093 22, 26; IGI)

Anna Bertha Klaus b. Wachau, Radeberg, Dresden, Sachsen 15 Jan 1866; dau. of Friedrich August Klaus and Auguste Emilie Ziegenbalg; bp. 21 Mar 1925; conf. 21 Mar 1925; m. Wachau 16 May 1886, Julius Ernst Grossmann; 1 child; 2m. Radeberg, Dresden, Sachsen 3 Jun 1892, Ernst Phillip; d. old age 4 May 1940 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 116; CHL LR 7093 22 23; IGI; AF)

Alfred Walter Lippmann b. Grosshartmannsdorf, Dresden, Sachsen 26 Oct 1918; son of Emil Hugo Lippmann and Alma Ida Eilenberger; bp. 23 Nov 1927; conf. 23 Nov 1927; k. in battle 8 May 1945 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 95; CHL CR 375 8 2458, 744; CHL 2458, form 42 FP, pt. 37, 744–45; IGI)

Lina Matthes b. Oschatz, Leipzig, Sachsen 20 Dec 1869; dau. of Friedrich Wilhelm Matthes and Amalia Wilhelmine Franziska Wilsdorff; bp. 13 Nov 1925; conf. 13 Nov 1925; d. old age 6 Feb 1944; bur. Anne Cemetery, Dresden, Sachsen 11 Feb 1944 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 99; CHL LR 7093 22, 33)

Gustav Adolf Merk b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 6 Aug 1865; son of Hermann Richard Merk and Louise Ch. Dressler; bp. 2 Oct 1926; conf. 2 Oct 1926; m. 1 Apr 1891, Hedwig Polster; d. old age 4 Apr 1940 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 100)

Johannes Georg Riedel b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 31 Dec 1912; son of Karl A. Riedel and Priska M. Winkler; bp. 31 Oct 1926; conf. 31 Oct 1926; k. in battle 1944 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 130)

Amalie Auguste Zumpe b. Karlsberg, Bautzen, Sachsen 17 May 1859; dau. of Louise Zumpe; bp. 26 Jun 1936; conf. 26 Jun 1936; m.—— Schneider; d. old age 22 May 1944 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 143) (NG-IGI, AF, PRF)

Anna Schwarz b. Grüna, Chemnitz, Sachsen 5 Sep 1868; dau. of Ernst Louis Schwarz and Auguste Vieweger; bp. 22 Aug 1908; conf. 22 Aug 1908; m. 29 Dec 1889, 1 Jun 1931, August Barth; 2 or 8 children; d. old age 11 Nov 1943 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 195; IGI)

Bernhard Paul Simons b. Müllersbach (?), Gummersbach, Rheinland, Preussen 11 Aug 1867; son of Wilhelm Simons and Johanna Schreiber; bp. 16 Jul 1912; conf. 16 Jul 1912; ord. deacon 1 May 1921; m. 16 Mar 1888, Johanna Friederike Schreiber; d. heart attack 20 Sep 1942 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 155; IGI)

Therese Stowwasser b. Zettlitz, Karlsbad, Böhmen, Austria 16 Apr 1888; dau. of Anton Stowwasser and Anna Schwengabier; bp. 3 Aug 1921; conf. 7 Aug 1921; m. 1 Jul 1905, Richard H. H. Trepte; d. heart attack 29 Mar 1941 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 175; IGI)

Karl Emil Straube b. Kleinvoigtsberg, Dresden, Sachsen 11 Apr 1868; son of Karl Johann Straube and Amalie Auguste Naumann; bp. 16 Jul 1904; conf. 16 Jul 1904; ord. deacon 26 Jan 1921; ord. teacher 16 Apr 1922; ord. priest 6 Aug 1922; ord. elder 4 Sep 1932; m. 21 Mar or May 1895, Sophie Laura Elschner; 3 children; d. asthma Dresden Neustadt, Dresden, Sachsen 5 Aug 1941 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 165; IGI)

Judith Ghemela Kulina Ulpts b. Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen 3 May 1932; dau. of Johannes Ulpts and Ghemela E. Strauch; k. in air raid Dresden 13–14 Feb 1945 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 181; IGI)

Priska Meta Winkler b. Großenstein, Sachsen 22 Dec 1880; dau. of Moritz Winkler and Mathilde Schmidt; bp. 20 Nov 1926; conf. 20 Nov 1926; m. 3 Apr 1907, Karl A. Riedel; 1 child; d. lung ailment 19 Mar 1944 (CHL LR 7093 21, no. 129)

Notes

[1] Siegfried Dietze, telephone interview with Jennifer Heckmann, May 5, 2008; unless otherwise noted, transcript or audio version of tape in author’s collection.

[2] Erica Dietze Koch, telephone interview with Jennifer Heckmann, May 7, 2008.

[3] Margot Burde Duennebeil, interview by the author, Salt Lake City, May 4, 2006.

[4] Edith Schade Krause, interview by the author in German, Prenzlau, Germany, August 18, 2006; unless otherwise noted, summarized in English by Judith Sartowski.

[5] Harald Schade, interview by the author in German, Burg Stargard, Germany, June 10, 2007.

[6] It would have taken approximately four hours or more to walk the twelve miles. There is little wonder why the Saints in Nössige were grateful for Edith’s efforts on their behalf. In her description of the frequent walks to church in the Königsbrückerstrasse, she said , “We all had healthy legs from walking so much.”

[7] Peter Hans, interview by the author in German, Planitz, Germany, June 3, 2007.

[8] Edith Schade Krause, “The Dead Need No Water,” in Behind the Iron Curtain: Recollections of Latter-day Saints in East Germany, 1945–1989, ed. Garold N. Davis and Norma S. Davis (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2000), 5.

[9] Ibid., 8.

[10] Margot Burde Dünnebeil, autobiography (unpublished), 2; private collection.