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Göttingen Branch
Roger P. Minert, “ Göttingen Branch, Hanover District,” in Under the Gun: West German and Austrian Latter-day Saints in World War II (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 200.
Famous for its outstanding university, the city of Göttingen lies near the southern border of the old kingdom of Hanover, approximately one hundred miles south of the city of Hanover. The railroad from Hanover to Frankfurt connected the two cities and made it easy for members of the Church in Göttingen to attend district conferences in Hanover.
One of the smallest branches in Germany when the war began in 1939, Göttingen had a single elder, and most of the members were older women. According to the mission directory of August 1939, the only meeting held in the branch was Sunday School, which took place at 10:00 a.m. [1] The location of the meeting hall was Schildweg 5 in a Hinterhaus. The term “cottage meeting” was used, suggesting that the address was that of a member of the branch.
| Göttingen Branch [2] | 1939 |
| Elders | 1 |
| Priests | 0 |
| Teachers | 0 |
| Deacons | 1 |
| Other Adult Males | 4 |
| Adult Females | 11 |
| Male Children | 0 |
| Female Children | 1 |
| Total | 18 |
The branch president, Bruno Regenscheit, is the only person named among the leaders of the Göttingen Branch. Nothing else is known about this small group of Latter-day Saints as of this writing because no eyewitnesses or documents can be located.
No members of the Göttingen Branch are known to have died in World War II.
Notes
[1] West German Mission manuscript history, CHL MS 1004 2.
[2] Presiding Bishopric, “Financial, Statistical, and Historical Reports of Wards, Stakes, and Missions, 1884–1955,” 257, CHL CR 4 12.
