This time of year, it’s hard to avoid the monsters.
They’re in store windows, front yards, and TV commercials. Parents shield little eyes from the gory stuff, or explain patiently that the scary faces aren’t real—they’re just masks.
“It’s all pretend,” we tell them.
But the older I get, the more I think about the monsters that are real—the ones that don’t need masks or makeup. The ones that wear uniforms, write laws, or persecute truth.
Seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener knew monsters like that.
He was just a boy living under the Nazi regime when he started to notice that the propaganda around him didn’t match what was really happening. He tuned in to forbidden Allied broadcasts, typed up what he learned, and spread those leaflets by hand, often stuffing them in pockets of passers-by, or stacking them in phone booths.
He was determined to help others see the truth.
He knew what it could cost him, but he did it anyway.
When the Gestapo caught him, they charged him with high treason. At his trial, he faced a panel of men three times his age. Before his execution, he told them:
“Now I must die, even though I have committed no crime. So now it’s my turn, but your turn will come.”
He was seventeen years old. They beheaded him.
When I visited the site of his execution last year, I couldn’t help but think of my own kids. What it would take for a teenager to summon that kind of courage—to stand alone in the face of a machine built to crush him, and to tell the truth anyway.
Helmuth’s is the kind of story that changes you.
It’s why we included it in The Tuttle Twins Guide to Courageous Heroes. Our kids need to understand that courage isn’t the absence of fear, and that even one voice can make a difference.
Now, thanks to our friends at Angel Studios (the same studio that produces Tuttle Twins TV) Helmuth’s story is reaching a whole new audience. Their new movie, Truth & Treason, is in theaters now, and it tells his story with the kind of power and reverence it deserves.
I’ve seen it, and it is excellent.
If you’d like to introduce your kids to Helmuth’s story before seeing the film, or if they’re still a little young for it, you can read to them from Courageous Heroes, and watch our Tuttle Twins TV episode about him here.
It’s important for kids to learn that what Helmuth faced didn’t start with war or violence. It didn’t start with firing squads and concentration camps. It started with fear, with lies, and with everyday people who stayed quiet because speaking out was scary.
That’s why we do what we do; it’s why these stories matter so much.
Right now, we’re running a pretty big sale on our best-loved resources. You can click here to shop it now.
This time of year, we tell our kids that monsters aren’t real, and sure, there’s nothing scary hiding under the bed or lurking in the closet, but history proves they actually are.
Helmuth Hübener met them face to face.
— Connor
