An album from the German-Austrian Mission

An exciting development in German-speaking Latter-day Saint History

Late last year I purchased what seemed to be a very ordinary photograph album from eBay. I was wrong, so wrong. Filled with 100 photographs, the album is a relic of late 1920s and early 1930s pre-war Germany. In many ways it is a time capsule depicting built environments and individuals, families, and groups before the horrors of Nazism, Fascism, and a global war would shatter everything.

But this is where, as a historian of minority groups, things get even more interesting for me. This album was put together by a Latter-day Saint who documented social activities, trips, missionaries, leaders, and conferences during the 1930s. There are some identified individuals and families, labelled buildings, and group trips with captions and dates.

This album, however, is so much more significant and global than just “a German photo album.” Identification of each individual - matching them up to membership and genealogical records - is going to take some time, but I will share a few initial findings here.

Whose album was it?

I was unable to source any details regarding the provenance of the album, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t clues as to who kept the album. Most photographs are of missionaries, groups, and buildings from around Berlin in a narrow period of time: 1928, and April 1931-July 1932. There are also some from Chemnitz featuring Arthur Geath and a couple of others from around the period taken elsewhere and seemingly presented to the owner of the album.

My hypothesis right now is that the album was kept by a young German sister missionary who served a mission in the mission office in the early 1930s, possibly for a short time. The photographs from this period are largely of missionary gatherings, missionaries, and the mission president and family. There is one sister missionary who appears frequently, but I will say more about her another time.

The album was purchased in Germany which indicates it was likely owned by a German Latter-day Saint who had no living Latter-day Saint descendants as it is difficult for me to see how any children would have let such a treasure go out of the family.

Missionarsversammlung

The first photograph in the album is a black-and-white photograph of a group of missionaries. On the reverse is a stamp indicating the photograph was printed at Fritz Klinke, which was a photography business in Berlin. Fritz Klinke or one of his associates may have taken the photograph, but it is at least where it was printed. Each photograph is held in place with corner anchors allowing it to be easily removed and re-inserted. The album pages are made of thick black card with thin acid-free pages in between.

There is a caption under the photograph written in white ink: Missionarsversammlung in Berlin Anflang August 1932. My online translator informs me that it says: “Missionary meeting in Berlin at the beginning of August 1932.” Of course, I wanted and needed to know more about this event.

After some searching, I found that the Der Stern, the German equivalent of the Millennial Star, featured the photograph in its issue printed on 1st September 1932.¹ The caption in the Der Stern issue was as follows:

Missionaries of the Berlin district and the surrounding districts in a missionary meeting on July 26, 1932. In the middle of the first row president Oliver Budge and president John M. Widtsoe with their wives.

There was a slight difference in the dates listed in the album (August 1932) and in Der Stern (26 July 1932), which would suggest the album was compiled at some later time, or at least not at the moment of occurrence.

In the same issue of Der Stern, I parsed the text looking for the dates and names of Oliver Budge and John Widtsoe. I was in luck, a short write-up was provided. With my trusty translator, I made out the following:

On July 26, a missionary meeting was held for the missionaries of the Berlin and surrounding districts at the Berlin Center Church, where President Widstoe and wife and President Budge gave important teachings. The meetings were concluded with a testimony meeting, in which the fifty-four unpaid missionaries gave their testimonies and which will be unforgettable for all participants.

As expected there were 54 people in the photograph including the Widtsoes and Budges. The missionary meeting where the photograph was taken was one of a series of public and private meetings held in conjunction with Elder John A. Widtsoe, a Latter-day Saint Apostle, who was touring European missions. Oliver Budge had been president of the German-Austrian Mission since 1930.

At the time Berlin was in the German-Austrian Mission. Not only was Oliver Budge the president of that mission, but I have been able to confirm it is that mission by identifying several missionaries in the above photograph with other existing photographs.

Ultimately, I was confident in my conclusion as it was the right place, right people, and right time. I could not find the photograph online so I will now be able to tag missionaries and allow descendants of the missionaries to see another photograph of their relative. I don’t know why, exactly, but I find this to be one of the most satisfying and rewarding parts of my historical research. It might be because I like ensuring records are not lost and I would love to have someone do something like this for me.

Anyway, the search continues! This is just 1 of the 100 photographs in the album so join me over the following months as I try to unpick the who, what, where, and when of this album.

1. Der Stern, Vol. 62, No. 17 (1932), p. 267.