Truth & Treason: A Review

TRUTH & TREASON

On September 28, 2025, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) worship center was attacked and later burned to the ground. Four congregants died as a result of the attack at Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. In the aftermath of the attack, a most curious trend developed online. Rather than express shock, or horror, or condemnation at the attack, many were condemning the LDS (also known as Mormon) victims and survivors. Of particular note were many in evangelical circles, who decided this was the perfect time to point out that Mormons were not Christians. I mention all this because Truth & Treason centers around a young LDS member during the Nazi era. Even though Truth & Treason is based on a true story, I suspect that many of those same evangelicals will call it "Mormon propaganda". Truth & Treason is a deeply moving film that tells its story with respect.

Hamburg, Germany, 1941. Helmut Hubener (Ewan Horrocks) is a Hitler Youth member, but he spends his time around his LDS friends than the bullies in the HY. His life is pretty much his friends and his LDS church. However, while his focus is primarily about finding work in the local government, Helmut observes some troubling signs. He is displeased with how his local bishop gives the Heil Hitler salute before the service. He is especially angered by how the bishop has installed a "Jews Forbidden to Enter: sign at the church. This clearly excludes LDS member Salomon Schwarz (Nye Occomore), who is a quarter-Jewish. 

Things come to a head when Salomon is taken by the authorities. Helmut, now working at City Hall despite being only 16, is upset to enraged. Helmut also has access to forbidden knowledge at work and home. Part of the archives involve holding the banned literature, such as All Quiet on the Western Front and the works of Shakespeare. Thanks to his brother who came home briefly from the front, Helmut also has a short-wave radio that lets him pick up BBC broadcasts. Filled with a youthful zeal and righteous anger, Helmut starts typing out anti-Nazi messages and surreptitiously posting them about town. He gets his fellow LDS members Rudolph "Rudi" Hobbe (Daf Thomas) and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe (Ferdinand McKay) to help him post them.

The messages soon attract the attention of Nazi official Erwin Mussener (Rupert Evans). He begins a methodical search for who this traitor is, initially thinking that the educated language makes him a college professor. Helmut for his part soon attracts the attention of Elli Kluge (Sylvie Varcoe), who also works at City Hall. They begin a romance, with Elli having only the vaguest of suspicions about Helmut's nighttime actions.

Mussener's thorough, logical investigation eventually yields results. He is shocked to find that the traitor is a 17-year-old boy. Arrested and put under torture, Helmut eventually breaks and names his two compatriots. Put on trial for treason, Helmut speaks truth to power one last time. While Rudi and Karl-Heinz receive prison, Helmut Hubener is sentenced to death by guillotine. 

I am not a man given to emotional displays. No, I did not cry at the end of Truth & Treason.  However, I noticed that others in the audience did. I also noticed that I felt a lump in my throat when we got to the closing credits. Helmut was a courageous young man, shaped by his convictions and his youthful belief that one person can make a difference. This is a credit to Ewan Horrocks' performance as Helmut Hubener.

Horrocks makes Helmut into a man who went from not being involved in things to one filled with fire and passion to do what he thought right, damn the consequences. Horrock does not make Hubener into an innocent or clueless. He shows Helmut's fears, but how Helmut let his beliefs overcome those fears. 

He also shows Helmut's lighter side. This is a young man who is a Felix Mendelsohn freak, totally passionate about the Jewish composer. He notes to Elli on their date that Mendelsohn wrote music specifically for a soprano, but that his music is forbidden now. The Helmut/Elli romance is both endearing on its own merits and a brief respite from the high drama.

Truth & Treason is a showcase for Ewan Horrocks. He gets what all actors love: a dramatic court scene. Here, Helmut's blend of youthful passion and firm conviction let Horrocks speak passionately about the wrongness of the Nazi regime without it coming across as theatrical or grandiose. Earlier in the film, Matt Whitaker and director Ethan Vincent's screenplay had given us an amusing scene of Helmut making up a pro-Nazi speech to win over his interview board which he pretended to have written out when he was actually making it up as he went along. At the trial scene, we see another paper, and instead of reading out the contrition in hopes of leniency, Helmut speaks from his heart.

"The Reich is not afraid of your little leaflets", the judge comments in a mix of fear and dismissiveness. Without missing a beat or batting an eye, Helmut forcefully replies, "Then why are you here?". 

Truth & Treason is well acted overall. McKay, Thomas and Occomore did well as Karl-Heinz, Rudi and Salomon respectively. Occomore and director Vincent did especially well in Salomon's last scene. As unseen Gestapo are pounding at his door demanding to get in, Salomon takes a chair and a book and sits, waiting for them. There is a mix of fear and quiet defiance in Occomore's face. Once the again unseen Gestapo force their way in, the screen fades to black, then returns to see Salomon's room in disarray. Truth & Treason understands a lesson mostly forgotten in Hollywood films: the less that something is shown, the more impactful it is.

Another powerful moment is when Mussenner is ripping Helmut's nails off. We see just the beginning of the torture, then have to rely on Horrocks and Evans' performances to show the horror of what Helmut is enduring. It is a powerful scene, but one where we do not see the brutality. Instead, it is off-screen. That in turn is what I think makes it more frightening.

Rupert Evans does not play a crazed, evil Nazi. His Edwin Mussenner is more a dogged detective, determined to find the culprit. We also get a scene where there is a suggestion that he too doubts, but unlike Helmut won't speak out. He recounts to his wife how when he started at university, he found out from a friend that his first girlfriend was sleeping with his professor and mentor. With apparent regret, he tells his wife that he punched his friend for telling him. His wife, I believe, asks him if he regrets punching the man who told him the truth.

Truth & Treason is subtle enough about the implications of what is being said without saying it out loud. The same can be said when Helmut accidentally drops some government papers, including the distinctive red sheets Helmut has been typing his anti-Nazi leaflets on. Elli runs after him, giving him one that he did not pick up. "Better know which way you're going," she tells him. Again, this statement has a clear double meaning. The characters may or may not know what is being said. The audience, I think, does.

Anyone going into Truth & Treason thinking that this is Mormon propaganda will probably leave disappointed. You do see scenes of Hubener and his friends attending Mormon service. A couple of police officers harassing Salomon and the judge comment on how they are Mormons. The latter even asks what that is, if memory serves correct. We do see Helmut praying near the end and of them singing from their hymnals. However, Mormonism is mostly in the background. No one ever says that they were motivated by Joseph Smith or Brigham Young to take a stand against the Nazi regime.

I do not know if Truth & Treason being released this year was due to 2025 being Helmut Hubener's centenary or if that is a mere coincidence. More surprising is that the film was released on October 17, 2025. That is ten days from the anniversary of Hubener's execution, which took place on October 27, 1942, as we are told in the closing credits. They feature the actors and their real-life counterparts, along with text on their ultimate fates. It is standard, but a reminder that these were real people. 

Truth & Treason is perhaps a bit long, though I did not notice it until late into the film. I also think the title is a bit clunky. Those, I think, is probably some of the film's few faults. 

It is eighty years since the end of the Second World War. It is eighty-three years since a seventeen-year-old Mormon boy was beheaded for defying Hitler not with guns but with words. Even now, these hereto-unknown stories are now getting their due. Truth & Treason is a strong dramatic film. It is a deeply moving portrait of a true profile in courage, a young man executed for speaking up and speaking out against tyranny. Would that God grant each of us such courage and moral clarity.

1925-1942

DECISION: B+