VIDEO: LIVE from Hamburg: Walking Where Helmuth Walked | Angel Studios

LIVE from Hamburg: Walking Where Helmuth Walked – powered by Happy Scribe

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another truth and Conviction livestream. I’m Matt Whitaker, and here with my two incredible partners, russ Kendall, John Foss. And we are not in the Angel Studios livestream studio. We are actually greeting you from Hamburg, Germany. This is the city where Helmut and Carl and Rudy were born and raised and where they did their resistance efforts. And a lot happened here.

In fact, we’re on. Helmuth Hubener gang.

This is Helmuth Hubener Gong, our German speaking friends. Say means Helmuth Hubener way. It’s this little street that they’ve named after helmetchevener. And you can see behind us, maybe a little bit, there’s a beautiful mural that’s been painted and put here in their honor. We’re going to talk more about that in just a little bit. But we do have a big announcement to make first. I think I teased you about this last week, that there was going to be a big announcement, and then I don’t think I gave him a big announcement. So we have a big announcement. We wanted to do it here from Hamburg. We wanted to make this announcement from where it all happened. So, John, you want to share what the announcement is?

Sure, absolutely. You know, several weeks ago, we started this whole campaign to let everybody know about the series. You could go to angel.com truth. You were able to express interest. And over these many weeks, we’ve been able to see the comments that have come in, everybody commenting not only that they think this idea is great, but that they want to see the series. They’ve expressed their interests, thousands of people, to the tune of over $6 million worth. Right? Yeah. And that’s brought us to this point where we feel very confident that now we can open up the campaign. It is now open for investment. All of you who are interested in watching this series, wanting it to become something that you can share with friends and family, that you can watch with your family, now is the time where you can go to angel. Comtruth and invest in the project. And we’re so excited to be here at that point. We’re so excited to be here in Hamburg to announce that together with the whole team. So if you haven’t yet, you can go to angel.com Truth. It’s a new layout to that landing page.

Yeah, it’s actually really cool. If you’ve been to angel.com Truth already, it was already really cool. You could kind of learn a lot more about the project. But now it’s like new, improved. It’s the angel.com truth on steroids. But as you were saying, important to us is that when you went there before, there was this little button that said Express interest. And now that button is going to say something like, invest. To invest in this project, click here. And so all of you who have already expressed interest, you can go back there and make it real, in a.

Sense, I guess what that means is that when you do that, when you go in and you visit angel.com Truth and you invest in the project, you become partners with us. Not only in just supporting the story, but you become partners with us in making the series as it lives on beyond when we release it next year. That’s the goal, right? The end in mind is that we will be shooting the series next summer and that by this time next year we’ll be able to have something to watch together and enjoy together.

Again, thanks to all of you who expressed interest. Again, there were thousands of people, many thousands, who said, yes, we love this project. We think this is a story that needs to be told. And so you let us know in that way. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been saying so many times, we’re getting close. We’re getting close to the point where the analytics line up and where we know that we can say, okay, now this project is mature enough. Enough of you have expressed interest that we know we’re so confident we’re going to be successful in being able to raise the investment money that’s necessary. And like you said, John, just go and make this movie.

It’s been great to like John was saying, to read the comments and to read, I mean, the thousands of voices of support saying that we need this story. My kids need this, my grandkids need this. And that’s been encouraging. Not just the pledge, monetary pledges, but from a mission standpoint, we need this type of story, right?

Even a couple of comments that for us means something special. We would get comments from people who would say, rudy Vobo was my uncle, or Helmut’s older brother Gerhardt, who brought home the illegal shortwave radio that opened up these doors for Helmut. That Gerhardt. That’s my grandfather. And so I’m so grateful you’re telling that somebody’s finally telling the story. Those kind of comments too, from people who it was their family, their family members who were involved in this. So anyway, just a great thing to be able to finally be at this point where the investment is live.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks to everybody. And again, go check it out, angel.com Truth. And let’s get this party started in earnest. Let’s see, next thing we are going to I forgot to talk about you may have noticed we’re all wearing the same shirts we’re coordinated today, right?

California.

There is a reason for that. The whole reason that we’re here this week is and we’re here all week, we’re going to be in Germany all week. The reason that we’re here is that on the 27 October 1942, that’s 80 years ago this Thursday, is when Helmuth Hubener was executed in a little prison execution chamber outside of Berlin. And that was the date. And the German government is holding a memorial service in remembrance of Helmut and it was super important for us to be there to remember. And so that’s why we’re wearing these shirts and it’s the reason that we’re here all week. And we just thought it would be just a really cool thing to kind of walk in Helmet’s footsteps, in a sense, this week and to come back to the places where he and his friends lived. We were talking about this earlier, that we talk about people who do heroic things and we remember them, but sometimes I think it’s easy to forget that they were real people. And Helmet woke up in the morning and he had breakfast. And when he was a kid, he went to school. So we’re going to go visit where he went to school this week.

And of course, we’ll share those on our social posts and everything we see that his school. Because of what he did when he was 16 and 17, his school is now named after him. So we’re going to go visit that this week. We’re going to go to the place where he worked, where he worked for the Nazis in the government, where he got his papers, his canvas, if you will, for his work was borrowed from the government office where he worked. We’re going to go visit there to that place where he was arrested because he was arrested at work. So all of those places, but all of that is, again, leading up to Thursday in Berlin at the site of his execution, which is now a national memorial. And we will be there to remember.

Right to your point, what we’re doing here in Hamburg. There’s a lot of things around town, like you said, that we’re going to visit that memorialized. Helmets, this being one of them, I love you’ve probably already heard children in the background. And this mural here is painted right behind a school, an elementary school. And I love that it’s positioned here because it gives these kids a reminder that they can do courageous and brave things. And it’s right here, it’s something they can enjoy. Like already this morning, we’ve just seen families and children walking up and down this street. And what we heard about the street years ago, this is probably a more dangerous street, but since they, I guess, memorialized it in Helmet’s name has become something that’s safe, where families and children can enjoy. Did you get the same thing? Did you hear the same thing? Yeah.

So it’s pretty from a place of violence to a place of it’s peaceful here. Really?

Yeah. Even as we’ve been here this morning. Today. Just getting set up to do this and everything. It’s been so cool to see just families. Parents and their children walking along I don’t know if they consciously are thinking they’re walking along the Helmuth Hubener way. But we are we’re noticing it. That it’s just again. It’s a place and they’re walking again right past this elementary school. Which I’m sure wasn’t here when Helmet was here. It looks much newer than that, but here are these little kids, and again, you can hear them.

Pretty cool. I don’t know if you can see it, but just above in the trees there’s, of course, the mural of Helmets, Carl and Rudy. And then above that, to the left, there’s a picture or a painting of Helmet’s congregation where he went to church. And then to the right is a letter. Matt, what were you saying about that letter?

Yeah, so that was the notice that came telling them after they’d been arrested, when they were going to be going to Berlin to be on trial in Hitler’s highest court in the People’s Court in Berlin. So there’s a painting or a replica of that letter that came to them stating when they were going to be there, who the judges were going to be.

I mean, just think about that choice, though, as they’re thinking about creating this mural. They could have put anything up there. They decided to put, of course, the hero shot of these three, the congregation, all the people who knew Helmet, but then also this letter, which I think brings just the reality of what Helmet did, what he sacrificed just to life. Right. It’s a great reminder.

Yeah. I remember Carl telling me when he received that letter and read it and read where they were going to court and read who the judges were, and I think the way he said to me was, I didn’t give nothing for our lives.

Meaning he knew it was over.

Yeah. He had the sense that, boy, all of a sudden, this is far worse than we thought it was going to be. Anyway, it’s so cool. We flew in yesterday and drove here today. This is a modern city. Now, of course, it’s a big city. Hamburg is a huge port town.

It was leveled pretty much in 43 during World War II.

That’s right.

So a lot of it’s different, but this is the space.

Yeah, this is the space. And there’s something I don’t know, there’s just something really cool and really important about that. Let’s see. Oh, I know what else I wanted to talk about. Okay, so last week, I think, a couple of weeks ago listen to that first, we are in Europe. I feel like it’s like born identity checks for the sirens.

There it is again. There it is, man, just embracing it. The wind, the kids, the sirens, everything.

Right. It’s Europe.

It’s the full experience.

A couple of weeks ago, we announced the beginning of our Lifeliner Initiative for Truth and Conviction. And we’ve been inviting everybody to send in just one or two minutes on your phones, just a little video of you sharing with us. And nominating, someone who, for you, is a Lifeliner. And again, just a reminder, what we mean by that is somebody who either you may know them personally, or somebody that you know about, who has extended a lifeline of help to someone else. Of course, for us, Helmut is someone like that because he found the truth and decided that he had to share it, that it was crucial that he shared it. And so that was part of his lifeline that he could extend, was risking his life and eventually giving his life to be able to do that. But not all examples are that dramatic. We love that. But also just someone who extends a hand of friendship to somebody else who maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends.

Can I share one? Really? A story came to mind just as an example. Years ago, I was just doing some my grandfather grandmother passed away on my dad’s side, and I was just doing some research on their lives, and I found this article online through Google, of course. And it was this old newspaper article that told this story about this heroism from my grandparents. There was a picture of my grandfather, my grandmother, sitting on a couch. And the article went on to explain that they were so at the time, my grandfather’s father lived in Mullen, Idaho. My grandparents went to go visit him, and then they left. They were going back home, I think to California is where they were going. But my grandmother had forgotten her wallet. And so they were like, oh, let’s go back. Let’s go back and see if we can find it at your dad’s house. So they turned around and went back to go find her wallet. But on the way, if you can imagine these winding roads through these mountains in Mullen, Idaho, they came upon a house up on the hill that was on fire, and they drove up to it.

My grandfather got out, and there were people screaming inside. And this is the true story. It’s all in this article. And my grandfather went inside and saved a couple of the children. He wasn’t able to save everybody, but he was able to save a few. And I didn’t know that. My dad didn’t even know that. It was something through Google search. But as you talk about a Lifeliner, somebody who’s willing to put their life on the line to go save somebody else, that’s something that just came to my mind. My grandfather, John Marcus Foss, he was also a World War II glider pilot, like your father was a bomber pilot. But anyway, that’s just someone who came to mind as an example of what a Lifeliner could be.

I love that man. Yeah. So you know somebody we all know somebody, we think. Yeah. I think of that person as a Lifeliner, whether it’s in my own life or your grandfather who saved somebody else, those children that he saved, who knows? But probably went on to have their own families.

That wouldn’t have happened if so he.

Hadn’T rushed into the burning building. So if you want to submit those, just shoot them and post it to your socials. But just hashtag, I got to get this right. Lifeliner. Hashtag Lifeliner, but tag. That’s right. Tag. Truth and conviction. Truth, ampersand, conviction. Is that right, Esther? I’m talking to Esther. Esther and John, by the way, who are behind the cameras, are here with us in Europe as well and helping us to do these. So, yeah. So tag, truth and conviction. You guys know this better than you’re doing great. I was feeling about ten years older even than I am whenever I start trying to ask people to tag and hashtag things. Tag, truth, ampersand, conviction, and then hashtag Lifeliner with that. And then, of course, we’ll find it. And what we’re going to do and the whole reason I brought this up is because there’s a really cool thing that we’re going to be doing in the next couple of weeks. Where we’re going to be doing a live stream really kind of all about lifeliners and recognizing those of you who sent them in and even being able to show some of those that have been sent in.

But we also are going to have a really cool special guest on that one. And Russ, do you want to just talk to him about it? Absolutely, yeah.

It’s a real honor to have a good friend of ours, John, androci of the band Piper Fighting. John is somebody that is not only just an incredible musician, he’s an amazing human being and hasn’t just rested upon his celebrity and just he uses it for good. He takes a stand. He uses his music for change, for activism, and he’s been heavily involved with supporting our troops, involved with commemorations for 911, and has used his music for change. And he’s going to join us and we’re going to talk together about the power of music, the power of standing together, and he’s going to share experiences. He’s had opportunities to go to the Ukraine a few months ago and celebrate Zalensky and how he’s taking a stand.

He even wrote a song he wrote.

A song about Zalensky called Can One Man Change the World? And, I mean, that’s what we’re talking about here. Can 116 year old young man change the world? And the answer is yes. Can change it. First individually in our hearts, and then from there, it ripples out. And so Jon’s going to be with us, and it’s going to be really wonderful. If you’re not familiar with John and dropsky five for fighting songs like Superman in 100 Years, the Riddle has just written some songs that have just become part of the fabric of the collective.

Which is very cool.

And Russ knows I’m going to try not to be starstruck. Russ is close friends with him, and I’ve met him, but I’m still like trying to because those songs, if you haven’t listened to him, listen to Superman again. FIFA Fighting is the name of his band Superman.

100 years.

100 years, man. The Riddle is probably one of my favorites. If you go back and listen to the lyrics through The Riddle and talk about just it’s about a family, it’s about a man and his child. And anyway, so excited to have John and FIFA fighting, joining us and really joining this team. That’s been a really cool thing with The Piano Guys coming on board and teaming up with us and bipolar and others, that now that there’s so much good momentum that’s happening. And it’s just really cool to see people that I get starstruck around that are coming to us and saying, oh, man, we love this project. We love what you yeah, we want to be involved. We love this. In the next couple of weeks.

Next couple of weeks, yeah, we’re working on that date. But, yeah, he’ll be joining us. One thing that we’ve talked about a little bit on the live streams and I think we’ll explore more piano Guys is just how music has been kind of a key element, and it was a key element in Helmet’s life. He was very inspired by Mendelsohn and other composers. And music is we’re all fans of music, but music has that power to touch and change and inspire. And that’s just kind of a common theme that’s in the film or in the TV series. So I think it’s interesting that we have the Piano Guys in John O’rossik and these music related individuals coming and joining us. And I can’t not say where we are, being in Hamburg, right, of course, I want to wait for this truck.

It’s a cool thing to recognize.

You can’t see it. But the garbage truck that goes by, it’s a Mercedes. Again. That’s Europe.

So one of the things Homeburg is known for is the Beatles. This is where the Beatles came for two years prior to their great success. And they honed their craft. And it was here in Hamburg. So an amazing city. There’s just a music theme here. Music was core to Halmut and to Carl from what he shared with us.

It’s interesting, too, when you talk about Mendelsohn. And of course, and we’ve talked about this before, and we will talk about it some more, that Mendelsohn as a Brandt Jewish composer that Helmut loved, and that we believe that there’s evidence that Zalamon, his Jewish friend, is the one who introduced Mendelsohn to Hellmut and that Helmut introduced it to Karl, karl introduced it to us, and now we love Mendelsohn. And so there’s this thread, this connection back. But it’s also cool that Mendelsohn was born and raised in Hamburg when he was 16. Well, when he was 16, he was writing his unbelievable accent. He was a genius. But anyway, just these connections to where we are right now, it’s just incredible.

And I love also that in the series Helmet, you’re right, that Helmet recognizes that, like Melville soon was able to do this at 16. I can do something in my age that makes a difference. Yeah, that’s cool.

But that’s the thing. We all can make a difference. And it’s just finding what that gift is that we’ve been given. It could just even be in the friends of somebody. It could be having the power of the written word, but we all can do.

Yeah. What is our instrument? Yeah, I’ve referred to in the past, the Helmet picking up the only weapon he knew, which was the typewriter that was his weapon of choice, but maybe a better way to look at that. It was his instrument. That’s what he played. I don’t know that he played the piano or the violin or anything like that, but man, he knew how to play a typewriter. He played a mean typewriter. He’s got the flyers to prove it. Can I bring it back around to bring it home?

Sure.

Thursday again, as we mentioned just a few minutes ago, really as we’re walking in Helmut’s footsteps here in Hamburg. And then we will be heading up to Berlin because after they were arrested, of course, they were held here interiored by the Gestapo here. But that court date that they received, that’s painted now as part of this mural where they went to Berlin and then Helmet, that’s where he was sentenced to death. He was held in a prison there called Tutsense. And so we’ll be going up to that place on Thursday and once again taking part in that memorial service. And it’s just such an important thing. So grateful to be here and want to invite everybody to try and mark your calendars for this Thursday, the 27 October at 06:00 P.m. Mountain Time. Let you figure out from where you are there to tune in to watch that it’ll be a little bit of a different Oliver Stream even than this one. This is new for us, just hanging out here, standing on a street, standing on the Helmuth Hubener gung in Hamburg. But I think it’s going to be actually very reverent and kind of a tender experience being there just outside of the place where Helmet was executed and being able to share more about that this Thursday.

So we invite everybody to tune in then if you haven’t had a chance yet again, go check out the angel comtruth. As John announced earlier, the investments live. So we are good to go and just want everybody anything else from you guys.

Again, just reiterating our gratitude. Thank you to everyone who’s expressed interest in the series. We’re just so thrilled to be at this point where now we can start gathering everybody together and be partners together in making this series. So, yes, go to angel.com Truthinvest and let’s go tell a fantastic story together.

Amen, brother. Thanks guys. We will see you on Thursday.

Yeah. Thank you everybody. Bye.