The Life of Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Dieter F. Uchtdorf is a General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served in the First Quorum of the Seventy and in the Presidency of the Seventy prior to his call as an Apostle on October 7, 2004, at age 63. He filled the vacancy created by the death of Elder Neal A. Maxwell on July 21, 2004. Also ordained the same day was Elder David A. Bednar, who filled the vacancy created by the death of Elder David B. Haight, who died just ten days after Elder Maxwell on July 31, 2004. Uchtdorf is the first apostle in more than fifty years who was not born in the United States, and the first ever from Germany.

Uchtdorf was called to the position of Second Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on February 3, 2008, upon the death of President Gordon B. Hinckley and the subsequent calling of Thomas S. Monson as president and prophet of the Church. Upon the death of President Monson on January 2, 2018, the First Presidency was dissolved and Uchtdorf resumed his place of seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf was born in Czechoslovakia on November 6, 1940, in the midst of the horrors of World War II. While Elder Uchtdorf was very young, his father was forced to join the German army. His mother, Hildegard, afraid for her family’s safety, moved the family to Zwickau, Germany. When the war ended, Elder Uchtdorf’s father was able to return. However, the family was still in danger, because his father had been vocal in his opposition to both Nazism and Communism. They were able to move to safety in Frankfurt, West Germany. Elder Uchtdorf said of his childhood,

We were refugees with an uncertain future. … I played in bombed-out houses and grew up with the ever-present consequences of a lost war and the awareness that my own country had inflicted terrible pain on many nations during the horrific World War II (“The Global Church Blessed by the Voice of the Prophets,” Ensign, Nov. 2002, 10).

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