Mark B: thanks for explaining what my brain was struggling to work out!

Steve C: thanks for the clarification too, and confirmation my marbles remain intact. I wasn’t sure if I had read it long ago, heard it in Institute long ago, or heard it from my ex long ago (he served his mission in Austria). At last I can now be sure I didn’t imagine it long ago!

My intention was to refer to the period described in Mark’s last paragraph, which is hereby adopted as the new title except that WordPress won’t display so many characters in that field. Elder McKay gave his talk in April 1940, but he was speaking about events that had occurred several months earlier, to Saints living in a part of Europe that had yet to suffer the full heat of war.

Maybe I should have said “between midnight and 12:09 of war” — not very poetic, but probably catchy enough for a blog headline.

As to the regression of the German Saints; there were cases during the war where ideas/practices crept in that were inconsistant with Church teachings. That said, it was remarkable that being cut off as the Church was in Europe for so long that more apostate ideas didn’t enter in. On the other hand, in 1938 during the Sudeten Crisis, the missionaries were evacuated for about a month. When they returned, they did find that there was quite a bit of apostasy: Branch presidents dipping into the tithing for services rendered, women performing priesthood functions, burning candles and so forth. Thus the reason mission leaders during 1939 placed great emphasis on training and preparing leadership and lesson manuals.

This is a fun post (as you can tell from my many comments so far )

The events Elder McKay describes took place after France’s declaration of war (in early September 1939), so the title cannot refer to the period before that declaration.

Elder McKay’s talk in April 1940 was surely before the entry of the U.S. into the war (in December 1941), so it could be said that they were made on the eve of U.S. involvement, but that’s a long “eve”. More important, the U.S. entry into the war wasn’t the key event in cutting off contact between the European saints and Church headquarters–the missionaries were evacuated at the beginning of September 1939, and travel, even by “neutral” Americans would have been extremely difficult after that.

So, I concluded that the title referred to the actual commencement of hostilities in the West–after the Polish campaign, which was over by October 1939, there were six months of inactivity until the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 and France and the Low Countries in May 1940. Thus Elder McKay’s talk was given during that period of Sitzkrieg or Phony War–France and Germany were “at war” but the Germans hadn’t yet invaded (and annexed) Alsace. The Alsatian saints truly were “on the eve of war” in April 1940–although there’s no way Elder McKay could have known how close they were when he gave his talk on April 5.

Maybe it’s because I have just woken up, but Ardis could you please explain the post title?! Should I read it as

‘a post about the situation in Europe leading up to the outbreak of war in 1939, but based on a talk given in 1940′ or

‘a post about a talk given in 1940 on the eve of the U.S. entry into the war later that year?’

answers to my email address at ‘confused pedants r us’

And yet, Jon, the church provided a support system even in those times. How frightening not to be able to draw on those connections for strength, even in a limited way!