Early Life and Education
Uchtdorf was born to ethnic Germans Karl Albert Uchtdorf and Hildegard Else Opelt in Moravská Ostrava (German: Mährisch-Ostrau), which at the time was in the Nazi-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Ostrava, Czech Republic). When he was a child, his family moved to Zwickau in eastern Germany while his father was away in the army, traveling through areas being bombed. As a result of his grandmother's encounter with an LDS church member in a soup line, Uchtdorf's family joined the LDS Church when he was still young.
When Uchtdorf was about ten, his father's political beliefs, incongruent with Soviet rule, earned him the label of "dissenter", thus putting their lives in danger. They fled East Germany and resettled in American-occupied West Germany.
He started studying mechanical engineering at age 18 but later continued Business Administration in Cologne, Germany and graduated from Institut pour l'Etude des Methodes de Direction de l'Entreprise (today the International Institute for Management Development) in Lausanne, Switzerland with an MBA. He received an honorary doctorate in International Leadership from Brigham Young University during the April 2009 graduation ceremony.
Read more about this topic: Dieter F. Uchtdorf
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