President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf, a former German aviator and airline executive, is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

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. Uchtdorf's family joined the LDS Church when he was young as a result of his grandmother's encounter with a church member in a soup line.

When Uchtdorf was about ten, his father's political beliefs, incongruent with communist Russian rule, earned him the label of "dissenter", thus putting their lives in danger. They fled East Germany and resettled in American-occupied West Germany.

From 1959 to 1965 Uchtdorf served in the West German Air Force.

Uchtdorf first entered the aviation industry as a pilot, then became a chief pilot and later an executive for Lufthansa Airlines. In 1975 Uchtdorf was appointed head of Lufthansa's Arizona Training School, and in 1980 he was made head chief pilot of cockpit crews. He became the senior vice president of flight operations in 1982.