by jwfacts 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
Later they flip-flopped, apparantly. I think there used to be a story in some of the yearbooks about how Hitler saw a bunch of telegrams of protest (probably from the US and Britain) , and made the statement "This brood will be exterminated in Germany".
I tossed all my JW books and magazines 25 years ago when I got out, but we have a lot of fine JW historians here who probably can clear it up.
James
All the while tha Malawi flames raged, the WT gave the nod and wink to the brothers in Mexico to 'buy' with bribes a cartillo (a sort of certificate) which said that they had served a one year military service and were members of the reservist army. From my understanding if you joined the armed forces you automatically DA'd yourself. I understand Ratherafraud tried to suck up to old adolf who was having none of it. Then, as a spurned child, Ratherafraud went all bitchy on him and the JW's of the time bore the brunt. Of course, this is gods clean and undefiled people we are talking about here, the happiest people on earth. NOT!
William Schnell makes this interesting observation in his book THIRTY YEARS A WATCH TOWER SLAVE, page 71:
"In the Germany of the Weimar Republic everything was going from bad to worse. Democratic processes brought into being by the terms of the Versailles treaty were repugnant to the Germans, because they considered the democratic process and the Weimar Republic as a symbol of their defeat. Unemployment was rampant and hope for better times was fading everywhere. The masses were driven about like lost sheep. Communism on the left claimed millions, the Nazis on the right were growing fast, while the moderate Centrum was shrinking. In the middle, however, were millions who wanted a spiritual and peaceful way of life, and these were the people we were after. We were fishing in the troubled waters of the German population.
"Appearing to them as God's Organization, powerful, unafraid of opposition, we easily became their champions.
"If events had not transpired to put the Hitler movement into control, Germany might have become the first Jehovah's Witness state of God's Organization. The Nazis and the Communists realized this and began really to oppose us as the third force."
If Schnell is correct, then Hitler jailed the JWs because he viewed them as a political threat, not because he didn't like their religious beliefs.
There were only about 200 German Friends during the 30s and 40s, and half were either unemployed or housewives. A few were intermittently jailed or lost jobs as a result of their affiliation. They were apparently not viewed as a political threat to the Reich, and had some measure of German goodwill as a result of their humanitarian efforts after the Great War.
What is most interesting about this group at this time, however, is that such a very few people managed to organize the movement of over 8,000 (if I recall correctly) Jews from Germany, mostly children.
(This is an interesting numerical point to bring up every time the Watchtower decides to increase the number of Jehovah's Witnesses who were persecuted under the Nazi regime.)
Was it because they refused to join in the war effort, or was there another reason, perhaps Rutherford's distasteful messages of religious hate?
Would have been rather daft for the third reich and everything it stood for to object to messages of religious hate.
What the JWs are saying that no protestants or catholics stood up against Hitler is not true as some of them were executed for resisting the Nazis, even though the Vatican was rather neutral during that time.
Knorr reinstated after the war the head of the German Bethel who during the war had cooperated with the Nazis and in addition he allowed the Swiss JWs to do their army service while the war was going on.
