''What I am disagreeing with is the thinking that people who could have somehow have stopped him were aware at the begininng that he would go to that extent.''- If this is your main point, then I agree with you. As mentioned on the Mein Kampf wiki page, the 'gassing jews' quote was only one sentence that indicated his view, some may have missed it or seen it as merely hypothetical, although it should have been worrying, and Rutherford never agreed with such treatment of jews (as in gas chambers), at least publicly. Soft+gentle said: ''But are you saying that the sentence Terry quoted is in meinkampf. Even if it is please see mypoint in para 1 of this post.''- Yes, you said he wasn't quoting it from meinkampf, that was all.
Watchtower defiance against Hitler
by The Quiet One 37 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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soft+gentle
the quiet one
yes that is my main point.
so the quote is in mein kampf. mind you gas chambers came later. are you sure about this?
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trailerfitter
I do not like the way the WTS capitalise on the JW situation during the war. I saw a video on this. It just told the story from the point of how good the JWs were to hold onto their belief during persecution.
The reality of the Nazi campaign was much more horrifying than just the JWs being persecuted. If anyone would care to look in the MOTHERLAND museum in KIEV, UKRAINE ( you can't miss it... there is a massive siver staue you can see in the city) There is a map in there of the concentration camps just in the Ukraine dedicated to the incarceration and elimination of Ukrainians. There are also statistics of the losses in the USSR very clearly shown.
The Soviets lost 27 million people during the Second world war in total......I cannot start to comprehend that amount, that is slightly under half the population of Great Britian.
What I find very offensive in a recent video distributed by the JWs..the video showed churches belessing soliders going into battle . The WT condemn this....but in the circumstances that war could not be avoided.the video again showing how the JWs suffered in the USA for not saluting the flag in 1940s.. capitalising on the persecution the members suffered which may not have been that way if the doctrines were not enforced at that period of time of national patriotism.
Many still alive appriciate the war efforts of men and woman who pitched together to defend freedom against fascism. This is the very freedom that groups like the JWs enjoy now preaching their garbage about the end of the world.
Rutherford sucked up to Hitler and sat safe and secure in America....half my fathers family died in WW2. I'd like to hear a "thank you" instead of condemnation for resisting the 3rd Reich. I do equate jehovah on the same level as Hitler,....the dominator , and murderer at Armaggeddon!!
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TheOldHippie
"That is, Rutherford was pro-Hitler up until Hitler started jailing JWs in Germany because they were antiwar and would not conform to the Nazis."
Here is one point, then, where German JWs and Rutherford had different opinions. The German JWs were told from HQ to stop witnessing and stay calm, but many of them protested and could not understand why they should not oppose the devil Hitler. So they kept on publicly witnessing. After a while, they were told by HQ to witness again, and to distribute letters of protest, and this they did. So the attempts made by the US HQ to find some sort of co-operation or peaceful co-existence was not ratified by German JWs in general, who understood what Hitler was up to.
The Protestant church had its body of protesters as opposed to the Catholic church. In Austria, ONE single Catholic was executed for refusing to be enlisted in the army - and his cousin was a JW who was executed for his refusal. So the one and only Catholic refusing, was heavily influenced by JWs.
People could have protested and stopped Hitler at an early stage, and later too. One clear example of this, is the program for killing the mentally retarded, the eutanasie program. Trucks with mentally retarded people were driven thru towns and villages on their way to concentration camps, and the screaming of the young and old on the trucks led to people in the villages protesting, writing letters and even sit down in the street, thus preventing the trucks from passing thru. Priests led many of these protests. Result? The program was halted. If I recall correctly, for a couple of years. Then it was resumed, but from then on, the trucks passed thru the villages and towns in the middle of the night, with lights turned off, so as not to be noticed. If the Churches had protested, if the upper classes and the nobility had protested in stead of believing they could use Hitler to their own ends - he could have been stopped. Sadly, the socialist/communist/sosial-democratic parties chose mainly to fight each other and so there was no united front from the labor force either. A classic example of divide and reign.
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The Quiet One
Here's another example of giving a false impression.. 'The book Jehovah's Witnesses in The Divine Purpose , published by the Watch Tower Society in 1957,states: "Judge Rutherford had been watching the German situation closely and was well acquainted with its development as it affected the witness work. With this serious turn of events he lostno time in going to Germany, accompanied by N. H. Knorr, to see what could be done. On June 25..., a convention was called in Berlin. There a Declaration of Facts was presented to the 7,000 in attendance in protest against the Hitler government for their highhanded interference with the witness work of the Society, and was unanimously adopted. The declaration was mailed to every high officer of the government from the president down to the members of the council, and 2,500,000 copies were given public distribution. Retaliation came quickly. Three days later, on June 28, for the second time the Society's property was seized and occupied, and by government decree its printing plant was closed"..But was the seizure of Watch Tower property by the German government on June 28, 1933 really because the Declaration of Facts was a bold protest against Nazi actions?' http://www.bible.ca/jw-penton-3rdreich.htm
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Room 215
It seems there's evidence that Hitler initially would have been satisfied with the expulsion of all Jews from Germany; but when the rest of the world, including the United States proved reluctant if not actively opposed to taking them in, he radicalized his intention, turning to the "final solution" option.
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J. Hofer
TheOldHippie, all those things would have happened with or without hitler. it's not like a single man would do all that on his own. antisemitism was widespread, economy was dead, everyone had the shame of the loss of WWI in mind and nationalism was on the rise in all of europe. it wouldn't have made much difference if that hitler would have continued painting vienna postcards and someone like röhm, göring or even dollfuss would have stepped up instead. hitler first was only participating in an already existent party and finally lent his face to the cause.
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The Quiet One
Thanks for the replies.. With regard to the difference between Rutherfords stand and the view of rank and file jw's, even the Declaration itself WASN'T actually adopted unanimously, and the wording of the German declaration was scapegoated onto someone called Brother balzereit... -'7,000 brothers got there. For many of them it took three days, some riding bicycles the entire distance, whereas others went by truck, since the bus companies refused to rent buses to a banned organization. Brother Rutherford, who, together with Brother Knorr, had come to Germany just a few days before in order to see what couldbe done to ensure the safety of the Society's property, had prepared a declaration with Brother Balzereit to be presented to the convention delegates for adoption. It was a protest againstthe meddling of the Hitler government into the preaching work we were doing. All high government officials, from the Reich's president on down, were to receive a copy of the declaration, if possible, by registered mail. Several days before the convention started Brother Rutherford returned to America. Many in attendance were disappointed in the "declaration,"since in many points it failed to be as strong as the brothers had hoped. Brother Mütze from Dreseden, who had worked closely with Brother Balzereit up until that time, accused him later of having weakened the original text. It was not the first time that Brother Balzereit had watered down the clear and unmistakable language of the Society's publications so as to avoid difficulties with governmental agencies. A large number of brothers refused to adopt it just for this reason. In fact, a former pilgrim brother [traveling evangelist] by the name of Kipper refused to offer it for adoption and another brother substituted. It could not rightfully be said that the declaration was unanimously adopted, even though Brother Balzereit later notified Brother Rutherford that it had been. The conventioners returned home tired and many were disappointed.' 'the 1974 Yearbook account assumes - apparently on no more authority than the unsubstantiated beliefs of a " Brother Mütze from Dreseden "-that Paul Balzereit was the one who "weakened" the Declaration. Balzereit may well have been responsible for having the Declaration translated into German, and he may also have been responsible for drafting the letter to Hitler. Yet there is clear evidence to suggest that he did not tamper with the wording of the Declaration.'' ''First, the Watch Tower Society published the English version of the Declaration - which is virtually identical to the German version - in the 1934 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses as its official statement to Hitler, the German government, and German officials, high and low; and this it would not have done without Rutherford's full approval. Second, the English version of the Declaration is clearly written in the judge's own bombastic style. Third, the statements directed against the Jews in the Declaration are more in keepingwith what an American such as Rutherford would have written rather than a German. How, for example, would Balzereit know the "proverb," so called, concerning New York which says: "the Jews own it, the Irish Catholics rule it, and the Americans pay the bills"? Fourth, Rutherford had been guilty of a similar compromise with secular authority in the United States in 1918 in a vain attempt to escape imprisonment. [17] Then finally, he was an autocrat supreme who would not have brooked the serious type of insubordination that Balzereit would have been guilty of had he "weakened" the Declaration. While it must be admitted that this evidence, although strong, is circumstantial rather than direct, this makes little difference in the long run. Regardless of who wrote the Declaration, the fact is that it was published as an official document of the Watch Tower Society .'' ' http://www.bible.ca/jw-penton-3rdreich.htm