"Welcome to the board, OrphanCrow ! Very interesting post. I hadn't considered that the Society was claiming the Bible Students as their own during WWII. Were there Students in the camps alongside JWs?"
Thank you, Agnopophos.
I would think it would be likely that the JWs and Bible Students were lumped together in the camps. Even though Rutherford and Knorr knew of the divisions within the Society, it is highly unlikely that the Nazis knew of the internal strife happening with the Society. The terms Bible Student and Jehovhah's witnesses were interchangable - they both wore the purple triangle. In fact, all religious prisoners and all pacifists wore the purple triangle, including Dawn Bible Students, Free Bible Students, Seventh Day Adventists and Baptists. The JWs claim to be the largest group out of the purple triangles.
The internal problems with the Society are evident when one examines the historical record and compares it to the Society's revised history. There were problems galore within the structure of the German Watchtower at the time the war was beginning - leftovers from Rutherford's about face and revival of his failing Society that was being led up to in the late 20s and received some resolution with his makeover of the religion in the early 30s.
There is a good thread on this forum somewhere that exposes the colloboration that occured between Erich Frost, a Society hero, and the Gestapo. Frost betrayed several of the Bible Students and later in the war, sat it out on a little island somewhere. He emerged from the war as a hero but the Society has kept hidden his collaborative efforts that resulted in the imprisonment of many Bible Students during the war. His is not the only account that speaks of betrayal by the Rutherford loyalists.
I had said in my earlier post that the religion of the Society's was clearly fractured, however, those fractures at the rank and file level would probably still be in the murky stage and would explain the often reported squabbles that broke out in some of the camps with the Bible Students/JWs. There are many reports of the disunity that erupted within the purple triangle group - right alongside reports of how the JWs were cohesive. So cohesive, in fact, that it is the reason some researchers have speculated as to why the JWs emerged from the camps with an over 80% survival rate.
Other researchers, though, have questioned the collaborative behavior of the JWs who worked for the SS and survived the war in positions of privledge. Of course, the Society spins it that the JWs were honest and loyal to Jehovah and that is the reason they had these positions. I guess they are right on that point to a degree - many were loyal. To the SS. In fact, their loyalty impressed Himmler so much that his plans for a future Germany included using groups of JWs as a vanguard for the Third Reich in their expanded territories. He planned on using the religion as a model for future Germany.
Something that annoys me to no end is the Society's insistence that they are politically neutral when the history books show us something entirely different. They use the camoflague of not wearing a uniform or engaging in military activities when, in reality, they are hugely political. Their literature is ALL about politics. The post Blondie made reveals that the about face that Rutherford did in the late 20s and early 30s was nothing less than a huge political move. Rutherford, in 1926, came out publicly in support of a Zionist State in Palestine, but, in the years to follow, he appropriated the designation of State of Israel - calling his religion the new Spiritual Israel - and then relocated Palestine to his mansion in California. And he did his doctrinal/political change at a time that he started rubbing shoulders with not only Wm. Heath Sr, but also with Heath's son-in-law who just happened to go on to be the first president of the World Bank. And, something that may be critical to understanding Rutherford's doctrinal shift is that Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and was widely distributed to world leaders and anyone of importance in world politics or who had interest in world politics. The chances that Rutherford had read Hitlers book is pretty high - if he didn't, then he certainly was on the same vibratory wavelength as the little short man with a mustache.
