Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich : Sectarian Politics Under Persecution

Since the end of World War II, leaders of the Jehovah's Witness movement in both Germany and elsewhere have steadfastly argued that Witnesses were united in their opposition to Nazism and did not collude with the Third Reich. Documents have been uncovered, however, that prove otherwise. Using materials from Witness archives, the U.S. State Department, Nazi files, and other sources, M. James Penton demonstrates that while many ordinary German Witnesses were brave in their opposition to Nazism, their leaders were quite prepared to support the Hitler government. Penton begins his study with a close reading of the "Declaration of Facts" released by the Witnesses at a Berlin convention in June 1933. Witness leaders have called the document a protest against Nazi persecution, however closer examination shows it contained bitter attacks on Great Britain and the United States - jointly referred to as "the greatest and most oppressive empire on earth" - the League of Nations, big business, and above all, Jews, who are referred to as "the representatives of Satan the Devil." It was later, in 1933 - when the Nazis would not accept Witness blandishments - that leader J.F. Rutherford called on Witnesses to seek martyrdom by carrying on a campaign of passive resistance. Many ultimately died in prisons and concentration camps, and postwar Witness leaders have attempted to use this fact to assert that Jehovah's Witnesses stood consistently against Nazism. Drawing on his own Witness background and years of research on Witness history, Penton separates fact from fiction during this dark period. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Foreword 12 Preface 18 A Note on Titles, Sources, and Terminology 22 Introduction 26 1 The Watch Tower Society's Attempted Compromise with Hitler 29 2 Watch Tower Holocaust Propaganda and Responses to Charges of Compromise and Anti-Semitism 52 3 Evaluating the Arguments and the Evidence 86 4 Rutherford's New Nationz – 'The Theocracy' in America 123 5 German Bible Student–Jehovah's Witnesses, 1902–1933 159 6 Jehovah's Witnesses in the Crucible of Nazi Persecution 191 7 Riding the Holocaust Bandwagon 239 Conclusion 267 Appendix A: Background Chronology 272 Appendix B: A Watch Tower Society 1929 Anti-Nazi Statement 282 Appendix C: Documents Relating to the Watch Tower Society's Attempt to Compromise with Nazism 287 Appendix D: U.S. State Department Documents Relating to Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany in 1933 328 Appendix E: Documents Relating to the Watch Tower's Attacks on Nazism 343 Appendix F: German Watch Tower Attempts to Escape Nazi Persecution 355 Appendix G: Nazi Documents Relating to the Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses 366 Appendix H: Character Descriptions of J.F. Rutherford 394 Appendix I: An Analysis of the Numbers of Jehovah's Witnesses Imprisoned and Killed in Nazi Germany 405 Bibliography 414 Index 426 A 426 B 426 C 427 D 429 E 430 F 430 G 431 H 432 I 433 J 433 K 435 L 435 M 436 N 437 O 437 P 438 Q 438 R 438 S 439 T 441 U 441 V 441 W 441 Y 443 Z 443 Jehovah's Witnesses loudly proclaim that among all the Christian movements in Germany during the dark days of the Third Reich, only their German brethren stood solidly against Nazism.