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Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime. Edited by Hans Hesse. Edition Temmen/Courier Press2001. Pp. 405. $39.95. ISBN: 3-861-08750-2.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Richard Singelenberg
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Book Review
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 275 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2002

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References

1. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Babylon the Great Has Fallen! 550 (WBTS 1963)Google Scholar. A similar assertion can be found in Ebenstein, William, The Nazi State 210 (Farrar & Rinehart 1943)Google Scholar.

2. Research on the fate of the JWs in the former GDR is in progress, particularly since the Stasi archives have been accessible to the public. The first results have been published—in German, though. For a review of two studies, see Singelenberg, Richard, Book Review, 42 J. Church & St. 574 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reviewing Zeugen Jehovas in der DDR. Verfolgung und Verhalten einer religiösen Minderheit (Jehovah's Witnesses in the GDR. Persecution and Response of a Religious Minority)); and Wilson, Bryan, Book Reviews, 16 J. Contemporary Religion 267 (2001)Google Scholar (reviewing Yonan, Gabriele, Jehovas Zeugen: Offer unter zwei deutschen Diktaturen; and Im Visier der Stasi: Jehovas Zeugen in der DDR (Yonan, Gabriele, ed.))Google Scholar.

3. For an extensive review of the documentary, see Newman, Petra, Reviews, 6 J. Holocaust Educ. 124 (1997)Google Scholar.

4. Until recently, the State of Berlin did not recognize the WTS as a corporation under Public Law. In December 2000, the German Constitutional Court ruled that the Berlin Federal Administrative Court had improperly denied this status to the movement. See Wah, Carolyn R., Jehovah's Witnesses and the Responsibility of Religious Freedom: The European Experience, 43 J. Church & St. 579, 587 (2001)Google Scholar.

5. Conway, John, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933–1945 (Basic Books 1968)Google Scholar; King, Christine, The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity (Edwin Mellen Press 1982)Google Scholar; Bergman, Jerry, The Jehovah's Witnesses' Experience in the Nazi Concentration Camps: A History of Their Conflicts with the Nazi State, 38 J. Church & St. 87 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Yonan, Gabriele, Spiritual Resistance of Christian Conviction in Nazi Germany: The Case of the Jehovah's Witnesses, 41 J. Church & St. 307 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One of the first autobiographical accounts by a JW-survivor in the English language and not published under the auspices of the WBTS, is Liebster, Simone Arnold's Facing the Lion (Grammaton Press 2000)Google Scholar.

6. Fry, Stephen, Making History 64, 65 (Hutchinson 1996)Google Scholar.

7. So, basically, the WBTS (and similar religious groups) are in a no-win situation: the orthodox oriented segment of its membership as well as opponents consider these rapprochements inconsistent with the movement's basic teaching to keep “the world,” particularly political and religious institutions, at arm's length. For. this reason, these events are seldom mentioned in the organization's literature. At the other hand, the classical sectarian phenomenon of social withdrawal and isolation often leads to outside distrust and vilification.

8. Some authors in this study—and many outsiders—label the JWs “pacifists” but the WBTS has emphatically rejected this epithet in the early 1950s, considering it “a smearing… and a deliberate lie to provoke prejudice against us….” See The Watchtower 67 (02 1, 1951)Google Scholar fr an extensive exegetic treatise. Within the Cold War climate of that period, it is conceivable that the WBTS may have been moved by other than merely doctrinal considerations to repudiate the pacifist label because of its anti-American and pro-leftist connotation. Since then, the movement has refrained from discussing the subject.

9. Liebster's moving autobiography (see n. 1) describes this latter topic extensively.

10. Bettelheim, Bruno, The Informed Heart 20, 21 (Free Press of Glencoe 1960)Google Scholar.

11. Höss, Rudolf, Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen 113 (1958; repr., 3rd ed., Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1961)Google Scholar.

12. See e.g. Kautsky, Benedikt, Teufel und Verdamte 138 (Büchergilde Gutenberg 1946)Google Scholar.

13. See e.g. the seminal study of Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, Commitment and Community. Communes dnd Utopias in Sociological Perspective (Harv. U. Press 1972)Google Scholar.

14. In some camps, literature of the WBTS was distributed in secret. “[In Wewelsburg] the JWs ensured the silence of the political prisoners by threatening them with denunciation to the SS” (p. 71, n. 35). Whether or not this belongs to the realm of ‘theocratic war strategy’ is unknown to this reviewer. Interview by VPRO radio, The Netherlands, “Jehovah is mijn toevlucht”, three-part radio series (May 6, 13 & 20, 2001). CD available through VPRO radio, POB 11, 1200 JC Hilversum, The Netherlands.

15. Records in possession of reviewer.

16. The foundation to socially exclude those who signed the statement is obscure. At that stage, the movement's teachings on excommunication had not yet been disseminated. This shunning may therefore foreshadow the present practice of disfellowshipping members who willfully violate the organization's precepts.

17. Buber, Margarete, Under Two Dictators 236 (Gollancz 1949)Google Scholar. See Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose 168 (WBTS 1959)Google Scholar (a former edition of the organization's historiography). According to an eyewitness account of a Dutch (non-JW) survivor in Dachau, a JW-prisoner refused to eat cheese spread since it supposedly contained blood (van der Tas, Leo, Overleven in Dachau 64 (Kok 1985)Google Scholar). It is improbable that the refusal to eat these products was based on doctrinal foundations since the well-known WBTS teaching to abstain from blood (including blood transfusions) was not promulgated until 1945.

18. Garbe, Detlef, “Sendboten des Jiidischen Bolschewismus.” Antisemitismus als Motiv national-sozialistischer Verfolgung der Zeugen Jehovas. 23 Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 45–171 (1994)Google Scholar

19. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1934 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses 134 (WBTS 1933)Google Scholar.

20. Quoted from The Hitler Letter, 3 The Christian Quest 79, 80 (1990)Google Scholar which includes the original German text and an English translation. This journal, edited and published by disgruntled former JWs, has ceased to exist.

21. Conversely, Konrad Franke, then German branch manager, noted in The Watchtower 181 (03 15, 1963)Google Scholar, that the declaration was adopted “unanimously.” Awake! (July 8, 1998) is vague about the amount of support for the resolution by stating, “The delegates adopted [the Declaration].”

22. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1974 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses 111 (WBTS 1973)Google Scholar; Awake! 14 (07 8, 1998)Google Scholar.

23. Garbe's PhD dissertation Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium: die Zeugen Jehovas im “Dritten Reich”/Detlef Garbe 83–101 (Oldenbourg Verlag 1993)Google Scholar presents several attempts by the movement's German leadership to adapt to the domestic situation in order to resist an imminent national ban during the first months of 1933. In some cases, the outcome of this “political calculation” tended to be at odds with the movement's professed neutrality. Garbe's study is the first systematic research on the JWs in Nazi Germany. No doubt, it has given the initial impetus to the large number of follow-up studies.

24. Konrad Franke (see n. 17) presented these observations and—in view of his prominent position in the organization—extremely critical comments during a speaking tour in the 1970s. Cf. Konrad Franke's Testimony, 3 The Christian Quest 49, 50 (1990)Google Scholar. The WBTS considers those who uttered these observations to be “critics.” Awake! 12 (07 8, 1998)Google Scholar.

25. Awake! 14 (07 8, 1998)Google Scholar.

26. The Golden Age 343 (02 23, 1927)Google Scholar.

27. Rutherford, J.A., Enemies 281 (WBTS 1937)Google Scholar.

28. Rutherford, J.A., Vindication, bk. 2 at 70, 71 (WBTS 1932)Google Scholar.

29. Id. at 170, 179.

30. Id. at 257, 258.

31. See e.g. Horowitz, David, Pastor Charles Taze Russell. An Early American Christian Zionist (Phil. Lib. 1986)Google Scholar.

32. Rutherford, J.A., Let God Be True 209 (WBTS 1946)Google Scholar. This fragment has been omitted in the revised 1952 edition of the book.

33. The Golden Age 807 (09 26, 1934)Google Scholar. The cartoons were published in The Golden Age 810 (09 23, 1936) and 771, 773 (Sept. 8, 1937)Google Scholar. From the 1920s through the ‘30s, the WBTS (or at least the editorial staff of The Golden Age) campaigned vigorously against the aluminium industry because it was convinced these manufacturers produced hazardous cooking utensils that would cause food poisoning and a score of other diseases. Cf. Penton, M. James, Apocalypse Delayed. The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses 66 (U. Toronto Press 1985)Google Scholar.

34. The Golden Age 209 (01 4, 1933) and 623 (July 5, 1933)Google Scholar. More references, intended to refute the anti-Semitism charge, can be found at a website of the British WBTS branch: <http://www.disc.co.uk/standfirm>.

35. See Das Goldene Zeitalter 143 (05 1, 1933)Google Scholar. Since the WBTS was banned in 1935 and operating fully underground since then, it is unclear why the movement's German editors refrained from criticizing the persecution of the Jews until after the Kristallnacht.

36. Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium, supra n. 23, at 91.

37. Apocalypse Delayed, supra n. 33, at 65 (1985).

38. Penton, M. James, A Story of Attempted Compromise: Jehovah's Witnesses, Anti-Semitism, and The Third Reich, 3 The Christian Quest 35 (1990)Google Scholar.

39. Boyer, Paul, When Time Shall Be No More. Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture 217–224 (Harv. U. Press 1992)Google Scholar.

40. Quoted in id. at 218.

41. Awake! 20 (12 22, 1956)Google Scholar.

42. The Watchtower 654 (11 1, 1975)Google Scholar.

43. When Time Shall Be No More, supra n. 39, at 224.

44. Kommandant in Auschwitz, supra n. 11, at 113.