Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany - Causes of Persecution and Nazi Motives

Causes of Persecution and Nazi Motives

Jehovah's Witnesses were one of a range of religious denominations against whom authorities took action from 1933, declaring that they "contributed to the ideological fragmentation of the German people", preventing the forming of a united German community. Historians including Canadian Michael H. Kater, Christine Elizabeth King from England and Austrian Wolfgang Neugebauer have suggested the extraordinary animosity between National Socialism and Bible Student teachings was rooted in the similarity in structure of both ideologies, which were based on authoritarianism and totalitarianism and which each believed had a monopoly on the "truth". Kater wrote:

Just as the National Socialist ideology, so were also the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses dominated not by a democratic but an authoritarian policy. Both systems were totalitarian in that they strictly integrated national comrades as well as fellow believers into the respective authoritarian structure and requested them to give up their own personal identity for the objectives of the system. While the National Socialists accepted the ""Fuhrer State", the "Earnest Bible Students" submitted to the "Theocracy", in which not the Fuhrer, but Jehovah, was the dictatorial ruler. Since both groups claimed exclusiveness, this inevitably had to result in conflict. A Bible Student who had devoted himself to Jehovah was in no way able to carry out the duties that the National Socialist State demanded of him as a national comrade.

Garbe accepts that both ideologies claimed to represent the "epitome of truth", demanded the person as a whole, tolerated no questioning of ideology and also held a common belief in salvation utopias for certain parts of humankind and the vision of a Thousand-Year Reign. But pitted against a considerably more powerful organization, the religion's efforts were doomed to fail.

German writer Falk Pingel argued that the source of controversy between the Bible Students and National Socialists was their determination to continue their religious activities despite restrictions and Garbe, noting that the increasing repression by authorities simply provoked the religion's determination to go underground and maintain their activity, concludes that "the extraordinary severity with which Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted resulted from a conflict that gradually escalated in an interaction of action and reaction ... the authorities responsible for the persecution always responded with increasing severity to the continuous stubbornness of the IBSA members". He said the National Socialists were baffled by an opponent that, convinced it was being directed by God's channel, did not back down under intensified persecution, as expected. He wrote:

These factors could have contributed to the fact that ... efforts to break their resolve were intensified and even more brutal. From this point of view, the IBSA members contributed to a certain extent to the severity of the NS actions, but this certainly does not mean that they intentionally provoked these measures.

Penton noted that in August 1933 then branch overseer Martin Harbeck directed members that they should cease distributing literature and holding meetings without police permission. He said the organization's later decision to abandon caution and direct members to intensify their preaching efforts was a "reckless" behavior that caused Witnesses and their families more suffering than was necessary. Hitler, Penton argued, had become highly popular with the German populace by 1936, yet Witnesses persisted in distributing a Rutherford booklet that described the chancellor as "of unsound mind, cruel, malicious and ruthless". He said the international campaign to swamp Hitler with telegrams of protest in October 1934 infuriated the chancellor and was a major factor in bringing greater governmental persecution on them. Citing Dietrich Hellmund's description of their "incredible public militancy", he wrote: "Jehovah's Witnesses were the most stridently outspoken conscientious objectors in the country, and the Nazis had no intention of putting up with them ... No movement can constantly heap insults on all other religions, the business community and national governments in the way that the Bible Student-Jehovah's Witnesses did from 1918 onward without provoking a reaction."

Scholars are divided over the ultimate intention of the Nazi regime towards Jehovah's Witnesses. Garbe believes the Gestapo considered members of the religion to be "incorrigible" elements who had to be ruthlessly eliminated. The 1934 telegram protest had prompted an "hysterical" Hitler to vow that "this brood will be exterminated in Germany" and he repeated the threat in August 1942. Watch Tower Society writer Wolfram Slupina claims the Nazis "attempted to consign the Witnesses to oblivion by systematically exterminating them". But Penton has argued there is abundant evidence that the Nazis had no intention to eradicate members:

Rather, they wanted to break their opposition to the values of the Third Reich and turn them into loyal German citizens ... The Witnesses were not candidates for destruction in the way that Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals were. Almost none were gassed. Most important, during the last three years of the Second World War, they became very useful to the SS.