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While rank and file Jehovah's Witnesses were executed by Hitler, Watchtower leaders supported Hitler and the Nazi regime.The Watchtower is lying about their historyIt is impossible to trust the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and this fact is proved in AWAKE! August 22 1995, no. 16. |
"Sometimes Truth makes Love hurt"
"You are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth" Jn 8:40
Tell us if you feel this material misrepresents facts
It is impossible to trust the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and this fact is proved in AWAKE! August 22 1995, no. 16.
When you have read what the Watchtower writes in this article, you can check out the original documents and decide for yourself if they are honest, or if they are - as we say -
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Awake!, Norwegian Edition |
When the world finally drew aside the curtain to look on the fallen Third Reich, the ghastly sight was too much of a nightmare to comprehend. Soldiers and civilians alike could only stare in
silent horror at the gruesome remains of a monstrous killing machine.
Earlier this year thousands celebrated the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps by quietly tramping through their desolate grounds. They struggled to fathom the enormity of the crime. Why, some 1,500,000 people had been killed in the death camp at Auschwitz alone!
It was a time for silence, a time to reflect on man's inhumanity to man. Haunting questions echoed in the cold ovens, in the empty barracks, across the undisturbed mountains of plundered shoes.
Today there is horror; there is outrage. The Holocaust, during which several million were systematically murdered, reveals what a monstrous evil Nazism was. But what about then? Who spoke out? Who did not?
For many, their first knowledge of the mass slayings came only at the close of World War II. The book Fifty Years Ago --Revolt Amid the Darkness explains: "The still photographs and newsreel films of the killing centers and camps liberated by the Allies in 1944 and 1945 first brought the shocking reality to the broad public, especially in the west."
Yet, even before the death camps were set up, a voice was proclaiming the dangers of Nazism, through Awake!, the magazine you hold in your hands. It was first known as The Golden Age and was renamed Consolation in 1937. Beginning in 1929, these magazines, published by Jehovah's Witnesses, boldly warned of the perils of Nazism, living up to the proclamation on the cover, "A Journal of Fact, Hope and Courage."
"How can one remain silent," asked Consolation in 1939, "about the horrors of a land where, as in Germany, 40,000 innocent persons are arrested at one time; where 70 of them were executed in a single night in one prison;...where all homes, institutes and hospitals for the aged, the poor, and the helpless, and all orphanages for the children, are destroyed?"
How, indeed, could one remain silent? While the world in general was unaware or skeptical of the horrific reports trickling out of Germany and occupied lands, Jehovah's Witnesses could not keep quiet. They knew firsthand the cruelties of the Nazi regime, and they were not afraid to speak out.
In Retrospect, it could be said that the clash between Jehovah's Witnesses and Nazism, or National Socialism, was all but inevitable. Why? Because of the Nazis' unyielding demands that conflicted with three of the Witnesses' fundamental Bible-based beliefs. These are: (1) Jehovah God is the Supreme Sovereign. (2) True Christians are politically neutral. (3) God will resurrect those who have proved faithful to him until death.
These Bible-based beliefs determined the steadfast stand of Jehovah's Witnesses against the Nazis' ungodly demands. Thus, they courageously spoke out and exposed Nazism as the evil that it was.
Jehovah's Witnesses refused to heil Hitler. They refused because they attribute their salvation to God and have dedicated their lives to him alone. The Bible says of Jehovah: "You alone are the Most High over all the earth."--Psalm 83:18.
Actually, "Hell Hitler" implied that salvation was by Hitler. So the Witnesses could not be faithful to God and at the same time heil any human. Their lives as well as their loyalty and allegiance belonged to God.
Jehovah's Witnesses had clear precedents for refusing to obey Hitler's wrongful demands. For example, when Jesus' first-century apostles were ordered to cease declaring the good news about Christ, they refused. They said: "We must obey God as ruler rather than men." The Bible says that for
their determined stand, the authorities "flogged them, and ordered them to stop speaking upon the basis of Jesus' name." Yet, the apostles refused to obey that God defying order. "They ontinued without letup teaching and declaring the good news." --Acts 5:29, 40-42.
Many early Christians died because they obeyed God rather than men. Scores perished in Roman arenas because they refused, in effect, to heil Caesar by rendering an act of worship to him. But to such persons it was an honor and a victory to prove faithful to God even to death, similar to a valiant soldier's being willing to die in be half of his country.
Because Jehovah's Witnesses advocate only one government, God's Kingdom, some have viewed them as subversive. But nothing could be further from the truth. In imitation of Jesus' apostles,
"they are no part of the world." (John 17:16) They are politically neutral. Because of their loyalty to God, they obey the laws of their respective human governments. Indeed, they are exemplary in their "subjection to the superior authorities." (Romans 13:1) Never have they advocated rebellion against any human government!
There is, however, a line that cannot be crossed under any circumstances. It is the line between the duty of Jehovah's Witnesses to man and their duty to God. They render to Caesar, or governmental authorities, what belongs to Caesar but to God what belongs to Him. (Matthew 22:21) If anyone tries to exact from them what belongs to God, that attempt will fail.
What if a Witness is threatened with death? Well, Jehovah's Witnesses have unshakable confidence in God's ability to restore them to life. (Acts 24:15) So Witnesses have the same attitude as did three young Hebrews in ancient Babylon. When threatened with death in a fiery furnace, they told King Nebuchadnezzar "If it is to be, our God whom we are serving is able to rescue us.... Let it become known to you, 0 king, that your gods are not the ones we are serving, and the image of gold that you have set up we will not worship.--Daniel 3:17, 18.
Thus, as noted earlier, when Hitler began to climb onto his pedestal as a self appointed god, an ideological battle was inevitable. The Third Reich, sword drawn, found itself face-to-face with a tiny band of Jehovah's Witnesses who had sworn loyalty to the true God, the Almighty God, Jehovah. Even before the battle began, however the outcome was decided.
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Faithful to Death |
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WOLFGANG KUSSEROW was one of those put to death because he maintained faithfulness to God and refused to support Nazism. Shortly before he was beheaded on March 28, 1942, he wrote his parents and siblings: "Now, as your third son and brother, I must leave you tomorrow morning. Do not be sad, for the time will come when we will be together again. . . . How great our joy will then be, when we are reunited! ... Now we have been torn apart, and each of us must stand the test; then we will be rewarded.". |
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Shortly before his execution on January 8, 1941, Johannes Harms wrote in a final letter to his father: "My death sentence has already been announced and I am chained both day and night--the marks (on the paper) are from the handcuffs ... My dear father, in spirit I call to you, remain faithful, as I have attempted to remain faithful, and then we will see each other gain. I will be thinking of you up until the very last."." |
We speak the truth in Love...
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