by JW_Researcher 7 Replies latest watchtower bible
Greetings and Happy New Year!
I have been looking on the net, through old year books, etc. but have not been able to locate the membership statistics for the JWs in the 1920s and 1930s.
Are these buried in old Watchtower articles or something similar?
Any assistance greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
I saw some interesting stats in Jim Penton's Jehovah's Witness and the Third Reich. Mdemorial stats before and after 1925 were very enlightening.
Penton's book is on the Google Book Search.
Happy New year JW Researcher.
Shootist I've been thinking about buying Jehovah's Witness and the Third Reich, would you recommend it??
Go to Amazon.com, enter the name of the book in the proper field, then click on the book's icon. It will reveal that it is one that has been scanned and will present you with an icon to "Look Inside". Hover over that icon and you will then see a menu of choices -- Index, table of contents, search, etc.
I searched for the word "memorial". There were 15 hits, each with a hyperlink to the context and page with that link. However, you have to be signed in for that priviledge (it's free).
Fats
15 pages with references to memorial in this book:
1. on Page 34:
"... the historians: Christine King, now the vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University in England; Detlef Garbe, director of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Ger- many; and the late Sybil Milton of the Holocaust Museum in Wash- ington, D.C. Significantly, King comments in ..."
2. on Page 59:
"... Yearbook, 109-10, tells that in the spring of 1933, a total of 24,843 persons were present at the Witnesses' annual memorial celebration in comparison with 14,453 the year before, and the number of 'publishers' or door-to-door preachers had risen from 12,484 ..."
3. on Page 98:
"... announced that it had received reports that at least 90,434 had attended the Bible Students' spring annual celebration of the Memorial of the Lord's Supper.23 When nothing spectacular happened in 1925, many were disillusioned and drifted away. What makes this fact ..."
4. on Page 99:
"... Rutherford's New Nation 107 people were present at the Memorial.24 The Watch Tower Society, in evident embarrassment, stopped publishing Memorial attendance sta- tistics for many years. The failure of Rutherford's ..."
5. on Page 105:
"... Students in 1925. According to the Society's published statistics, there were nearly 100,000 Watch Tower adherents at the spring, annual Memorial of the Lord's Supper, and there were 106,137 door-to-door Jehovah's Witness 'pub- lishers' or preachers throughout the world.45 In building ..."
6. on Page 133:
"... prison camp uniforms in the Niederhagen bei Wewelsburg concentration camp. (Wachtturm Gesellschaft History Archive. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USHMM) ..."
7. on Page 144:
"... spring of 1933 they grew from 12,484 to 19,268 in the numbers of actual door-to-door preachers or 'publishers.' Their spring Memorial attendance grew from 14,453 to 24,843 over the same period."' More important, this small band was distributing Rutherford's pronounce- ments ..."
8. on Page 158:
"... out earlier, the 1974 Yearbook tells that in the spring of 1933, 24,843 people were present at the Witnesses' annual Memorial celebration, in comparison with 14,453 the year before, and the number of 'publishers' or door-to door preachers had risen from ..."
9. on Page 163:
"... their Witness brethren in Germany not to engage in door-to- door preaching and not even to gather for the yearly Memorial of Christ's death.' When Rutherford became aware of what they had said in court, he was furious and summarily disfellowshipped ..."
10. on Page 201:
"... among them which meant that, with some exceptions, only the most zealous reached the camps. If, by taking the 1933 Memorial attendance count, there were nearly 25,000 of them in Germany in the spring of 1933, and if more were added ..."
11. on Page 225:
"... Since 1996 Slupina has been in charge of the German Watch Tower Society's public affairs division for schools, education, and memorials for Holocaust victims. He starts his essay with a bold statement that is patently false. He says: 'The National Socialists ..."
12. on Page 230:
"... former brethren at his own children's funeral. Kostelniuk relates with pain what happened: We had looked forward to attending a memorial for Kim [his first wife] and the children that was being held in a large Kingdom Hall in Burnaby [British ..."
13. from Back Matter:
"... Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, from 1932 to the spring of 1933 they grew from 12,484 to 19,268, and their spring Memorial attendance grew from 14,453 to 24,843 over the same pe- riod.2 Of course, what this means is that the total ..."
14. from Back Matter:
"... Press, 2001. Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993. Bergman, Jerry. Jehovah's Witnesses: A Comprehensive and Selectively Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood ..."
15. from Back Cover:
"... STUDIES. UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY COVER I'fl011)GRA1'flS Concentration camp badge bearing purple triangle worn by Jehovah's Witnesses. Courtesy United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Group portrait of liberated Jehovah's Witnesses in their prison camp uniforms at the Niederhagen bei Wewelshurg concentration camp. Wachtturm ..."
Oh, here's another Amazon feature -- concordance. When you click that, it brings up the following:
Concordance (learn more)
These are the 100 most frequently used words in this book.
1933 activities against american article association berlin bible book camps case catholic christ christian church concentration convention country das declaration den der des die document during even facts first following general german germany god government great groups history hitler however ibid ist jehovah jehovas jesus jewish jews kingdom leaders letter magdeburg may members men mit movement name national nations nazi new now number officials organization page people persecution property published reich religion religious rutherford see society stand state stated statement students time tion tower true two und united von war watch wir witnesses word work world yearbook years york zu
These are all hyperlinked words when at Amazon. I clicked on "Rutherford" and got the following page of context hyperlinks. I only pasted a half dozen below:
165 pages with references to rutherford in this book:
1. on Page 1:
"... of these principles and will give the people peace and prosperity and the greatest desire of every honest heart. J.F. Rutherford, Declaration of Facts, June 1933 Jehovah's Witnesses loudly proclaim that among all the Christian move- ments in Germany during the ..."
2. on Page 2:
"... linked doctrines caused a major schism in the Bible Student movement.' For a time, Russell's immediate successor, Judge Joseph Franklin Rutherford, followed in his footsteps. In 1926 he wrote a short book, Comfort for the Jews, in which he claimed that ..."
3. on Page 3:
"... 1917, the Balfour Declaration,7 the British Palestinian Man- date, and the settlement and development of Palestine by Jewish chaluzim (pioneers). Rutherford enthused: 'Have these things come about by chance? Can any Jew who is familiar with the history of his people, ..."
4. on Page 1:
"... Jews have received more attention at their hands than they really have deserved.9 In another place in the same volume, Rutherford was more blunt. Referring to the commercial organizations of Great Britain and America, which collectively he called 'a special division ..."
5. on Page 2:
"... Reich to the sceptical eye, however, that he had other reasons for making such a dramatic doctrinal switch. Unlike Russell, Rutherford really did not like Jews. Although he followed Russell in publicly support- ing Zionism for many years after Russell's death, ..."
6. on Page 3:
"... come to power in Germany - which they in fact did, on 30 January 1933. So it seems likely that Rutherford was anxious to dissociate Jehovah's Witnesses from the Jewish community in any way possible. However, that can- not excuse what ..."
Thank you very much for the tips regarding Google's "search this book" feature as well as the title " Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics Under Persecution "
My interest is in general membership numbers,etc. for each year and your clues enabled me to back into a series of charts (via one of Penton's footnotes) in the "Divine Purpose" book (beginning on page 312) which I have.
I have Penton's "Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses" and just ordered " Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics Under Persecution " on Amazon.
Thanks again for all of the response.
