Watchtower Recommends Jim Penton's Apostate Book!

by amiable 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  amiable

  I just came across a conversation from 2004 on another forum between a Jewish student (I think) and a JW. Lady Lee made a post about Jim Penton's book on JWs and the Third Reich. I was pulling quotes from this conversation and noticed something that struck me as very odd but didn't seem to faze the JW.
  
  Here's the source:
  
  http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?pageID=1&discussionID=387390&messages_per_page=54
  
  First here's the JW in the 19th post:

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  Btw, don't forget that our headquarters is also very helpful and knowledgable, would you like to call and talk to someone there? I can provide the general phone number if you wish and once you explain to the operator what you want they can direct you. Let me know.
  
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  Here's part of the response that I find amazing. It says that Mr. Pellechia from the Watchtower called the student researcher and recommended the book by M. James Penton and another one by Hans Hesse:
  
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  You mentioned the headquarters. I called them today a few times and left some messages. I called both numbers 718-560-5000 and 5600. I thought I wouldn't get anywhere because the message implies that I might not get a call back unless I'm media and it's urgent. But when lunch was over, I was contacted by Mr. Pellechia. He gave me his direct phone number and his email address. We spoke for about an hour.
  
  My questions were:
  
  1. When did the JW drop their interest in Zionism?
  
  He thought it was the late 20's or the early 30's. He wasn't sure. He told me about "Comfort for the Jews" written in 1925. I asked him about "Light" written around 1930. He didn't know if it was related.
  
  2. I asked him if Henry Ford and any known relationship to the Watchtower.
  
  He said he didn't know of one, but when I told him what I had so far about Armageddon in terms of "labor and capital" and the "Zionism and Armageddon" references, he thought he wouldn't be too surprised if I just might find one. He thought the information on Henry Ford's relationship with the peace ship, League of Nations, Armistice, anti-war, vegetarianism, and Adventists was interesting. We talked for a long time about it. He did some searches in a database and read me a quote from the Golden Age magazine. It said that:
  
  "Henry Ford thinks that if 100 men of the world's largest munitions dealers would stop making them that we would have a warless world. We think that Henry Ford should get hold of Rutherford's book, Vindication."
  
  He mentioned another quote about Henry Ford but didn't read it or tell me where it was.
  
  3. I asked him about the quotes from the 1934 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses. Mr. Pellechia called them unfortunate words. He said that it was true that "these unfortunate words were said by Mr. Rutherford." He also agreed that there was a separate letter to Hitler. I told him I only have seen it only in German, and my German is not very good. I asked him about an official translation to English, if there was such a reference available. I asked him about any official explanation of the words about the Jews. He answered like there was nothing official. He mentioned that Awake magazine in the mid-90s said something about it. I asked him again and he wasn't more specific than mid-90s. He said there was also a book that just came out about JWs and Hitler by a professor in Canada, M. James Penton. "Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics Under Persecution" He said he wasn't sure how complimentary it would be. It's not published by the Watchtower. He said there was a book edited by Hans Hesse a few years ago that includes references to interviews, papers and lectures: "Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Regime: 1933-1945".
  
  I just ordered both of these on Amazon.
  
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  That's one book I figured the Watchtower would never "sell".
• 

  Gopher

  The Watchtower is fighting a propaganda battle against information such as that in Jim Penton's book. They are trying to spin history their way.

  Their official website has a link to a 1998 Awake! article that tries to explain away the early attempts to placate the German/Nazi government in 1933. Here is the link.

  Why would Watchtower leaders use the melody from the German national anthem to open this particular convention? That is one of many questions the Awake writer tiptoes around.

  Here is an excerpt of the Awake! article's effort to spin history:

  Convention of Courage or Compromise?

  Some now hold that the 1933 Berlin convention and the "Declaration of Facts" were attempts on the part of prominent Witnesses to show support for the Nazi government and its hatred of the Jews. But their assertions are not true. They are based on misinformation and on misinterpretation of the facts.

  For instance, critics claim that the Witnesses decorated the Wilmersdorfer Tennishallen with swastika flags. Photographs of the 1933 convention clearly show that they displayed no swastikas in the hall. Eyewitnesses confirm that there were no flags inside.

  It is possible, however, that there were flags on the building's exterior. A Nazi combat troop had used the hall on June 21, the Wednesday prior to the convention. Then just the day before the convention, crowds of young people along with units of the SS (Schutzstaffel, originally Hitler's Blackshirt bodyguards), SA, and others celebrated the summer solstice nearby. So Witnesses arriving at the Sunday convention might have been greeted with the sight of a building decked with swastika flags.

  Had there been swastika flags decorating the hall's exterior, corridors, or even its interior, the Witnesses would have left them alone. Even today, when Jehovah's Witnesses rent public facilities for meetings and conventions, they do not remove national symbols. But there is no evidence that the Witnesses themselves hung any flags or that they saluted them.

  Critics further state that the Witnesses opened the convention with the German national anthem. Actually, the convention began with "Zion's Glorious Hope," Song 64 in the Witnesses' religious songbook. The words of this song were set to music composed by Joseph Haydn in 1797. Song 64 had been in the Bible Students' songbook since at least 1905. In 1922 the German government adopted Haydn's melody with words by Hoffmann von Fallersleben as their national anthem. Nevertheless, the Bible Students in Germany still sang their Song 64 occasionally, as did Bible Students in other countries.

  The singing of a song about Zion could hardly be construed as an effort to placate the Nazis. Under pressure from anti-Semitic Nazis, other churches removed Hebrew terms such as "Judah," "Jehovah," and "Zion" from their hymnals and liturgies. Jehovah's Witnesses did not. The convention organizers, then, certainly did not expect to win favor with the government by singing a song extolling Zion. Possibly, some delegates may have been reluctant to sing "Zion's Glorious Hope," since the melody of this composition by Haydn was the same as that of the national anthem.
• 

  amiable

  But don't they have a point that they were only singing a "parody" of the Nazional Anthem if it was about Zion? If anyone from "the Party" was listening to the words it probably would have ticked someone off.
• 

  heathen

  What about Rutherfords attempts at placating Hitler in the declaration of facts where he states that they shared the same goals of ruling the world and more or less that jesus was a bigger facist than they were .LOL Yah they did try to distance themselves from the ethnic jews but still did not take the time to condemn Hitler for his evil acts of torture . I can at least thank the ORG. for not siding with Hitler and encouraging the involvement with the Nazis unlike other religions around at the time .
• 

  Atlantis

  The Jehovah's Witnesses used the Germany's national anthem in Germany! 1. Song 1928 Larger Zoom Image http://www.badongo.com/pic/155483 On June 25th 1933, in the Tennishallen at Wilmersdorf, Berlin, the WBTS organized a convention at which they presented a "Declaration of Facts", written by Rutherford himself. This declaration has been exposed as an attempt to suck up to the Nazi-regime in an attempt to regain their confiscated property in Magdeburg (see James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed). Cynicus 2. Song 1905-1 Larger Zoom Image http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=4/11014583579.jpg&s=x11 In 1976 one of the top-brass JWs from the German branch office of the WTBS, Konrad Franke, traveled throughout Germany giving a speech on the history of Jehovah's Witness in the Nazi-period. In it he flagrantly contradicted the story about the convention of 1933 in Wilmersdorf that had been told by the WBTS since 1934. Amongst others, Franke said in his lecture that the Tennishallen were decorated with swastika-flags and that the opening song was a very controversial one, set to the tune of the number one Nazi-hymn, 'Deutschland, Deutschland über alles' (which is incidentally still the German national anthem, albeit with different words). The composition by Haydn was adopted by the German government in 1922 as their national anthem. 3. Song 1905-2 Larger Zoom Image http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=4/11015522299.jpg&s=x11 The Awake! of July 8th, 1998, tries to control the damage in various respects (Norm has written an article about this as well). With regard to the song, nr. 64, "Zion's Herrliche Hoffnung", Awake! states that this song had been in the German WBTS songbooks since 1905 and that it was actually quite fitting that this song was picked for the opening of the convention due to its reference to the hope for Zion. 4. Song 1923-1 Larger Zoom Image http://www.badongo.com/pic/155527 Konrad Franke had told his audiences in 1976, however, that he and most of his fellow convention visitors were totally appalled by it, that they hadn't sung this song for years, and that many of the audience simply couldn't sing this song due to the emotions attached to it. Interestingly enough it has been tried since to verify the claim of the WBTS that song 64 was in the songbooks since 1905 and these attempts have failed so far. 5. Song 1923-2 Larger Zoom Image http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=4/11016280914.jpg&s=x11 On this page you'll find scanned images of the songbooks published by the WBTS in Germany of 1905, 1923, and 1928. In both the editions of 1905 and 1923 there's no song listed with the title of "Zion's herrliche Hoffnung". Only in the edition of 1928, six years after Haydn's composition was adopted as Germany's national anthem, this song appeared in the German songbook. 6. Song 1928-1 Larger Zoom Image http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=4/11016382031.jpg&s=x11 7. Song 1928-2 Larger Zoom Image http://www.hostmypic.info/uploads/7b42dfc52a.jpg Thanks Cynicus,
  
  Excellent material about the Wilmersdorf convention. There is so much spin in the Watchtower literature about that convention held in 1933. In the Awake! of July 8th, 1998 article they presented two pictures from inside the hall allegedly taken during the convention. These pictures show no Nazi symbols anywhere. Konrad Franke was there himself, so he of course knew what he saw, but as far as I can tell he didn’t say if the Nazi symbols was outside or inside the hall. There are however a plausible explanations. The Nazi youth organization that had used the hall previous to the Witnesses (Bible students) had not been able to remove all their props for the first day of the Witness convention but was able to do so in the evening after the first day, thus no such symbols on the pictures.
  
  Another example of the weasel worded ways of the Watchtower Society is how they constantly try to inflate the number of “Bible students” present at that convention. Even the above mentioned Awake! had a stab at this: quote:

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  *** g98 7/8 p. 12 Jehovah’s Witnesses—Courageous in the Face of Nazi Peril ***
  Therefore, the Magdeburg office arranged a convention to make use of the German citizens’ right of petition. On short notice, Jehovah’s Witnesses from all over Germany were invited to the Wilmersdorfer Tennishallen in Berlin on June 25, 1933. About 5,000 delegates were expected. Despite the hostile atmosphere, more than 7,000 courageously attended.

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  It is really strange to observe this seemingly uncontrollable urge to lie that the Watchtower Society writers and leaders always display. They simply have to lie, even when it isn’t necessary. In the letter accompanying the “Declaration” which was “adopted” during the convention and sent to Hitler the number present was of course the round figure of 5000.
  Here is the opening lines of the letter:
  
  quote:

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  “Most Honored Mr. Chancellor:
  
  On June 25, 1933, a 5,000-delegate convention of German Bible Students (Jehovah's Witnesses), representing several million Germans who have been friends and followers of this movement for many years, was held in the Sporthalle Wilmersdorf in Berlin.”

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  The usual Watchtower Society sense of proportions can be seen in this sentence: “representing several million Germans who have been friends and followers of this movement for many years,” What is that supposed to mean? 5000 Bible students “representing several million Germans”? No wonder Hitler and his underlings was less then impressed by such complete nonsense. I have no empirical data on this but other sources present at the convention has estimated that the number present was closer to 3000 than anything else. One thing is quite certain though, knowing the Watchtower way with numbers, we can be pretty sure that the 5000 figure given in the Hitler letter was pretty substantially inflated already. In the fifties the 5000 figure was already pumped up to 7000 and that’s usually the number they have stuck to. In all probability that’s 5000 too many.
  
  Norm

  
  
  (Click under heading of "Hitler Documents here: http://www.reexamine.org/wtobserver/ )