Can anyone translate this letter from the WBTS to Hitler (to English)

by middleman 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Thomas Poole

  You can sometimes use this link for language translations

  http://translation2.paralink.com/

  Thomas the true believer
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  Leolaia

  The letter is a separate document from the Declaration and if I remember correctly it was written by the German branch servant.

  In a sense, it is a more startling document than the Declaration published in the Yearbook because it expresses agreement with the "just principles" of the 24th article of the Nazi Party Platform. While expressing a freedom for religion and a non-denominational Christianity in particular, the quoted statement also expresses typical Nazi racism -- "opposing the Jewish-materialist spirit domestically and abroad" and promoting the "ethical and moral beliefs of the German race". But the German edition of the Declaration (translating and redacted by the German branch servant) contains the most startling statement of all -- it condemns the boycott against Germany promoted by Jews and Catholics in America. In this statement, solidarity is most clearly shown with the Nazi Party in their persecution of Jews. This is because the boycott itself was a protest against the persecutions that had already occurred by that time.

  It should be pointed out that the Society subsequently criticized the German version of the Declaration, presumably on account of passages such as these. The original version however speaks for itself.
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  Leolaia

  Here are statements from the Society at the time about Jews:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  And after WWII, this statement was published in Let God Be True (1946 ed.) which blames the Jews themselves for their own sufferings, including presumably the recent Nazi persecution. This statement was removed in the 1952 edition:

  

  Of course, the Society also published articles in defensive of Jews undergoing persecution -- particularly in the Consolation in the latter half of the 1930s and in the 1940s. And after 1933, the Society was unrelenting in its attacks on totalitarianism and Nazi Germany. It is however also clear that Rutherford expressed a form of antisemitism common in the 1930s (cf. the statements by Rep. Louis T. McFadden, who introduced a bill in the US Congress in defense of Rutherford's radio broadcasts).
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  middleman

  Thank-you all for your help. BTW, Atlantis what kind of beer is that? I hope it's an import hehe. Blessings...