Please forgive me, Norm, but I am NOT going to write about the number of casualties during WWII, but about the number of Witnesses before and after the war, a question you raised, too. Why not the camp question? Because, I due to education and ancestry speak/read/write German fluently, and take a big interest in this question. During the last two years I have bought some 50 books and 20 videos dealing with the Witnesses and WWII, written/made either by historians, or by Witnesses, or by authors writing about Witnesses. It takes TIME to go thru it all, and so I need some more time, which I am sure you will understand; there are family members, dogs and horses to be taken care of, too, so I am not among the fortunate ones who can just relax and read, read, read.
OK, so much for that. You quote the W71, stating there were 14,400 Witnesses in 1932; G75 stating there were 19,000 in 1933; W71 stating there were 11,400 in 1946 (you misinterpret here, comparing "out of the camps" with "publishers");G87 stating there 9,000 in 1946.
If we read the 1974 Yearbook not in the cut 'n paste way, but some pages at a time, and compare with other literature, these numbers make sense. First, the pre-war figures:
1932: Graffard and Tristan in "The Bible Students and Nazism" state there were 12,484 Witnesses taking part in a special campaign, and that the peak was 14,400. The next year, there were 19,268 taking part in the special campaign, a formidable increase. Correspondingly, there were 15,000 at the memorial in 1932, but this increased to 25,000 in 1933. So there is no problem here, there was a huge increase from 1932 to 1933, and the Witness literature is not contradictory. You say that nobody had bothered to tell Garbe that Memorial visitors were not the same as Witnesses, but yes, they had. Graffard and Tristan, as does also garbe, write about "people more remotely connected with the Witnesses", so they make the distiction you ask for, but, please be not offended, one must read more than one paragraph. And I understand that is not so easy, if one does not read German; one then has to rely upon one's sources, who perhaps do not read it fluently, either. Much of the documentation Kent is asking for translation help for, is for example documentation that has nothing to do with these questions at all, but since he does not read German, he does not see it.
OK, what about after the war?
The 74YB tells about the first convention at the onset of 46, where there were 9,000 present, and these were the ones to start the Witnessing work again. All publishers were asked to participate, so these 9,000 are evidently viewed as the ones whom it was possible to contact or how we shall put it. The reorganization led to a huge increase, in 1948 there were 27,000 and in 1949 44,000. Correspondingly, at the Memorial in 1947 there were 35,000 - in 1948 48,000 and in 1949 64,000. All according to the 74YB.
I hope therefore that we can agree upon the point that the pre-war and after-war numbers pose no problems.
Nattland and Geist refer to Zipfel, who long before the German branch began research into these matters, write about 2,000 dead. Garbe's 1,200 dead are German only - again, one needs to read more than a couple of paragraphs. And as early as in 1937, as quoted in Graffard and Tristan, the Swiss newspaper "Der Demokrat" runs an erticle telling that 4,000 German Witnesses have been arrested. I will let the WWII numbers rest for a while, but these are a few indications as to a couple of the numbers.
OK, got to work a bit - but I hope the pre- and after-WW figures can be agreed upon?
Greetings from the unlucky guy who has to work a bit in-between trying to research.
To Norm: Nazi camp numbers
by TheOldHippie 6 Replies latest jw friends
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TheOldHippie
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Norm
Hello OldHippie,
You said:
OldHippie: Please forgive me, Norm, but I am NOT going to write about the number of casualties during WWII, but about the number of Witnesses before and after the war, a question you raised, too. Why not the camp question? Because, I due to education and ancestry speak/read/write German fluently, and take a big interest in this question. During the last two years I have bought some 50 books and 20 videos dealing with the Witnesses and WWII, written/made either by historians, or by Witnesses, or by authors writing about Witnesses. It takes TIME to go thru it all, and so I need some more time, which I am sure you will understand; there are family members, dogs and horses to be taken care of, too, so I am not among the fortunate ones who can just relax and read, read, read.
OK, so much for that. You quote the W71, stating there were 14,400 Witnesses in 1932; G75 stating there were 19,000 in 1933; W71 stating there were 11,400 in 1946 (you misinterpret here, comparing "out of the camps" with "publishers");G87 stating there 9,000 in 1946.You are forgiven I understand your situation regarding time. I am very familiar with the numbers you mention above. In what way do they change anything? What is there to misinterpret in this quote?:
*** w71 1/1 16 Have You Entered the Great Contest of Faith? ***
35 In 1932 when the last report was received from Germany and before the ban was placed on Jehovah’s witnesses, there were 14,453 sharing in the Kingdom declaration. By 1946, following the collapse of the German war machine and the opening of the gates of the concentration camps—but not the graves—there were 11,415 dedicated Christians still in the great contest for the faith.”If there was 11,415 publishers in 1946 in addition to or included those who came out of the camps the figures given in the 1987 Awake! Is even more dishonest, because there is no way you can “misinterpret” this quote:
*** g87 5/22 15 Part 6: 1946-1959 Deceptive Prosperity Amid a Peace That Was Not *** Jehovah’s Witnesses preserved Christian neutrality during World War II and thereafter. Rebounding from Hitler’s attempts to destroy them, the number of active Witnesses in Germany increased from fewer than 9,000 in 1946 to over 52,000 within five years.
If the number of 11,415 isn’t the number that came out of the camps but the number of publishers, why were there “fewer than 9000” Witnesses in Germany in 1946? Please explain? Where were these “11,415 dedicated Christians”? Were they coming out of the camps? If not what relevance do they have to the opening of the camp gates?It is great that you speak fluent German and since you like me are genuinely interested in the truth in this matter you may find time one day to translate some of the documents found on this site:
http://www.manfred-gebhard.de/
I am particularly interested in the “Hitlerzeit” page
http://www.manfred-gebhard.de/Hitlerzeit.htm
I have used ONLY Watchtower literature myself because whatever numbers I have ever seen, used by outsiders are only quotes of them in the Watchtower. The numbers these historians use are no doubt in turn lifted from Watchtower publications. As an example is Dr. Christine King which takes the number of 19,000 and rounds it up to an even 20,000 much to the joy of the Watchtower Society:
*** g89 4/8 12-13 The Holocaust-Victims or Martyrs? ***
“Tiny Sect”—Threat to Nazis
At the abovementioned conference, Dr. Christine King presented facts about the Witnesses in Nazi Germany. She reported: ‘That this tiny sect, 20,000 in a population of 65 million, 20 million of whom were Roman Catholics and 40 million of whom were Protestants, drew the attention of the authorities is at first glance surprising.In W51, not that far removed from the war the numbers game is in full swing:
*** w51 2/15 105-6 An Open Answer to "The Vindicator" ***
That is why during the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 to 1945 Jehovah’s witnesses in that land refused to heil Hitler! as their Fuehrer or Leader, and went to concentration camps and prisons, where 2,000 died cruel deaths, and of the 8,000 that came out alive, 2,000 were invalided for the rest of their lives.
I consider the numbers given in the 1974 yearbook to be the real numbers of casualties although they probably try to inflate a few numbers there too as I will give you an example of below.
The Watchtower Society has always had a burning need to inflate the number of dead for a very despicable reason. Why do you think they suddenly dragged this mini “holocaust” out of their hat and started touring Europe with their exhibitions? Do you think it had something to do with their bad reputation in Europe?Another sterling example of “cooking the books” is the number present at the [in]famous assembly in the Wilmersdorf sportshalle in Berlin 1933. In the 74 yearbook they manage to inflate the number of attendants. In the letter to Hitler in 1933 they stated the following:
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.
The number given in the Hitler letter is most likely quite inflated too in a desperate effort to dazzle the Fuhrer. How those few thousands that were present could possibly “represent several million Germans” we never get any explanation for, another touch of the lunatic Rutherford no doubt. In the 1974 yearbook they manage to present more inflated figures:
*** yb74 110 Germany (Part One) ***
In this situation the congregations were invited on very short notice to a convention to be held in Berlin on June 25. Since it was expected that many would be unable to attend because of the various bans, the congregations were encouraged to send at least one or several delegates. But, as it turned out, 7,000 brothers got there.One has to wonder how Germans, extremely well organized and sticklers for detail had missed 2000 people in the Hitler letter. I have seen eyewitness accounts which I unfortunately can’t find, that the real number in attendance was somewhere between 3 and 4000 people, which is probably far closer to the truth. But truth is as we know of no interest in Brooklyn.
OldHippie: If we read the 1974 Yearbook not in the cut 'n paste way, but some pages at a time, and compare with other literature, these numbers make sense. First, the pre-war figures:
1932: Graffard and Tristan in "The Bible Students and Nazism" state there were 12,484 Witnesses taking part in a special campaign, and that the peak was 14,400. The next year, there were 19,268 taking part in the special campaign, a formidable increase. Correspondingly, there were 15,000 at the memorial in 1932, but this increased to 25,000 in 1933. So there is no problem here, there was a huge increase from 1932 to 1933, and the Witness literature is not contradictory. You say that nobody had bothered to tell Garbe that Memorial visitors were not the same as Witnesses, but yes, they had. Graffard and Tristan, as does also garbe, write about "people more remotely connected with the Witnesses", so they make the distiction you ask for, but, please be not offended, one must read more than one paragraph. And I understand that is not so easy, if one does not read German; one then has to rely upon one's sources, who perhaps do not read it fluently, either. Much of the documentation Kent is asking for translation help for, is for example documentation that has nothing to do with these questions at all, but since he does not read German, he does not see it.Again I know these numbers. I have read the yearbook, both in Norwegian and English that is why I know what quotes I want to use. Anyone who has that yearbook can read it and find out if what I have quoted is wrong, and it isn’t as you very well know. What is it about all this that change anything of what I have already said? I have not read Garbe, I have seen that the Watchtower literature quote him and they have used his 25,000 figure, of course completely OMITTING the FACT that this was memorial attendance figures, so my original claim stands, they are dishonest and try to inflate all numbers. It is true that I don’t read German very well, but I understand quite a bit. The Gestapo documents about the traitors among the German Watchtower leaders have of course everything to do with the Nazi years and the Watchtower Society claimed unparalleled “faithfulness” under Nazi tyranny. Why don’t you translate some of those documents for us?
OldHippie: OK, what about after the war?
The 74YB tells about the first convention at the onset of 46, where there were 9,000 present, and these were the ones to start the Witnessing work again. All publishers were asked to participate, so these 9,000 are evidently viewed as the ones whom it was possible to contact or how we shall put it. The reorganization led to a huge increase, in 1948 there were 27,000 and in 1949 44,000. Correspondingly, at the Memorial in 1947 there were 35,000 - in 1948 48,000 and in 1949 64,000. All according to the 74YB.
I hope therefore that we can agree upon the point that the pre-war and after-war numbers pose no problems.
Nattland and Geist refer to Zipfel, who long before the German branch began research into these matters, write about 2,000 dead. Garbe's 1,200 dead are German only - again, one needs to read more than a couple of paragraphs. And as early as in 1937, as quoted in Graffard and Tristan, the Swiss newspaper "Der Demokrat" runs an erticle telling that 4,000 German Witnesses have been arrested. I will let the WWII numbers rest for a while, but these are a few indications as to a couple of the numbers.
OK, got to work a bit - but I hope the pre- and after-WW figures can be agreed upon?
Greetings from the unlucky guy who has to work a bit in-between trying to researchAgain, the numbers I have presented are taken from the Watchtower literature itself; no amount of hand waving can change that fact. As I once again have documented above the figures fluctuate wildly. There is also no doubt that the Watchtower Society is trying every trick in the book to inflate the number of Witnesses and the number of dead. If that fact doesn’t pose a problem for you that’s something that I will have to take notice of for the future.
I also have the benefit of having researched Watchtower literature for more than 15 years now, and I have learned how deceptive and dishonest the Watchtower Society are in dealing with their own history. I have learned this by simply first reading their OWN literature and then also reading Ray Franz and C. O. Jonsson which documents a lot of similar cases as I have discovered myself.
Take care,
Norm
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TheOldHippie
I will return to your post later, as I have some problems seeing what the "real problem" as to the number of pre-war Witnesses is. But, forgive me, I cannot help it or resist it, I must, I simply must, point out this sentence of yours, when you write about the 1974 Yearbook:
"I have read the yearbook, both in Norwegian and English ..."
Well well well, dearest Norm, back in 1974 the YB was not issued in Norwegian, you know that was not till 1984 .........
OK, I simply couldn't resist it! -
TheOldHippie
By the way, Norm, I have read much of what is on the Manfred Gebhard pages, but he has such an extremely word-loving way of expressing himself, he simply HAS to use 1,000 words when 100 had been sufficient. I at times have problems seeing whereat he is aiming. especially in his commenting on other opposers, where it is as if he were the only one to be trusted. But OK, I'll check out the documents again.
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Norm
Hello OldH,
You said:
I have read the yearbook, both in Norwegian and English ..."
I understand The only excuse I have is that I am no longer aware that I am reading English, so I might not have noticed that it wasn't Norwegian, but you are of course correct, I have only read it in English. I also mixed up a couple of assemblies, the one in 1932 and 1933, but now I think I have got it right.
Well well well, dearest Norm, back in 1974 the YB was not issued in Norwegian, you know that was not till 1984 .........
OK, I simply couldn't resist it!All the best,
Norm
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Francois
I remember quite well reading in a JW yearbook back in the late fifties that the JWs had lost 255 members to the Holocaust. 255. It was a straight, plain, unencumbered number; no extractions, no integrations, no calculus. Just a plain statement of a plain number: 255. I remember thinking at the time "255 as compared to six million, and they act like they suffered?"
FT
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Carlo
Btw old Hippie.
What do you think about the last 12 years decrease of the wAtchtower organisation in Denmark and how Jehovah is blessing hisorganisation?
Carlo