I have mentioned this before but never quoted it so I think for many it was not really paid much attention. But today I pulled the book off the shelf and found the quote (which I posted on another thread but I want to add a few things to the quotes.
After Russell died and Rutherford illegally seized the presidency of the WTS he was faced with the huge problem that Russell's "organization" was a rather loosely organizations that were independently controlled by the local congregations. The Society had little control of what people believed. There certainly wasn't any top down leadership even though Russell was looked up to as the head the the WTS.
Rutherford wanted more control. He wanted control of everything, what the "brethren" believed, (remember they were not called Jehovah's Witnesses yet) what they taught, what they sold (and the money from that) even what they looked like including men getting rid of their facial hair like Russell had. He was on a campaign to wipe Russell's memory off the minds of those who remained in the congregations.
The issue of facial hair arose when Rutherford was visiting the Magdeburg, Germany, Bethel.In the book 30 Years a Watchtower Slave, Schnell recalls an incident during the visit when the Director of the Madgenberg Bethel asked Rutherford for a large rotary press.
...The Judge said nothing for a while, merely ate. Then suddenly he looked up, his eyes pinned severely on the Director's huge beard and said, "I will buy you the press if you take that thing off," pointing to the beard. It surely shocked the Director's sensibilities, but he meekly heeded the warning and soon shamefacedly appeared minus the beard. p. 51-52
That is the kind of ruthless control Rutherford wanted from his followers. Little care for individuality. We had to look alike and that meant especially doing anything that reminded him of Russell.
While in Maagdenberg they synchronized a large convention where they expected 12,000 people to show up. Instead they wound up with 15,000 people. Since there were no facilities for an extra 3000 people they had to improvise.
We rented large circus tents, and set them up in a field outside Gutenberg. In this tent we installed temporary plumbing. We organized a cafeteria, wherein we served hot meals for a nominal price. This was the first cafeteria ever organized in Watchtower circles, and so successful it was as a moneymaker that the Society has long since adopted it as a regular feature for its conventions and circuit assemblies throughout the world. Shelter for this vast throng was obtained by signing up rooms with householders who were previously solicited by careful canvass. This, by the way, was also a first, and is now used everywhere in conjunction with Watchtower Conventions and circuit assemblies.p 51-52
Both cafeterias and rented rooms in private homes have been done away with but the Society used these for many years.
It was also in Maagdenberg that the first nametags were used. The Bethel "devised a little celluloid tag container, with room to insert a white card with the name of the congregation typed into it. These cost us about three pfennigs apiece and I sold them for fifty pfennigs apiece. We made a nice piece of money from this transaction to augment the Society's coffers!" p. 52
Until that time the brethren expected to be lifted to the heavens in 1925. But Rutherford surprised them all the night before the convention when he announced there was still a lot of preaching to do on earth. Instead he got them to visualize "vast billions coming out of all the kingdoms of the world, person after person, class after class, slowly learning the Kingdom" p. 53"
To build this new kingdom, his "New World Society" Rutherford devised a plan. And he used the the Bethel and congregations in Germany to test out certain practices. Where he succeeded he used the plan in the US. If it didn't he went back to the drawing board.
Schnell makes a very interesting comment.
Stooges for Brooklyn
We in Magdeburg [Germany] were actually stooges for Brooklyn. We were the trial organization forming by our moves the pattern for the future assault on the congregations in the U.S.A, Every detail of how most effectively to subvert the congregations was tested and tried by us and was reported to Brooklyn and there files away for future use in the U.S.A.
The larger congregations proved to be the most troublesome, since in these the Elders were generally well-trained and strong Christians. But, the tide was turned against them! As more and more books were being placed carrying the new Watchtower gospel, and as many new adherents were coming in, we began to experiment with subjection by division. We did this by arbitrarily breaking up the whole congregation into from six to twelve units, all semi-autonomous to make them more palatable to the rank and file. We headed each unit with a specially appointed Service Director from the Society. At the same time a semblance of the unity of the old congregation was retained by arranging for a monthly two-day assembly of the whole congregation in some special place. This was the method used to make the congregations more readily manageable. It worked so well that the Society in Brooklyn, when they thought the time was ripe for it (around 1934-35), began using this same method in the larger cities in the U.S.A. p 61-62
A couple of pages further Schnell comments about some of the problems the German congregations and Bethel were experiencing and the how they overcame them he states:
The leaders at Brooklyn coldly marked that result down for future reference. After all, our experience in Germany was to become the blueprint for the Theocracy later to be established in America.... It bothered these Watchtower leaders very little to set up foreign taskmasters over their brethren, in almost the same manner as the Egyptians had done to the Israelites, whose later history they after all were using as a blueprint for the establishment of the New Nation. Much less did it bother them that such behavior was contrary to established Christian principles. What matter to them was the fact they learned that the brethren will not take to slavery under outsiders. They files that valuable information away very carefully; and when the Theocracy of 1938 was established, and thereafter, when they began to use Theocratic Extractors and taskmasters to drive on the Kingdom Publishers (or better, Kingdom slaves), to a better quota performance, to larger placements of books or more regular attendance at the meetings, they used brethren! "Servants to the brethren" they call them now. It seems that most of Jehovah's Witnesses, having sunk so low in individuality thinking and having descended to the nadir of a Zombi-like existence, will put up with slavery if it is forced upon them top down theocratically by their own taskmasters. p 68 [bold mine]
Meanwhile Hitler was doing the exact same thing to the German people.
Hmmmmmm
In 1925 Hitler published his first installment of Mein Kampf with Volume 2 released the following year. Pretty much the same time that Rutherford was developing and publishing books about his New World Hitler was doing the same thing. it is kind of interesting that Rutherford chose Germany as his test ground for new ways of building his money making organization while Hitler was doing the same. Hitler's books were written while he was in prison and he made so much money from the sales of his two books that hew was able to buy a Mercedes while he was still in prison. For a Socialist who wanted the people to share the wealth he sure made sure he had his comforts ready for him when he got out.
Hitler dodged taxes, expert finds
Adolf Hitler spent years dodging taxes, accumulating enormous debts as he led his Nazi party to power, a German tax expert has revealed.
He owed the authorities 405,500 Reichsmarks (6m euros; £4m in today's money) by 1934, when as German chancellor his debts were forgiven.
A retired Bavarian notary, Klaus-Dieter Dubon, found Hitler's tax secrets in papers from the Bavarian State Archive.
"He was constantly challenging tax office rulings," Mr Dubon told Reuters.
The tax office inquired how Hitler had obtained funds to buy a luxury Mercedes car while he was in prison following his abortive 1923 coup attempt.
Hitler replied that he had received a bank loan and the car "is for me just a means to an end".
After his release from jail, Hitler had declared his possessions simply as one desk and two bookshelves, the German newspaper Bild reported.
Mein Kampf earnings
Mr Dubon told Reuters that Hitler had earned 1.2m Reichsmarks in 1933 from sales of his book Mein Kampf - "a huge income, when you consider teachers then had annual salaries of 4,800 marks".
But he failed to pay tax on 600,000 Reichsmarks of that income, the researcher found.
By 1945 Hitler had made 7.6m Reichsmarks out of Mein Kampf, without paying any tax.
In his lengthy correspondence with tax inspectors, Hitler repeatedly asked to pay in instalments.
But once installed as chancellor in 1933, his tax troubles were over.
He was declared free of tax obligations in 1934 and the reward for the official who absolved him was a monthly tax-free income of 2,000 Reichsmarks.
"It's all so ridiculous," said Mr Dubon. "But in a dictatorship everything the dictator does is correct."
Makes me think of Rutherford and his Cadillacs. While he got to travel in luxury, the brethren and later Jehovah's Witnesses were expected to give up everything to peddle his books all around the world.