OrphanCrow
Really good, thanks for this.
Did judge Rutherford piss off Hitler
by greenhornet 109 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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Driving Force
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joe134cd
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OrphanCrow
Giordani: An ironic side note to this despicable situation is that the actual Commanding General of the entire European theater of war............ Dwight Eisenhower (later president of the US) demanded that his troops liberate the concentration camps ASAP.
The irony is that Eisenhower had been raised as a JW or what passed as a JW (which was a WT affiliated Bible Student), his mother’s living room served as the local Kingdom Hall. He, his father and all of his brothers left the religion and Eisenhower went on to become one of the 21st Centuries most important and successful Military and political figures we have had.http://www.adherents.com/people/pe/Dwight_Eisenhower.html
Rutherford or the apostate Eisenhower? Who was mentally diseased?Ah yes...Eisenhower. The WTS sure tried to get mileage out of that man. I think of "Ike" as the WTS' Michael Jackson of the 50s - celebrity status with a JW connection.
The WTS did not view Ike as an apostate - not by any stretch of the imagination - apostates don't get favourable articles written about them in WT literature.
The WTS printed two articles about Dwight Eisenhower - both favorable. I say they are favorable articles, contrary to what some who claim that they were 'neutral' articles, simply because the WTS didn't criticize him and there were favorable comments scattered through each article. When the WTS wants to be unfavorable, the reader is left in no doubt. There is no such concept as 'neutral' when discussing politics - by default, the neutral position is always on the side of the power position.
The first article was printed in the December 22, 1952 Awake magazine and was titled President by a Landslide - Report of the United States' Presidential Campaign.
The second article was printed in the January 8, 1957 Awake magazine, titled America Still Likes Ike.
I find both articles to be evidence of another one of those amusingly ironic things about the WTS - on one hand they shout from the rooftops that they are "politically neutral!!" and on the other hand, they are constantly making political statements and publishing political news stories.
When a person compares the early Golden Age articles to the articles later, after the major schism that saw the upturning of the Zionist theology and the adoption of the replacement theology, the political shift is glaringly obvious. The Golden Age magazines prior to 1925 were overtly socialist in nature - left wing politics were compatible with the Zionist stance that was heavily represented in much of the magazine. The Golden Age editors also included many articles that were pro-labour and featured articles on prominent Democrats.
After 1925, the switch to right wing politics was evident in the choice of articles (and in Rutherford's 'bedfellows' that financed Beth Sarim, et al), and that stance continued for years and was made even more evident in the articles published about the Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower.
Politically neutral? I think not.
*truthseeker and DrivingForce, thanks...and you are welcome. :)
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truthseeker100
Fascinating posts by Birdwoman2 on your link Orphan Crow thanks. Politically neutral my ass! -
kaik
Orphan Crow is very correct. If I ever get a time, I would love to research archives in Prague related to collaboration of JWs with the Nazi government. During the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, some JWs went head on against German's occupational force and were executed. Some of these people died for their own stupidity to parish as a martyr. In 1942 there was a martial law in Protectorate, which required everyone to have identification. Failure to do so resulted immediate death. Some JWs willingly destroyed their IDs in the peak of the Heydrich's terror and did field service to be caught, arrested, and executed on the spot.
After the war, there were retribution courts dealing with WWII collaboration. Some JWs were brought in to the court to face the accusation to be compliant with Nazi regime. While I am not aware that any of the JWs were condemned by the court, the accusations in postwar Czechoslovakia indeed existed. I heard about them in 1970's/1980's. However, WWII collaboration of JWs there is not well studied, unlike well documented collaboration of JWs under Stalin regimes. If there was collaboration with commies, its is certain there was collaboration with Nazis. I had personally searched some names of JWs in Czechoslovak courts for communist collaboration and I had seen names that I recognized.
Any case, when the WWII ended, many JWs were seen working as servants for Nazi leadership in occupied Czechoslovakia. Lina Heydrich had entire pack of them brought from Germany who lived in idle luxury in chateau outside Prague. I have also encountered information that Carola Blazek Frank, wife of the Bohemian Reichprotector had JWs who were Czech and German origin on her chateau (Czech sources are ambiguous between distinguishing Lina and Carola JW pack, and I could not find definitive proof) . While the German JWs were expelled to Germany, there was an initiation to investigate the conducts of domestic Bohemian JWs who were serving local Nazi leaders. After the war JWs got a free pass in the courts by pointing out that JW and Bible Students were prosecuted by the Nazi Regime and thus they were victim instead compliant.
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TheOldHippie
In stead of reading the summaries some here give - good, but still nothing but summaries - why don't you read Garbe? It's all there. Thick as a brick, but a truly great history of JWs and WWII. The pre-Hitler persecution, early Hitler acts, Rutherford's attempts at coming to terms, Balzereit, conventions, campaigns, internal strife within the camps, factions among the JWs - it's all there. So summaries here are nothing "new", nothing that is "hidden from the JWs", "shocking news" or anything like that. Read Garbe - or a couple of the other good German historians for that matter. Good books. And nothing neither a JW or an ex-JW should be afraid of. Just plain good old-fashioned research with all the pro's and con's, all the successes and setbacks. -
kaik
The book by Detlef Garbe is Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich.
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SimonSays
12 hours ago
The book by Detlef Garbe is Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich.
Ah yes...Eisenhower. The WTS sure tried to get mileage out of that man. I think of "Ike" as the WTS' Michael Jackson of the 50s - celebrity status with a JW connection.
The WTS did not view Ike as an apostate - not by any stretch of the imagination - apostates don't get favourable articles written about them in WT literature.
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OrphanCrow
Kaik, I always enjoy your contributions to discussions about WW2 and Germany. I envy your ability to access primary documentation and your proximity to research material. What you share and the information you add often fills in gaps in my own research. Thank you.
TheOldHippie: In stead of reading the summaries some here give - good, but still nothing but summaries - why don't you read Garbe? It's all there. Thick as a brick, but a truly great history of JWs and WWII. The pre-Hitler persecution, early Hitler acts, Rutherford's attempts at coming to terms, Balzereit, conventions, campaigns, internal strife within the camps, factions among the JWs - it's all there. So summaries here are nothing "new", nothing that is "hidden from the JWs", "shocking news" or anything like that. Read Garbe - or a couple of the other good German historians for that matter. Good books. And nothing neither a JW or an ex-JW should be afraid of. Just plain good old-fashioned research with all the pro's and con's, all the successes and setbacks.
Yes, OldHippie, Detlef Garbe is an excellent resource. His book is one, among many others, that has given us much information about the Watchtower activities during the war years. However, in order to get a better sense of what was happening at that time, and how external influences shaped the WT history, there is much to be learned by looking farther afield in historical accounts.
I apologize as you seem to not like summaries, but what follows is a very brief summary of research that goes well beyond WTS literature and Garbe’s historical documentation or authors who have focused on the WTS and WW2. I can provide references for what I am about to say, but for now, I will try to keep this brief. I am leaving lots of detail out.
It is easy to focus on Rutherford and Hitler, but it was Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, who had the most influence on the JWs during WW2.
And it was Heinrich Himmler’s doctor who would also prove to play a pivotal role in the history of the JWs. Garbe, and WT publications, mention Felix Kersten as an influential figure and there are several outside sources that speak of Kersten’s activities during the war, including several editions of the diary that he wrote while attending to Himmler’s health. There is far more to Dr. Kersten than what the WT or Garbe mention. I have read several books about Kersten in addition to one of his diaries. One author called him "The Devil's Doctor".
Among the many things that I discovered about this famed WT legend, Felix Kersten, is that he practiced a special technique on Himmler that ingratiated him to the leader of the SS. Kersten wasn’t a ‘doctor’ that could lay claim to the title legitimately – he was a masseuse. What made him special to Himmler is that Kersten was able to relieve the intense abdominal pain that Himmler suffered frequently. And how Kersten did it was with “deep massage” – a technique that was known in the chiropractic field of the age, as “bloodless surgery”.
And that piece of information points to some things that I find interesting about the JWs and WW2 – how the WTS and the JWs fit, and don’t fit, within the historical narrative of blood medicine.
Many things occurred during World War 2 that would have an impact on the world – technology surges in times of conflict and one area that surged, and never looked back, was blood medicine technology. The group that would feel the impact of those medical advances in a huge negative way was the JWs – the doctrine banning blood transfusions, was introduced right after the end of WW2.
At the very same time that the world was embracing and making large medical gains in blood medicine, the JWs were denied the right to access blood transfusions. It was at the very same time that Eisenhower was releasing the work camp prisoners at the end of the war, that Knorr and Franz were putting the finishing touches on the July, 1945 Watchtower that would set the stage for a huge leap in WT doctrine. The article published in that magazine led to the WTS saying that blood transfusions were no longer permitted, and that ‘Jehovah God’ said so in the Bible.
Advances in blood technology occurred rather rapidly during WW2. Even though blood transfusions had been in medical use for some time, with doctors and patients encountering and overcoming many problems along the way, several things happened during the years leading up to and during WW2 that would have lasting benefits in blood medicine. Firstly, a giant step happened when a Canadian doctor devised a way to transport blood to the wounded during the Spanish Civil War (1936?). And Dr. Cohn, an American doctor, discovered how to fractionate blood. Blood banking became possible, and blood donors were able to donate other than “on the hoof” – which was arm to arm transmission between soldiers and medics at the front.
The one country, though, that lagged way behind in the optimal use of blood technology was Nazi Germany. While the rest of the world was expending energy into utilizing blood as a life saving resource, the Germans were reluctant and superstitious in their use of blood. (a good book to read on blood medicine history is Douglas Starr’s Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce)
The German doctors used small amounts of blood when resorting to blood transfusions (usually not enough), the medical treatment at the front still relied mostly on the system of “on the hoof” transfusions, and the German’s medical research was more concerned in pursuing ways of stopping the bleeding from happening than discovering how to advance blood transfusion technology. For instance, Nazi doctors tested out anti-clotting formulas on prisoners and did very little to advance the use of blood transfusions. Underlying the Nazis’ focus on blood management and reducing blood transfusions, was their notion of “pure race” and avoiding contaminating their Aryan blood with the blood of those who were “impure”.
By the end of WW2, the WTS had manipulated Biblical interpretation in order to come up with a blood doctrine that fit perfectly into the Nazis’ scientific and ideological aims. And then gave the JWs the ultimate loyalty test – to obey or face eternal death. And just like that, those volunteer prisoners became volunteer medical subjects.
The face of bloodless surgery has changed since the days of it being practised as a deep massage technique by Felix Kersten, but the reasons for it being what it is today, truly is because of what the JWs have contributed to it since the end of WW2 – their lives.
The WTS is blood guilty. And not just for those who died during the war in concentration camps, but also for those who have died in the past 70 years by following the WTS’ directive to refuse blood transfusions. The WTS has deceived the world with the blood doctrine because the roots of the blood transfusion ban aren’t in the Bible – the roots can be found in Nazi Germany during WW2.
