Rutherford's Hitler Letter - An Alternate History

by cappytan 14 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  cappytan

  If you're unaware of the letter tinged with anti-semitism and offering tacit approval that Rutherford wrote to Hitler, see this article on JWFacts.

  So, we all know the Witnesses were persecuted quite a bit during the war years. I personally had family that was in Jail with brother Schroder in the 40's for the crime of "peddling."

  I'm an agnostic fader, however I still think the mob violence against the witnesses was deplorable. You fight speech with speech, not violence.

  Anyhow, going back to the subject of the Rutherford letter to Hitler, can you imagine how much worse the violence would have been had this letter been picked up by the press?

  Why, the JW's in the U.S. might have gotten the same treatment as the Japanese-Americans being thrown into "internment" camps.
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  DogGone

  I appreciate what you are saying, but doubt exposure of the letter in the US at the time would have caused any animus in the United States toward the JWs. We tend to look backwards in history with the benefit of hindsight and mistake the mood of what people became with what they were earlier.

  What I mean is that this letter was from 1933. The mood in the US was not entirely anti-Nazi in 1933 nor immediately thereafter. There was a growing anti-Nazi Hollywood league, especially after 1936, but don't mistake that for how the political and business leaders of the day spoke about Hitler and the Nazi party. On the contrary, Rutherford would have been closely in line with many other commentators of the time. Now, as you move later into the 30's and the regime becomes ever more dark, the mood changed considerably.

  Had this letter been written in 1942 and there after exposed in the US, yes there would have been all manner of extra hostility toward the JWs. But that is not the reality of the chronology.
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  TerryWalstrom

  If you will take the time to read exactly what Jehovah's Witnesses were saying out loud, in the streets, in print, on the radio, by loudspeaker trucks, etc. you will discover something about which you are unaware.

  JW's were really asking for trouble, using something the court called "fighting words" which directly caused them to be attacked.

  Families who had a son serving in the armed forces had tender emotions pushed to the limit by the public declarations of J-Dubs calling down condemnation. Go all the way back to the book THE FINISHED MYSTERY and read the incredibly incendiary language. It caused the WTS leaders to be tried, convicted, and imprisoned for treason.
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  Giordano

  Mob violence is always wrong. However many of the Talks Rutherford gave were very mean spirited. This was also a time that JW's went door to door with portable record players that had Rutherford's actual speech's and or played it through auto mounted loud speakers as they drove through neighborhoods so it reached a lot of people who were not interested or became enraged over what they heard.

  There was a lot of drummed up hostility re the world wars. Rutherford had armed body guards. There's a picture of them headed into an assembly: http://watchtower-stop.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-jehovahs-witnesses-is-against.html a lot of regular JW's also carried these canes or wanes as they called them.

  Back in the 1960's I was with this crusty 50 year old Circuit servant and he got to talking about the attacks. He said back then the JW brothers would go out in service and have a pocket of salt and pepper at the ready. If they felt like they were being menaced or hostilities broke out that would throw a handful into the face of the person. Why the salt I asked and he said the pepper was too light but with the salt mixed in you could get the pepper into their eyes and get away from the person.
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  Finkelstein

  The JWS back in Rutherford's day were much more aggressive from a socially active perspective.

  There are pictures of them actually picketing churches publicity denouncing them as false religions.

  In some ways the IBSA and the JWS were asking for retribution from various sources they attacked.
  
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  TTATTelder

  The JW's were practically the Westboro Baptist Church back then.

  They begged for trouble and then screamed "Persecution!"

  Look back at the Awakes from that time. It is shocking what they were passing off as "spiritual" literature. Especially the political cartoons. It's a wonder more didn't get shot.

  -TE
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  cappytan

  Oh yeah, I'm not excusing their actions.

  But at the same time, I'm not excusing the Mobs either.
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  stuckinarut2

  The "PERSECUTION" that witnesses experience is often self induced.....
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  SimonSays

  Families who had a son serving in the armed forces had tender emotions pushed to the limit by the public declarations of J-Dubs calling down condemnation. Go all the way back to the book THE FINISHED MYSTERY and read the incredibly incendiary language. It caused the WTS leaders to be tried, convicted, and imprisoned for treason.

  I disagree, the assertion that bible students were deliberately asking for trouble is wrong. I suggest you reread the book The Finished Mystery again, but with a good pair of reading glasses to understand the J-Dubs as you call them were being attacked publicly and in print by the Catholic Church and with clueless self promoting bigots calling themselves preacher by calling this group Charlatans and whatever else. Eventually the Catholic Church by means of misleading the government by suggesting the Bible Students / Jehovah’s Witnesses were in essence unpatriotic traitors landed many in prison.

  So Russell and Rutherford, instead of taking this despicable situation personally, they instead condemned those agitators through the pulpit, action.

  The same kind of nonsense that goes on here.
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  DATA-DOG

  Simonsays, uh...woopty frigging doo-da??? So the RCC acts in a very un-xian manner, so what?? Rutherfraud fights fire, with fire??!??

  Let your utterance be gracious and seasoned with salt! Rutherfraud says, " Throw salt in their face!" Wisdom is proven righteous by it's works after all..😔

  DD