Ghost Witnesses in Nazi Concentration Camps?

Norman Hovland

The Watchtower Society loves the god of numbers. Particularly if he can be used to inflate the number of casualties during the Nazi years in Germany. Investigating the Watchtower literature is quite revealing when it comes to documenting the many contradictions about what really happened during those years.

"A total of 6,019 had been arrested, several two, three or even more times, so that, all together, 8,917 arrests were registered. All together they had been sentenced to serve 13,924 years and two months in prison, two and a quarter times as long as the period since Adam's creation. A total of 2,000 brothers and sisters had been put into concentration camps, where they had spent 8,078 years and six months, an average of four years. A total of 635 had died in prison, 253 had been sentenced to death and 203 of these had actually been executed. What a record of integrity!" (1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, p. 212)

As we can see here the Watchtower Society know exactly how many Jehovah's Witnesses were arrested in Germany during the Nazi years. It was 6,019 persons. The Nazis were known for their meticulous registering and keeping records of every conceivable thing, so of course they didn't throw anybody in prison or in a concentration camp without arresting him/her first.

Another very interesting piece of information is also found in the above quoted yearbook. We are told the TOTAL number of Witnesses that was put into concentration camps during the Nazi years. The number was 2,000! That means that the majority of those arrested were released. But when we look closer at what various Watchtowers have to say about the number of Witnesses in the camps, we yet again see this attempt to inflate the numbers and this time really out of all proportions.

"Hitler failed to break them in prisons and concentration camps where he tortured 10,000 of them, and the Communists are failing to do it in their frightful prisons and slave-labor camps." (The Watchtower, June 1, 1960, p. 327)

"Hitler, a Roman Catholic, the arm of his church in Germany, forbade Jehovah's witnesses to preach the kingdom of God, and these modern-day Christians had to say to Hitler's Gestapo police: 'Whether it is righteous in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge for yourselves.' They kept preaching even though 10,000 of them were put in concentration camps and over 4,000 died there. The rest nearly starved to death. The war's end aided their survival." (The Watchtower, January 1, 1964, p. 13)

The question here is, if only 2,000 Witnesses were put into the camps, why print that there were 10,000 of them there? Where did the 8,000 additional persons come from? Did they perhaps come from the same place as the 4,000 Witnesses that is reported to have died in the camps? How can 4,000 people out of a total of 2,000 die? As we can see from the correct numbers of casualties reported by the 74 Yearbook, the real number of deaths is reported to be "a total of 635".

Many of these tragic deaths could probably have been avoided if it wasn't for the totally insane orders from the Watchtower president at the time, J. F. Rutherford, who sent them out distributing Watchtower literature knowing well that this would inflame the Nazis. Isn't the tragedy of 6,019 arrests and the death of 635 Witnesses during the Nazi era quite enough for the Watchtower Society? Why do they have to inflate these numbers all the time?

Knowing full well the real number of Witnesses arrested suffering and dying during the Nazi years the Watchtower Society never seem to be satisfied with it. The attempt to inflate these figures seems to have no end. Take a look at a more recent example of this here:

"Why were Jehovah's Witnesses so well acquainted with the concentration camps? When World War II started in 1939, there were already 6,000 Witnesses confined in camps and prisons. German historian Detlef Garbe estimates that the Witnesses constituted at that time between 5 and 10 percent of the total camp population! At a seminar on the Witnesses and the Holocaust, Garbe stated: "Of the 25,000 persons who admitted to being Jehovah's Witnesses at the beginning of the Third Reich, about 10,000 were imprisoned for any length of time. Of these, over 2,000 were admitted to concentration camps. This means that the Jehovah's Witnesses were, with the exception of the Jews, the worst persecuted by the SS of all the religious based groups."" (Awake!, August 22, 1995, p. 10)

As we can see here, they use the old trick of quoting a historian which have lifted many of his figures out of the inflated figures in their own literature. First they use Garbe's ignorance about the difference between a Witness and a person that attends the memorial. There was about 24,000+ people which attended the memorial in 1932/33. Any Jehovah's Witness knows that people who attend the memorial is far from "admitted to being a Jehovah's Witness". We also understand that with a total of 6,019 Witnesses arrested there couldn't possibly be 10,000 imprisoned at any given time, this is pure hogwash! Just another figure lifted out of their own distorted literature.

As we can see from the previous quotes the alleged 10,000 Witnesses was supposed to have been in prison and camps, then in camps, and then suddenly all the 10,000 were "imprisoned". And for 2,000 of those it was the camps.

One constantly wonder, is there absolutely do decency in Brooklyn? Why do they have to lie about this tragedy all the time? Why isn't 2,000 people suffering in the camps and 635 dead enough for the Watchtower Society?