The Watchtower is Lying About Their Connection With the Nazis

Norman Hovland

I finally got my hands on the much heralded July 8, 1998 issue of Awake!

The article about the "courageous" Jehovah's Witnesses was quite interesting indeed. Although the article quoted a surprisingly amount of the more embarrassing stuff, they still left much of the context out.

The Watchtower Society show their usual tactics of lies and deceit when they in typical fashion say that their critics have claimed that "Jehovah's Witnesses were decorating" the hall at Wilmersdorf with swastikas and nazi flags.

None of their critics has ever made such a claim! Their critics have claimed that there were indeed Nazi decorations at the hall, something which is not denied by the Awake! They even say that it wouldn't have mattered. But by lying to an ignorant audience by making up claims never made by their critics and then refute them, they make it appear as the critics are less than serious. The pictures which is claimed to be from inside the Wilmersdorf hall proves nothing. Hitlers "Schutsstaffel" who apparently had used the hall the day before might have been taking down all the decorations inside the hall during the dinner break, or whatever, and the pictures could have been taken after that.

Then the Awake! produces another lie. They state that their "critics" have claimed that the Assembly was started with the Witnesses singing the German national anthem. A lie! Their critics have stated that they sang one of their own songs to the same melody as the German national anthem! The article does indeed confirm that their critics were completely correct! Even this they try to cloud as much as possible by mumbling about a melody by Joseph Haydn, as if any Jehovah's Witnesses know squat about that. So it is business as usual. If your critics make correct and true claims, simply falsify and distort them and then refute your own falsifications. Easy eh?

Another rather amusing fact is that this article clear Paul Balzereit of the false accusations made against him in the 1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses. It even admits that he was made a scapegoat since he later left Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, we know all about that kind of tactics. These accusations can be seen here in this quote from the Yearbook together with another interesting detail:

"Many in attendance were disappointed in the "declaration," since in many points it failed to be as strong as the brothers had hoped. Brother Mütze from Dresden, who had worked closely with Brother Balzereit up until that time, accused him later of having weakened the original text. It was not the first time that Brother Balzereit had watered down the clear and unmistakable language of the Society's publications so as to avoid difficulties with governmental agencies.

"A large number of brothers refused to adopt it just for this reason. In fact, a former pilgrim brother by the name of Kipper refused to offer it for adoption and another brother substituted. It could not be rightfully said that the declaration was unanimously adopted, even though Brother Balzereit later notified Brother Rutherford that it had been." (1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, p. 111)

Of course the obvious sucking up to the Nazis appalled some brothers. As we can see the 74 Yearbook attributes this to them being dissatisfied with the Declaration not being "strong" enough. Well, they were certainly right about that, weren't they?

So we can safely conclude with the fact that in Brooklyn everything is "business as usual." They are still running an international con operation.