Why did churches in Nazi occupation bow to Hitler yet Jehovah's Witnesses stood firm against them?

Question

Why didn't church leaders do the same?

Jehovah's Witnesses went to concentration camps but they refused to compromise their faith at any cost.

They didn't abandon God when the going got tough and stood up for righteousness.
The mark of a true christian organisation reminds me of what the disciples did for their faith even to the point of death.

Answer 1

Very good question! It's interesting to note that Jehovah's Witnesses or Earnest Bible Students (Ernste Bibelforscher) as they were known in Germany, were the only group to have stood up against Hitler the way they did. Some "Christian" denominations in Germany were known to have sided with Hitler particularly the Catholics who viewed the Nazis as a barrier to the spread of Communism. In the Protestant Church, many of the various churches within it were split over siding with Hitler, but what about the Jehovah's Witnesses? Witnesses on the other hand were known for their strict neutrality based on their Bible convictions. The Bible students held the resolve of Jesus and his disciples at John 17:16: "They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world."Jehovah's Witnesses refused to engage in politics, to vote, or to even give their allegiance to Hitler and the Nazis which would have been in direct violation of their Bible-based beliefs. For God deserves our full allegiance. This would inevitably catch the attention of Hitler who viewed the Witnesses as a 'threat.'
Many Witnesses lost their jobs for as simple as not saying, "Heil Hitler" and were eventually thrown into prisons or concentration camps for not serving in the military because they would rather die than kill their fellow brothers or any other person in that matter. Their study of the Bible made them well aware that "true" Christians could not possibly engage in war._Matthew 5:44; 26:52) Although Witnesses are law-abiding citizens, if a commandment is clearly in conflict with God's commandment we simply must obey God as ruler rather than man. (Acts 5:29) 12,000 Witnesses were sent to concentration camps where they made to wear a purple triangle to identify them. But in the end 2,000 Witnesses had perished. Of ALL the groups the Nazis detained, the Witnesses were the ONLY ones who were given the chance to be released on one condition, if they signed a paper renouncing their faith. For most Witnesses that was out of the question! They chose to suffer along with everyone else which takes real courage to stick up for your beliefs rather than taking the easy way out. What helped them to endure was relying on Jehovah God and to know that we have no need to fear man. (Psalms 118:6) Dr. Detlef Garbe Historian and director at the Neuengamme (Hamburg) Memorial stated: “Taking everything into consideration, it has been established that no other religious movement resisted the pressure to conform to National Socialism with comparable unanimity and steadfastness.” Hitler threatened to exterminate us and we're still standing which speaks for itself.
Check out the following links on more info and experiences from Witness survivors of the atrocities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20030301/article_02.htm

Answer 2

Because we serve only Jehovah God, putting our faith in his Son and the kingdom as the only solution to mankind's problems, we remain neutral in the world, siding with no governments. We stood alone as the only religion pointing out Hitler's atrocities and he tried to exterminate us for it. There is proof that Jehovah's Witnesses were put in concentration camps and murdered right along with the Jews, the Jews wore the Star of David on their prison uniforms and Jehovah's Witnesses had uniforms with purple triangles.

Answer 3

Many people have died for something they believe in, not just Jehovah's Witnesses.

Actually, Jehovah's Witnesses would be supporting Hitler's government till this day if he were still in power, because they submit to the law of whatever land they live in. JW's wouldn't fight for Hitler, but they also wouldn't fight against him. They would never participate in a revolt against a government, no matter how cruel and unjust that government was. They were just as much anti-American (or any other country) as they were anti-Hitler. Hitler just happened to send them to concentration camps whereas other governments were not as harsh in their treatment of conscientious objectors.

Answer 4

Why are Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted and spoken against? Jesus said: “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on this account the world hates you.” (John 15:18, 19; see also 1 Peter 4:3, 4.) The Bible shows that the whole world lies under Satan’s control; he is the principal instigator of the persecution.—1 John 5:19; Rev. 12:17. Jesus also told his disciples: “You will be objects of hatred by all people on account of my name.” (Mark 13:13) The word “name” here means what Jesus officially is, the Messianic King. Persecution comes because Jehovah’s Witnesses put his commands ahead of those of any earthly ruler.

Answer 5

Firstly there probably were other religious groups who in part did not go along with Hitler. Many times through out human history we have seen that religions with either corrupted beliefs or corrupted leaders have taken part in wars. The reason the Witnesses(yes there were some who did hiel Hitler) did not is because we know that we are to ONLY pledge our allegiance to Hitler.

Answer 6

For anyone who wants to check this claim out need only to check the history channel on a program on Himmler, who specifically targeted the witnesses because they refused to acknowledge the divinity of Hitler by the use of proper greetings between German citizens.

They did do something that they shouldn't have been doing, and wouldn't do today. They sent members of the governing board to Hitler to discuss the Jew situation and the drive toward war. They were the only group, religious or otherwise to do this. In way, God punished them for this because they were than declared banned and their leaders jailed in the U.S.

Answer 7

In the Holocaust Museum in Washington, on one of the walls you have pictures of Jehovah Witnesses that were in the concentration camps, and many of them were killed because they would not bend to Hitler's rule.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., inaugurated April 22, 1993, stands as a stark and sober reminder of technology twisted by amoral demagogues into an unspeakable death machine. The catalog of defenseless victims murdered by Nazi tyranny numbs the mind, about six million Jews and millions of other people, including Poles, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled.

In 1933, Hitler launched a campaign to annihilate Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thousands of Witnesses, from Germany, Austria, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, France, and other countries, were transported to concentration camps. They were persecuted on religious grounds only.

The book The Theory and Practice of Hell said: “One cannot escape the impression that, psychologically speaking, the SS was never quite equal to the challenge offered them by Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Indeed, the Witnesses, backed up by God’s spirit, won the battle. Historian Christine King, chancellor of Staffordshire University in England, described the opponents in the conflict: “One [the Nazis] enormous, powerful, seemingly invincible. One [the Witnesses] very, very tiny, with only their faith, no other weapon , Jehovah’s Witnesses brought morally to their knees the might of that Gestapo power.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses were a small, peaceable enclave within the Nazi realm. Yet, they waged and won a battle in their own way, a battle for the right to worship their God, a battle to love their neighbor, and a battle to tell the truth.

ON DECEMBER 8, 1993, Dr. Franklin Littell of Baylor University spoke at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about a troublesome “concrete truth.” What was that?

The truth, Littell said, was that “six million Jews were targeted and systematically murdered in the heart of Christendom, by baptized Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox who were never rebuked, let alone excommunicated.” One voice, however, did consistently speak out about clergy involvement with Hitler’s regime. And the voice, as we have seen, was that of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Hitler was a baptized Roman Catholic, as were many of the leaders in his government. Why weren’t they excommunicated? Why didn’t the Catholic Church condemn the horrors that these men were committing? Why did Protestant churches also keep silent?

Paul Johnson’s History of Christianity said: “Of 17,000 Evangelical pastors, there were never more than fifty serving long terms [for not supporting the Nazi regime] at any one time.” Contrasting such pastors with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Johnson wrote: “The bravest were the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who proclaimed their outright doctrinal opposition from the beginning and suffered accordingly. They refused any cooperation with the Nazi state.”

Back in 1939, the year World War II began, Consolation quoted T. Bruppacher, a Protestant minister, as saying: “While men who call themselves Christians have failed in the decisive tests, these unknown witnesses of Jehovah, as Christian martyrs, are maintaining unshakable opposition against coercion of conscience and heathen idolatry. The future historian must some day acknowledge that not the great churches, but these slandered and scoffed-at people, were the ones who stood up first against the rage of the Nazi demon, They refuse the worship of Hitler and the Swastika.”

Martin Niemoeller, a Protestant church leader who himself had been in a Nazi concentration camp, later confessed: ‘It may be truthfully recalled that Christian churches, throughout the ages, have always consented to bless war, troops, and arms and that they prayed in a very unchristian way for the annihilation of their enemy.’ He admitted: “All this is our fault and our fathers’ fault, but obviously not God’s fault.”

Niemoeller then added: “And to think that we Christians of today are ashamed of the so-called sect of the serious scholars of the Bible [Jehovah’s Witnesses], who by the hundreds and thousands have gone into concentration camps and died because they refused to serve in war and declined to fire on human beings.”

Answer 8

I don't know enough about the JVWs during WWII to comment about it but I do know this: all churches in Germany had no choice but to bow down or they would have been taken to a concentration camp. Everyone had to bow down to Hitler, he was Imperator of all Germany and the western world for a brief moment of time.

Don't get too hung up on the JVWs though. There were many Protestant churches and church leaders throughout Europe who didn't bow to Hitler and his regime. Read about Corrie ten Boom, Diedrich Bonhoeffer, and several others.

JVWs are good people but their theology is very twisted and distorted. For example: Jesus Christ the brother of Lucifer?! That's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard.

Answer 9

Those zany Jehovah's Witnesses'. They were tortured and made to do the bidding of the Nazi's just like everyone else. If they didnt they died.

Answer 10

Many Christian church leaders believed the Jews deserved it. They believed it was their punishment for crucifying the Christ.