JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in former East Germany

This article is a review of the study Zeugen Jehovas in der DDR. Verfolgung und Verhalten einer religiösen Minderheit ("Jehovah's Witnesses in the GDR: Persecution and Response of a Religious Minority"), by Gerhald Hacke and published in 2000 by the Hannah-Ahrendt-Institut in Dresden.

Hardly recovered from the gruesome Nazi-persecution during the 1930s and World War II, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in East Germany fell victim to another totalitarian political ideology. From the late 1940s until the collapse of the communist regime in 1990, they had to once again endure oppression from a state system that had set as its objective the annihilation of an alleged public enemy. This study by German historian Gerald Hacke chronologically describes and analyzes several stages of this period. His research is based on recently disclosed records from former GDR governmental agencies, supplemented by interview data from afflicted believers and material from their parent organization, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS)

During the initial postwar years the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) had not much to fear from the new Soviet controlled leadership. The introduction of the separation of church and state by the military government meant the granting of equal rights to the smaller religious communities, a novelty, albeit short-lived, in German religious history. The membership increased rapidly and the organization, partly supported by allied funds, was able to expand its activities. Also, by their official recognition as belonging to the category of ‘Victims of Fascism’, the JWs were entitled to certain social privileges. This all was to change. The movement’s very success and above all its doctrine of political non-involvement and its members’ uncompromising stance would lead to four decades of varying degrees of religious oppression.  

When it became clear that the JWs refused to participate in a 1948 plebiscite that was inten­ded to legitimize the very existence of the future GDR, the communist leadership branded the movement as a reactionary force and enemy of the state. This also reflected earlier uneasy sentiments concerning their status as ‘Victims of Fascism’: true to the Marxist rhetoric the ‘real victims’ were supposed to be politically active in the advancement of the ‘antifascist-democratic order’. It was clear that the state’s absolutistic and dualistic worldview could not accommodate impartiality. In addition, the authorities considered the JWs’ missionary activities as the spread of propaganda, aimed to discourage the population from partaking in the nation’s re-educational process.

The fact that the WTBTS was controlled from the US merely contributed to the ideological creation of this community as a societal misfit. Gradually, the JWs experienced curtailments of their constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom: gatherings were banned or disrupted, renting of meeting places for worship was hampered, printing of literature was restricted, and employments of JWs were terminated. In 1950 the WTBTS was banned. The author presents multiple cases indicating that from then on until 1965 the authorities did all possible to crush the movement. Members were sentenced to long-term imprisonments - ten years was not exceptional, sometimes even life-long. Approximately fifty were killed or died as a result of the barbarous conditions of their captivity. Show trials supposedly demonstrated that the accused JWs were merely imperialistic agents operating under a religious cover.

To the paranoid communist leadership, the proselytizing believers might indeed appear to be involved in espionage activities for the meticulous way they commonly make notes of their conversations with house dwellers and their use of local street plans (so-called ‘territory cards’) for effectively canvassing their missionary area. It soon became clear that these draconian measures had no substantial effect. The persecution by the Nazis had caused the WTBTS to develop an organizational structure that could rapidly adapt to circumstances where prohibitory rule inhibited the preaching work. Secretive procedures were quickly established and the community of believers, many of whom had experienced similar repression only a decade before, guaranteed an almost air-tight underground network; those who were not imprisoned continued to recruit new members, and those in captivity, for that matter, also succeeded in spreading their religious message among ‘unbelieving’ fellow inmates.

Alternative strategies from the East German Secret Service such as infiltration by government informants or attempts to eliminate the movement’s higher echelon might cause temporary setbacks or confusion; the construction of the Berlin Wall, for example, effectively cut off communications with the western branches which resulted in the suspension of shipping (illegal) religious literature.   After 1965 the intensity of the persecution gradually decreased. Although massive arrests no longer occurred, JW conscientious objectors were sentenced to terms of twelve to twenty months’ imprisonment until 1985. Also, the authorities resorted to more sophisticated means of discrediting the WTBTS by the creation of Stasi-sponsored groups of disgruntled ex-JWs; it turned out that even outside experts were convinced of their alleged genuineness. 

Hacke has written a brief and solid introduction to an obscure area of contemporary history. Unlike the research on the misfortunes of this religious minority in World War II, German scholars are exploring this part of the JWs’ past rather energetically from the very moment the opportunities for these inquiries have arisen. One may have expectations that follow-up studies, by emphasizing eyewitness accounts, will highlight the socio-psychological angle of this harrowing period.

(Originally published in Journal of Church and State, Vol 42, #2, 2000, pp 574-576)

Postscript

Several publications on the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in former Soviet controlled areas have been published since I wrote this review. The most recent addition is a special issue of the scientific journal "Religion, State and Society" in 2006. An updated bibliography can be found on the website http://www.jwhistory.net/english/publications.htm

This website is closely associated with the Watchtower Society's German branch. That brings me to the authorship of several recent publications that focus on the communist persecution. Until now, the majority of studies have been written by officers of the Watchtower Society. For example, four of the five authors who wrote papers in the special journal issue mentioned above, are high ranking officials of the Watchtower Society's German Branch. The same applies to a massive volume on the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in former Eastern Germany. Jolene Chu, historian and writing from the Watchtower Society's headquarters in New York, has authored many articles on the persecution in the Second World War.

Surely, these authors are fully entitled to publish the findings of their research in any relevant media. However, the problem that lurks is ideological bias. Few will be tempted to question the official point of view of the Watchtower Society in case their research points to diverging results. Particularly research methods that are based on interviewing eyewitnesses and examining archival records are prone to distortion: an eyewitness will undoubtedly be reserved to express "unwelcome" opinions when interviewed by an official of the Society; "counterproductive" archival records can be ignored.

Evidently, the same applies to critics of the Watchtower Society. They have unearthed important information on the movement's past which is at odds with the official viewpoint and to which the Society has felt obliged to respond in its publications - a quite unusual strategy of the organization. Their interpretation of these findings, however, tends to show their personal animosity rather than scientific detachment.

I emphasize that I have no concrete indications of any form of self-censorship by authors who are associated with the Society. I only want to point out a basic methodological problem in scientific research. The only way to counteract this possible effect is additional research by neutral observers.