“Heroic Steadfastness to Convictions”

✔ Consistent with the neutral position that they as Christian ministers take in all lands, Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany during the second world war would not share in political or military activities. The Nazi authorities viewed this Bible-based stand as opposition to the government. They responded by severely persecuting these Christian witnesses.

Commenting on this, the book Modern Germany​—Its History and Civilization (1966) says: “The most persecuted sect of all Christian denominations, and the one that was treated with almost as much cruelty as the Jews, was the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Bibelforscher). Little has been written regarding this opposition group, but from the standpoint of heroic steadfastness to convictions and courageous and martyred resistance the German Bibelforscher occupy a most honored place in the history of German Zivilcourage [civilian courage].”​—P. 513.