Upholding God’s Truth and Kingdom
As told by Oskar Hoffmann
GERMANY, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein—these are countries in which I have had the privilege of upholding God’s truth and kingdom. My life of serving God in various lands began in 1930, when I was twenty-six years old. I then decided to devote my time and strength to upholding God’s kingdom, and never for a moment did I doubt Jehovah’s word that he would care for me if I put his Kingdom interests first in my life.—Matt. 6:33.
After the convention of Jehovah’s people in Berlin, in 1931, I decided to enter the full-time preaching work, under the direction of the Watch Tower Society. After about three months of preaching in Germany, I was given a new assignment.
It was my privilege to move to Prague, Czechoslovakia, there to share God’s truth with meek ones. Though I did not know the language of the country, I daily called on people in their homes. To help them to understand why I was calling, I asked them to read a “testimony card,” which contained a short printed sermon in their language. By this means thousands of Bible publications were placed in the hands of the Czech people.
After a year in Prague, I was transferred to Bohemian-Budweis, a district in which, to some extent, German was still spoken. I covered this territory on bicycle. It was not difficult to find a place to sleep, as the Czechs were hospitable and many enjoyed hearing the Kingdom message.
But our Bible educational work was not without opposition. One day I was arrested and falsely charged with espionage. I was put in solitary confinement. On one occasion, when I was permitted to take a shower, there was another prisoner within speaking distance. He asked me why I was in prison. I answered: “Do you know Jehovah’s witnesses?” “Yes,” he replied, “they’ll never wipe out those people!” That was all he said, but how true it was!
After a court trial I was acquitted. However, not long afterward I was arrested again, along with another Witness, and we were put into an evidently long-unused cell. While we were sitting on our plank beds in our prison suits, suddenly our clothing was darkened with a mass of fleas clinging to us. We banged on the cell door, and when the guard saw our plight, he brought us out.
By now my residence permit in Czechoslovakia was expiring, so I was taken to the German border. That was in February 1934.
UPHOLDING GOD’S KINGDOM IN HUNGARY
My heartfelt desire was to preach God’s truth wherever I could. So I wrote to the Watch Tower Society’s branch office in Magdeburg and received word to go to Budapest, Hungary, and join Jehovah’s praisers there. That was really good news.
Though I had never in my life heard the Hungarian language, I called on householders with a testimony card. In addition to booklets and magazines on Scriptural themes, I left the Bible study aids Creation, Reconciliation and Jehovah with many interested people. As a foreigner, I could stay in the country only a limited time. Then I had to cross the border and reenter for a further period of time. And so I preached two years in this lovely city through which the river Danube flows. It was here that I married a Christian sister who was in the full-time preaching work, and she became my faithful wife and companion in upholding God’s truth.
SHARING GOD’S TRUTH IN YUGOSLAVIA
Just before World War II, I was privileged to go to Yugoslavia. My wife and I traveled freely throughout Yugoslavia, bicycles being our means of transport. Again we used testimony cards to explain to people why we called at their homes. The people were poor, and often we gave them Bible literature in exchange for food. Frequently we shared their own hard sleeping quarters—the floor—or we slept on hay or straw. Priests sometimes tried to turn the people against us, but, on the whole, the people liked to hear about God’s kingdom.
In the town of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, a gymnastics teacher accepted God’s truth and wanted to be baptized. Another Witness and I immersed her in a bathtub. When I attended our Christian assembly in Graz, Austria, in 1971—thirty-three years later—what a joy it was to meet her again!
In time the Yugoslav authorities decided that they did not want us preaching God’s kingdom in their land, and so we were deported. On we went to Switzerland.
SPREADING SEEDS OF TRUTH IN SWITZERLAND
World War II was now at its height, and I received a summons from the German Embassy in Geneva to join the Nazi army. I informed them that I could not take part in this war because of my Christian conscience, and therefore I would not appear for recruiting. The Nazis responded to this by taking away my German citizenship.
After World War II, the Swiss authorities encouraged me to try to get valid German documents again. The application to the German authorities was approved, and my German citizenship was restored.
In December 1949 we arrived in Interlaken to serve as special pioneers, or full-time preachers, of God’s Word. There was only a small group of Witnesses here; they met in a room in Hotel Gotthard. We appreciated very much preaching the good news of God’s kingdom in this beautiful alpine territory.
The bicycle again was our means of reaching mountain villages. Busily we scattered the seeds of Bible truth in such places as Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Stechelberg, all the way to the end of the lake of Brienz. In addition to innumerable magazines and booklets, we placed more than 1,500 bound books with people, during a period of about four and a half years.
A change came when the Watch Tower Society’s branch office suggested that we go to the Rhine valley in the canton of Saint Gall, where there were no Witnesses. We accepted the assignment.
Our new territory on the Rhine was near Lake Constance. At this point the Rhine River separates Switzerland from Austria and Liechtenstein. As we reached the brow of the mountain pass and surveyed this wide Rhine valley spread out before us, we were deeply impressed by Jehovah’s glorious creation. It was breathtaking! Below us lay a panorama of the territory in which we had been sent to scatter the seed of God’s kingdom.
Marbach was the place where we settled, and from here we continued our preaching activity over a period of thirteen years. In time a small congregation of Witnesses was established in this Catholic territory.
A Catholic family of six persons accepted God’s truth despite severe opposition on the part of their relatives, among them priests and nuns. Letters of abuse and personal visits in an attempt to bring them back to the fold failed. God’s truth triumphed.
Another woman regularly attended Mass, and she would make a wide detour to avoid anyone on the street with the Watchtower magazine. But she did love the Bible. In time I studied God’s Word with her, using only the Bible. As she progressed in knowledge, she withdrew from the Church and became a zealous preacher of God’s truth.
KINGDOM PREACHING IN LIECHTENSTEIN
It was a pleasant surprise when the Swiss branch asked me if we would be willing to move to Liechtenstein, and we gladly accepted. That was seven years ago, in my sixty-fourth year. This time we needed to move only 30 kilometers up the Rhine. Liechtenstein, a small country of eleven communities (population now about 23,000), had just a few Witnesses. Now they received help, and it must have seemed to the Liechtensteiner as if an army had moved in. We expected opposition, and the clergy did stir up trouble.
For example, our meetings were disturbed by young people throwing stones at the windows. One day a Witness engaged six of the youths in conversation. They were invited to come to a public talk at the Kingdom Hall, and several came. The purpose of our meetings was explained to them and, after that, we had no trouble for some time.
People were warned against us in church, in religious magazines, in the schools and in newspapers. To answer the false charges, we arranged for a newspaper to publish an article entitled Who Are Jehovah’s Witnesses?, after which things calmed down.
As people in Liechtenstein get to know us better, many see that our preaching work is in their best interest. Some now express themselves with words such as, “If all thought the way you do, we would have world peace.”
Between the two of us, my wife and I have now had the privilege of preaching God’s truth full time for eighty-three years. Over the years, willingness to accept assignments in foreign lands has brought us much joy and happiness, and through this preaching work we have come to love and appreciate Jehovah more and more.