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Jehovah's Witnesses suffered religious persecution in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 after refusing to perform military service, join Nazi organizations or give allegiance to the Hitler regime. An estimated 10,000 Witnesses—half of the number of members in Germany during that period—were imprisoned, including 2000 who were sent to Nazi concentration camps. An estimated 1200 died in custody, including 250 who were executed. They were the first Christian denomination banned by the Nazi government and the most extensively and intensively persecuted. Unlike Jews and Gypsies who were persecuted on the basis of their ethnicity, Jehovah's Witnesses could escape persecution and personal harm by renouncing their religious beliefs by signing a document indicating renouncement of their faith, submission to state authority, and support of the German military.〔(''Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime'', Michael Berenbaum )〕 Historian Sybil Milton concludes that "their courage and defiance in the face of torture and death punctures the myth of a monolithic Nazi state ruling over docile and submissive subjects." The group came under increasing public and governmental persecution from 1933, with many expelled from jobs and schools, deprived of income and suffering beatings and imprisonment, despite early attempts to demonstrate shared goals with the National Socialist regime. Historians are divided over whether the Nazis intended to exterminate them, but several authors have claimed the Witnesses' outspoken condemnation of the Nazis contributed to their level of suffering. ==Pre-Nazi era== Jehovah's Witnesses were an outgrowth of the International Bible Students, who began missionary work in Europe in the 1890s. A German branch office of the Watch Tower Society opened in Elberfeld in 1902. By 1933 almost 20,000 Witnesses were counted as active door-to-door preachers and their annual Memorial service was attracting almost 25,000 people. In Dresden there were more Bible Students than in New York, where the Watch Tower Society was headquartered. Members of the religion, who were known as ''Ernste Bibelforscher'', or Earnest Bible Students, had attracted opposition since the end of World War I, with accusations that they were Bolsheviks, communists and covertly Jewish. From 1920 the German Evangelical Church called for a ban on Watch Tower Society publications, which were engaging in increasing amounts of antichurch polemic and through the remainder of the 1920s opposition mounted from a combination of church and Völkisch movement agitation and pamphlet campaigns. Nazis began to harass Bible Students, with SA members also disrupting meetings.〔 From 1922, German Bible Students were arrested on charges of illegal peddling as they publicly distributed Watch Tower Society literature. Between 1927 and 1930, almost 5000 charges were pressed against members of the religion, and although most ended in acquittals〔''Saarbrücker Landes Zeitung'', December 16, 1929, as cited in ''1974 Yearbook'', Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1974, pg 102: "Unfortunately the police have been powerless in doing anything about the work of the Bible Students. Arrests made up until now ... have all ended up in acquittal."〕 some "severe sentences" were also handed down.〔''1974 Yearbook'', Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1974, pg 102-111.〕 From 1930 calls for state intervention against the Bible Students increased and on March 28, 1931 Reich president Paul von Hindenburg issued the Decree for the Resistance of Political Acts of Violence, which provided for action to be taken in cases in which religious organizations, institutions or customs were "abused or maliciously disparaged". Bavaria became the first German state where the decree was used against the Bible Students, with a police order issued on November 18 to prohibit and confiscate all Bible Student publications throughout the state.〔 A second decree in 1932 widened the ban in other German states. By the end of 1932 more than 2300 charges against Bible Students were pending.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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