Consolation, May 15, 1940
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Contents
Pius XII’s and Stalin’s Comrade (Part 1) 3
The Vatican on Eggs 5
Catholics Must Exterminate One Another 6
Quotations from Hitler Speaks 7
War “a Blessing from God” 9
Villard’s Opinion of Germany 11
The New Government
Tribal Report 12
Some of the German Martyrs 14
Kingdom Joys in California 15
Hitler’s Decisions Made in Trances 16
Counsel by J. F. Rutherford
Democracy’s End 17
Public Gardens 19
Under the Totalitarian Flag
The Totalitarian Monstrosity 20
Doom of Religion Apparent 20
Protestantism Perishing in Germany 21
Treasury, CCC and Postal Administrations 23
The Cost of Justice in Old New York 24
Humankind
Mourning and Death 26
Protectors of Crime 27
British Comment
Suspense — Food 28
A Device of the Devil 29
Blind Leaders of the Blind 30
Asia 31
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Appetizers
O.K.!
A gentleman had completed his purchases, and the clerk, in filling out the sales slip, asked:
“What is the name, please?”
“Jepson,” replied our hero.
“Chipson?”
“No, Jepson. Sixteen twenty-one West—”
“Your first initial, please.”
“Oh, K.”
“O. K. Jepson.”
“Excuse me, it isn’t O. K. You didn’t understand; I said, ‘Oh.’”
“O. Jepson.”
“No. Rub out the O and let the K stand.”
The clerk began to look haggard.
“Will you please give me your initials again?”
“I said ‘K’.”
“Pardon, you said ‘O. K’.”
“I said ‘Oh’—”
“Just now you said ‘K’.”
“Allow me to finish. I said ‘Oh’ because I didn’t understand what you were asking me. I didn’t mean it was my initial. My name is Kirby Jepson.”
“Oh.”
“No. Not O, but K. Here, give me the pencil, and I’ll write it myself. There, I guess it’s O. K. now.”—Labor.
Unnecessarily Excited
A customer was being shaved, shampooed, massaged, manicured, shined. In the midst of it a man rushed into the barber shop, grabbed the customer by a fat shoulder, yelled into a lathered ear: “Hey, Scarlotti, your house is on fire.”
Half shaved, half shampooed, half massaged, half manicured, half shined, the customer leaped from his chair, dashed out the door, down the street at a full gallop, then suddenly stopped dead and muttered: “What am I running for? I’m not Scarlotti!”
The Indiscreet Clerk
Shopwalker: “Look here, I heard you say to that customer, ‘No, we haven’t had any for a long time!’ You should never say anything like that; always say, ‘We will get it for you.’ What was it the lady wanted?”
Salesman: “Sunshine.” CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.
Volume XXI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, May 15, 1940 Number 539
Pius XII’s and Stalin’s Comrade
(In Three Parts—Part 1)
[In 1914 Satan’s offspring, to wit, ‘the beast that came up out of the sea,’ got into a fight, its heads fighting each other. Germany the head on one side and Britain the head on the other side led the fight. Every nation involved in that war was and is a part of Satan’s organization. That world war resulted in a terrible punishment to Germany and her allies, and it appeared for some time that Germany was completely done for. This harmonizes with John’s statement: “And I saw one of his [Satan’s beastly government’s] heads, as it were wounded to death.” The John or servant class of the Lord for some time thought that it was literally true that Germany would be destroyed. To many it seemed impossible for Germany ever to recover. Then John says in the same connection: “And his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”—Revelation 13:3. (See Judge Rutherford’s book ‘Light’, Book One, page 273.) For supplementary evidence that Hitler is under control of demons, see page 16.]
STALIN’S bosom friend, Adolf Hitler, continues to show his Jesuit training, and the bishops of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in the lands under his control have issued orders that all their subjects must be obedient to the führer even unto death. The Devil’s objective in this is to stop the message of Jehovah’s Theocratic Kingdom.
May 1, 1939, the non-aggression treaty between Germany and Denmark was signed, agreeing that, for ten years thereafter, under no circumstances would either government resort to war or any form of violence against the other. At five o’clock on the morning of April 9, 1940, every important city in Denmark and in Norway was occupied by German troops.
Perhaps you have wondered how German troops could be thus landed in ports that string out a thousand miles from German shores and all be landed at the same time. The answer is simple: The eastern shores of Denmark and the western shore of Norway constitute a naturally protected corridor
Normal exaltation of Roman Catholic Hierarchy at reception of diplomatic corps. The mighty dictator, Hitler, stands at attention before his master’s representative.
through which in peace and in war has moved the commerce of all the Baltic states, including Germany. Down this corridor every winter, including last winter, millions of tons of iron ore from Sweden have come to Germany from the iron-ore port at Narvik at the north of Norway. Each year Germany uses ten million tons of the high-grade Swedish ore to smelt along with their own domestic production of a like amount and another like amount brought in from other ore deposits elsewhere.
For months, quite probably for years, the Germans have been planning the absorption of Scandinavia (Sweden is surrounded and as good as gone). They merely filled their empty ore boats with troops and war supplies and, at the hour agreed upon, these troops issued from the holds and seized the ports to which they had been assigned. Denmark yielded without a struggle.
The Betrayal of Norway
There are now Nazi enthusiasts in every land who, like “Father” Coughlin and the “Christian Front”, accept Mein Kampf as the sure guide to the destruction of democratic governments and are anxious to do in their own lands what the Jesuit-trained Hitler did in Germany. Coughlin is so charmed with the propaganda of Goebbels, also Jesuit-trained, that he has copied much of his stuff verbatim.
In the overrunning of the four Protestant countries that go to make up Scandinavia Hitler has had the best advice and assistance that the Jesuits could offer, and the Jesuits have behind them fifteen hundred years of the most skillful and stupendous liars that have existed on earth since Lucifer, the first religionist, lied to mother Eve.
For several weeks before the German invasion of Norway, Reich agents, officers and officials filtered into the country in the guise of salesmen and tourists. On the Friday night before the invasion, at the German legation in Oslo, 200 carefully selected guests were shown a film, “Baptism of Fire,” disclosing in detail the manner in which Poland was seized at the first of September last.
When the German troops entered Oslo, faithless Norwegian officers rode in the same automobiles with the German officers when they made their official entry. The port of Narvik was turned over to the Germans as a gift by Colonel Sundlo, its military commander and an ardent Norwegian Nazi. The commander of Bergen turned over his city without resistance. The same was true of the commander of Kongsvinger fortress, northeast of Oslo, near the Swedish border, and which fortress is a key to the Norwegian defenses in that vicinity.
As usual in modern invasions, a puppet regime was set up. The puppet in this case being Vidkun Quisling, who, so it happens, was the defense minister of Norway the year that Hitler came into power. The Nazi party is so unpopular in Norway that not one of its candidates was elected to parliament in the last election.
King Haakon showed considerable manliness. He refused to negotiate with the German minister at Oslo, and after he left the city (so British reports say but German reports deny) German bombers followed him from place to place, bombing hotels and villages where he stopped, evidently trying to kill him. In his efforts to escape from the Germans and re-establish his government somewhere, he did not have his shoes off for at least the first five nights.
The Germans claim that during those five days they landed 100,000 troops in Norway. Swedish sources claim that German planes were carrying troops into Norway at the rate of 4,000 a day. Britain claims to have landed 50,000 troops on April 15.
A Strenuous Five Days
The first stand of the Norwegians was by peasants who learned that 600 heavily armed Germans were coming by bus to capture the fleeing Norwegian king and the parliament. These peasants seized private cars, overturned them in the road, and behind this barricade opened fire with machine-guns and rifles. At the end of that time there were said to be only about 900 Norwegians fighting anywhere.
The German general in charge of the invasion broadcast a warning that he would impose the death penalty on every Norwegian who resists the invasion or who obeys the orders of the Norwegian government.
The British mined the entire south shore of the Baltic sea from the Kiel canal to Lithuania. They broadcast advice to the Norwegians to collect information regarding the invaders, to cut telephone lines, block roads, destroy bridges and railways, and collect and remove all means of transport. British, French and Polish diplomats left Denmark, and the United States advised all Americans to also leave via Mediterranean boats.
All Danish ships must hereafter sail under British or French flags, and all Norwegian ships now become ships of the allies; and, as the Norwegians have the third-largest merchant fleet in the world, this is a great advantage to the allies. The Faroe Islands, Iceland, and probably Greenland, are under British protection. Iceland declared its independence.
Progressive Norway
Norway is one of the most progressive countries in the world. It has no illiterates, no slums, no military statues, and nobody is left sick or destitute. Sixteen hundred skilled, Government-trained midwives give close attention to the arrival of new Norwegians. One Norway hospital, municipally owned, with three thousand beds, gives services for the equivalent of fifty cents a day, which includes all surgical and medical attention. Scandinavia has the highest standard of living in the world, and Norway is unique in that it has a surplus in the budget.
Norway has had State workman’s insurance for 43 years. She has owned all her own railways for forty-seven years. Over the State-owned telephone lines a fifteen-minute conversation for a distance of 430 miles costs 12 cents. The interest on farm mortgages is two percent in the State banks. State-owned electric plants light the country from end to end, including the highways. Norway has had State fire, theft, tornado and marine insurance for forty years, and unemployment insurance for twelve years, and has virtually no crime.
On account of the terrific snows there are places in Norway where the cattle have to be kept in the barns up to the middle of June. The mountains are so steep that in some places women cut hay on slopes where they have to be anchored with ropes around their waists to keep them from falling over precipices. Potato patches are often at an angle of 45 degrees.
The three graces—1939-1940 style.
In 1936 the Hitler government officially protested to the Norwegian government because the Nobel peace prize had been awarded to the courageous German editor Karl von Ossietzky, who published the truth that the Nazis were arming in violation of their treaty promises, and they stated that serious consequences would follow. These serious consequences have now followed.
In three years’ time Ethiopia, Spain, Albania, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Denmark and Norway have been attacked by totalitarian powers and have largely, or altogether, lost their independence.
On March 11 Hitler said blasphemously, “For the first time in our history the entire German nation is making its appearance before the eyes of Almighty God entreating him to bless its struggle for existence.” In Chemnitz, Saxony, about the same time, children who denounced their own parents to the Gestapo were especially honored.
The Vatican on Eggs
The Vatican is finding it increasingly difficult to walk upon eggs without breaking them. There is no question that its sympathies are with the dictators. In the political philosophy of the Roman Hierarchy a bad dictatorship is better than the noblest democracy. But it would not do to say so; not in so many words. The Hierarchy must appear to be “for the people”, though anyone with a grain of the commonest of common sense knows that in no case has it ever been or will it ever be for the people. In its efforts to keep in the good graces of the democracies it must appear to “condemn” Germany. Hence newspapers in democratic countries carry equivocal items like the following, which appeared in the New York Times of April 18:
Although the Holy See strongly condemns Germany’s action and has fostered the attacks (?) against the Reich in the Osservatore Romano, it is pointed out that there are only 2,600 Catholics in Norway out of a population of nearly 3,000,000. Therefore, although the moral aspect is severely judged, from the practical viewpoint it is remarked that the Holy See must keep in mind the 30,000,000 German Catholics.
“The practical viewpoint” is the one in which the Hierarchy is interested, not the moral one, regardless of words and speeches framed for public consumption in democratic countries. The Hierarchy is composed of astute politicians, who do not let scruples of honor, truth or righteousness stand in the way of gaining their ends. Pius XII and his comrade Hitler are in a fight to eliminate democracy from the earth, so that the truth, and particularly the Truth concerning Jehovah’s Theocracy, may be suppressed. It is not merely a conflict between democracy, which is essentially Protestant, and dictatorship, essentially Roman Catholic, but a fight to continue the Satanic rule of the earth in opposition to the Theocracy of truth, righteousness and justice.
Hierarchy Will Show the Way
Early in January, 1940, the Japanese ambassador to Rome said in effect that the four totalitarian nations, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan, would ultimately combine to destroy the democracies. Jehovah’s witnesses have known of this for years, and have known that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is definitely back of the plan.
In an official statement the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor stated:
Stalin formerly posed as a friend of democracy. Hitler once masqueraded as the foe of Communism. The Stalin-Hitler pact has exposed the shameful hypocrisy and falsehood of these pretensions. Despite Germany’s seizure of Poland and Soviet Russia’s invasion of Poland both Hitler and Stalin still persist in trying to make us believe they want peace. They still insist they are the innocent victims of the “imperialistic” democracies of Europe. We in America know otherwise. The American Federation of Labor regards Hitler and Stalin as the enemies of mankind. As long as they remain in power, as long as their creed of totalitarianism rules in Germany and Russia, the peace of the world is in jeopardy.
All public libraries have withdrawn Mein Kampf from circulation until the pronouncements of Hitler against Bolshevism could be removed. This was one of the conditions attached to the agreement by which Stalin received him into his arms as a long-lost brother.
When Roosevelt sent his ambassador to the pope there were eight Protestant countries in the world. Since that time Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have gone overboard. That still leaves Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain and America. But it won’t be long now until the pope will have it all, and this, it should be explained, is what both Roosevelt and the pope most desire.
An American nun, returned to America after seventeen months at a convent in Warsaw, states that in the seizure of the city by German troops the convent was cared for as to its food and coal supplies and no soldier molested the nuns when they went upon the streets. If the Germans wanted anything they paid for it. Dead and wounded children, picked up on the street, were brought to the convent by the soldiers.
Catholics Must Exterminate One Another
The London Catholic Universe is apparently of the opinion that it is the duty of Catholics at this time to exterminate one another.
It quotes the following with approval, and, of course, these words, if used by a German Catholic, and addressed to Germans, would mean just as much as and no more than when used by an English Catholic addressed to Englishmen. Note the ambiguity:
It is becoming more apparent every day that this war is very much more than a mere European issue to be fought out between armies and navies and bombers. It is a crusade against a hideous unlopping of Satanism—a crusade in which every Catholic must take up arms. We Catholics have such immense power, if only we would use it, Power with God. We are God’s own people, chosen out of this world, and, in a sense, we make God act.
On his return from Europe, where he had an interview with the pope, the “Right Reverend” Fulton J. Sheen, of Catholic University, Washington, D.C., made the statement that the pope told him he was not in the least surprised at the German-Russian pact, but had anticipated it for some time; also, that “anyone who knows the philosophy of these movements knew they were bound to ‘unite’.” This is in full agreement with the evidence as presented in these columns, and if the pope had gone further and said that he had suggested this step to his loyal subject, Adolf Hitler, that would have been in every way believable, too.
The Jesuits came near to coming into the open regarding the true state of affairs in Germany. The Chicago Tribune quotes Vincent Herr, S.J., in an address to Chicago Knights of Columbus, as admitting that “there is doubt among clergymen as to whether national socialism presents a serious threat to the church. There has been no uniform attack on the church. While most schools have been taken from the church, priests still are permitted to come in after regular classes and instruct the children.”
“Reverend Father” Tiso, betrayer of Slovakia into the hands of Hitler, goes along with his master. When Hitler sent congratulations to the murderer Stalin on his sixtieth birthday, “Reverend” Tiso sent congratulations also. This is said to have peeved the Vatican, which would like to have the game but does not want the name of being in cahoots with Finland’s aggressor.
Quotations from “Hitler Speaks”
appearing in The Catholic Herald (London) reveal something but by no means everything. Note the following:
I’m a Catholic. Certainly that was fated from the beginning, for only a Catholic knows the weaknesses of the Church. I know how to deal with these gentry. . . . The Catholic Church is a really big thing. Why, what an organization! It’s something to have lasted nearly two thousand years! We must learn from it. Astuteness and knowledge of human nature are behind it. Catholic priests know where the shoe pinches. But their day is done, and they know it. They are far too intelligent not to see that, and to enter upon a hopeless battle. . . . I promise you that if I wished to, I could destroy the Church in a few years; it is hollow and rotten and false through and through. One push and the whole structure would collapse. We should trap the priests by their notorious greed and self-indulgence. We shall thus be able to settle everything with them in perfect peace and harmony.
The Protestants haven’t the faintest conception of a Church. You can do anything you like to them—they will submit. . . . They are insignificant, little people, submissive as dogs, and they sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them. They have neither a religion that they can take seriously nor a great position to defend like Rome.
The Episcopate of all the German Dioceses, as shown by its statements to the public, was glad to express as soon as it was made possible after the recent change in the political situation, through the declarations of Your Excellency, its sincere readiness to co-operate to its best ability with the new government which has proclaimed as its goal to promote Christian education, to wage a war against godlessness and immorality, to strengthen the spirit of sacrifice for the common good and to protect the rights of the Church.—From a letter of Adolph Cardinal Bertram to Adolf Hitler published in The [Roman] Catholic Universe, London, August 18, 1933.
Did von Ribbentrop really faint when the pope scolded him, if he scolded him, as set out in the New York Times of March 18? Or would the mere fact that he is said to have fainted, and that this word came from the Vatican, help to cover up the great deal that has been in progress for years between the present pope and Hitler that between the two of them they intend to bring the whole world into the totalitarian camp? You figure it out.
Dr. Seyss-Inquart and Franz von Papen, who handed over Roman Catholic Austria to Hitler, are both Catholics, and von Papen is a papal chamberlain. Conrad Henlein, who handed over the Sudetenland to Hitler, is a Catholic. The “Reverend Father” Tiso, who handed over Slovakia to Hitler, is a Catholic. And Hermann Goering, Hitler’s reputed successor, had a Roman Catholic mother. All seems regular.
“A Chimera Called Conscience”
It is something new for a man to be so low down in the scale of bestiality that he could be without a conscience, and proud of it, but that is the status of Hitler. In his book Hitler Speaks Hermann Rauschning, former president of the Danzig senate, says that Hitler personally said to him:
Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing men from the restraints of an intelligence which has taken charge; from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a chimera called conscience and morality and from the demands of a freedom and personal independence which only a very few can sustain.
It will be observed that he starts out on this devilish statement by asserting that the one to blame for it is “Providence”, i.e., “God,” i.e., his god, the Devil. At no time has either he or the Devil had any other thought than to do all possible to dishonor the name of the great Creator, Jehovah, whose Word speaks of some so far down in the scale that their “consciences are seared with a hot iron”.
Note now, in what follows, the acts and words of a man who claims to be guided by “Providence”. Note how in everything he has said and done he has traduced the name and word and law of Almighty God, and thus has shown who is his real “god”—Lucifer.
The assassination of von Fritsch, one-time commander-in-chief of the German army, is all regular, and exactly what might have been expected of Hitler and his infamous Gestapo. Because he did not approve Hitler’s plans for overrunning Europe he was not permitted to die a soldier’s death, but was bundled into an automobile and taken away from the front so he could be slain privately; so said the dispatches from Warsaw, before the city’s surrender.
Daladier’s Description of Hitler
in a radio address, is of interest here:
The human beings who constitute these nations are for him only cattle. He orders their massacre or their migration. He compels them to make room for their conquerors. He does not even take the trouble to impose any war tribute on them. He just takes all their wealth, and, to prevent any revolt, he wipes out their leaders and scientifically seeks the physical and moral degradation of those whose independence he has taken away.
Under this domination, in thousands of towns and villages in Europe there are millions of human beings now living in misery which, some months ago, they could never have imagined. Austria, Bohemia, Slovakia and Poland are only lands of despair. Their whole peoples have been deprived of the means of moral and material happiness. Subdued by treachery or brutal violence, they have no other recourse than to work for their executioners who grant them scarcely enough to assure the most miserable existence.
There is being created a world of masters and slaves made in the image of Germany herself. For, while Germany is crushing beneath her tyranny the men of every race and language she is herself being crushed beneath her own servitude and her domination mania. The German worker and peasant are the slaves of their Nazi masters while the worker and peasant of Bohemia and Poland have become in turn slaves of these slaves. Before this first realization of a mad dream the whole world might well shudder.
Says Charles Edward Russell, in The New Leader:
You can have no contracts of the least binding force with men or with governments that not only practice perfidy but profess and laud it. So what?
The French Yellow Book cites eleven instances wherein Hitler coolly kicked his pledged word out of the window. Any one of the eleven would be enough, if he were a merchant, to bar him from the least commercial confidence. Any one is enough to eliminate him from serious consideration as a party to any covenant or treaty. Peace made with him would be nothing but a truce wherein he would get the guns and make ready for the next gangster raid.
The one fact that has most protruded from the records of these dictatorships is that they have discarded all ethics. With them, “the faith that holds the moral elements of the world together” is just a shattered and ridiculous legend.
To get and keep this straight in our minds will help to save meandering and mulling. The war in Europe is not a war among nations. It is a conflict between ideas. Being so, you cannot stop it with nice phrases and the amiable gestures of peace. It will have to go on until mankind can have some assurance that the underpinning of all civilization is not to be swept down stream.
In the fall of 1939 Princeton freshmen voted that Adolf Hitler is the greatest man in the world, and the next spring the entire undergraduate body nominated him as the man of the year. Hitler has done more to bring the levels of scholarship in universities down to the level now occupied by Princeton than has any other man on earth; so it is perhaps reasonable that these budding Fascists should have voted as they did. If they lived in Germany now they would be Storm Troopers.
Artists have called attention to the fact that the swastika as used in India is in reverse of that used by Hitler. Viewing the swastika as the hands of a clock, the backward strokes make the Indian design signify to them “It is good”. But viewing the swastika the way Hitler designed it, with the strokes reaching forward in the form of hooks, the Indians say that to them his design signifies “It is bad”.
Insulting Almighty God
Insulting Almighty God, Hitler made an address on “Heroes’ Day”, March 10, in which he said, “The entire German people, soldiers” and civilians, stand before the Almighty, praying for victory”; and in which he also said, “As a former soldier of the World War, I have only one humble boon to ask of Providence,” etc., etc. For any man that has so greatly dishonored the name of Jehovah as this man has done, to speak about praying to Him is an insult of the worst kind. After what he has done to Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany, and is still doing to them, Hitler has no more right of access to Jehovah than has the Devil himself. In another address Hitler said that in his “escape from bombing at Munich he had ‘experienced the hand of Providence’”, and asked the question, “Do you think Providence would have blessed us only to drop us now?” The same old stuff by which kings and dictators in all ages have encouraged their subjects to go out and kill and be killed. The German cardinals in Germany insist that God is a German; the French insist that He is French; the English, that he is English. It is all regular.
Because he is in league with the Devil, and busily engaged in doing all possible to the dishonor of God’s name, Hitler made a speech to his army at the beginning of 1940 in which he asked that “in the coming year the Almighty will take us under His protection and give us His blessing again”.
Almost at the same time that one German bigwig was making the declaration, in a speech at Lemberg, “We [Germans] have the divine right to rule, and we shall assure ourselves of that right,” another one, with not a particle more common sense than the first, announced that bastardy, which has very special condemnation in God’s Word, is perfectly all right every way, especially if the bastard child is the offspring of a soldier en route to the front. Probably no people that ever lived had greater genius or talent than the German people. Certainly none that ever lived had the same gift of getting the whole world down on them, or gained such pre-eminence in trying to make others believe they are twice as bad as they really are.
Exchanging Populations
Russia and Germany exchanged populations in Polish territory, Germans going over into the German section to the number of about 19,000, and Russians going over into the Russian section to the number of nearly 160,000. It is Hitler’s philosophy that all Germans should be gathered together into one great nation, too great for any combination of nations to attack and conquer. He succeeded, after a fashion, in putting his ideas into effect, but only by also bringing on another great war, sure to upset everything for all the Germans, including Hitler himself.
The Japanese people are reported quite unable to understand why Hitler, once the loud-mouthed opponent of Communism, as all Roman Catholics are supposed to be, should have turned 15,000,000 Poles over to Red Russia to be Bolshevized. Hitler is interested in just one thing in this world, and that is the thing he sees in the mirror when he combs his hair.
The readiness with which Hitler turned against a friendly nation and entered an alliance with Russia is the more remarkable when one calls to mind some statements made by him with regard to each in the not so long-distant past. He said:
The Germans desire that this [German-Polish] Pact should be constantly renewed, and that the friendly German-Polish relations should become closer. (Speech, May 21, 1935.)
The Moscow Communist propagandists . . . will play no role in Germany. (September 9, 1936.)
We see in Bolshevism a bestial, mad doctrine which is a threat to us. . . . We exterminated Bolshevism on our own ground. We warded off the attempt to infect Germany from Moscow. We know that the Moscow Jews will never stop their activity. (September 14, 1936.)
I consider Bolshevism the most malignant poison that can be given to a people. (January 30, 1937.)
Is it not an historical irony that we see the representative of the most bloodthirsty tyranny which ever existed, Moscow Bolshevism, become the ally of the democracies? (September 12, 1938.) [London News-Chronicle]
Sir Neville Henderson had five talks with Hitler, trying to tell the madman that if he invaded Poland Britain would go to war. On the third interview Hitler screamed, pounded the table, and promised to be good if only Britain would let him have his way, just this once. If he could settle the Polish question as he desired he would be ready to go back to his paperhanging business.
War “a Blessing from God”
In the newspaper Angriff the head of the German Labor Front, Dr. Robert Ley (pronounced the same as lie) stated that war is “a blessing from God”. The Scriptures refer to Jesus as the Prince of Peace. They say that of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end, and that when that government is in full control of earth's affairs (after Armageddon) "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more". Men will not need to kill one another any more, and they will not need to have anybody lie to them.
When the Graf Spee was being pounded by the Exeter, the Ajax and the Achilles off the shores of Uruguay she had on board 62 British seamen, taken off from nine British merchantmen that the Graf Spee had previously sent to Davy Jones' locker. Some of the men were shaving when the battle started. They were down in the brig directly under the Graf Spee's 11-inch-gun turrets. They counted 17 hits by the British cruisers, and sang and cheered with every hit, even though they knew the next one might send them to the bottom of the sea. The men who were shaving went on and finished the job, and, the next day, when the Graf Spee's 32 dead were taken to the cemetery they sent a floral remembrance in kindly recognition of the fight these brave men had put up against the ablest seamen in the world.
The Graf Spee (German pocket battleship) made a brave fight, but the three British cruisers, with their smaller guns, superior speeds and skillful handling were too much for her. Her forward turret was put out of commission, the gunfire-control installation was destroyed, all the food supplies for 1,100 men were destroyed, and the flour aboard was impregnated with cordite fumes from exploding cordite shells, making it unfit for use. The captain was under orders to destroy the ship rather than let it fall into British hands; so he had it blown up. When he landed at Buenos Aires, with his men, and found that all would be interned in interior ports he lost heart and killed himself.
The Germans have disclosed how the new mines are laid. The pressure of the water causes a metal spring to operate in such a way that the mines can be anchored a given distance below the surface. The mines are placed by submarines, and the theory is that a harbor entrance can be blocked in a short time. The mines are removed by mine-sweepers similar to those used in the previous world holocaust.
The old tricks do not work as well as they did. The Germans used a magic lantern to project a picture of the virgin Mary on the clouds, with her arms outstretched as if in appeal. The picture appeared over the British lines, and when it was investigated, and found to be a fake, the value of the stunt was ended for the duration of the war.
Hitler's accursed "government" is described by Dorothy Thompson in the New York Herald Tribune of August 30, 1939, as follows:
Everybody knows that this "government" rules by a camarilla, and a Praetorian Guard of flunks, thugs, informers, terrorists and professional liars calling themselves propagandists; that it has corrupted the Word, the Word of truth, as it has never been corrupted.
Everybody knows that this government fills all countries with its spies and propagandists—propagandists who have not even anything to propagate; revolutionists without a revolutionary idea; ideologists without an ideology; for where is the ideology that can make a front against Communism and switch from one moment to the next to a "Heil Hitler—Rot Front!"
The Frenchmen who twice this year have marched to the Maginot Line have not gone in order to secure the right to "peaceful negotiations". The Englishmen and women who have equipped themselves with gas masks and prepared for air raids for the second time this year have not done it for a legalistic conception. They are not prepared to fight for the Polish Corridor or Danzig.
They are prepared to fight to get rid of Hitler. The cry in their hearts is "End this infamy! End this rule of blackmail! End this barbarian persecution which is the more disgusting because it justifies itself in unctuous words about 'purity of race'!"
War Was Inevitable
It was inevitable, apparently, that Germany should become involved in war sooner or later. The very structure of the so-called "government" of Nazidom would lead to war. This was convincingly set forth in an editorial which appeared in the New York Post under date of August 21, 1939.
The "dynamism" of Fascism must have victories such as the one sought over Poland, or it cannot live. Substituting cannon instead of decent living as the national ideal, subverting the economy of the nation to the production of instruments of force, it cannot achieve equilibrium. Since almost the entire national investment goes into munitions, that investment must be used, must be employed to extort additional wealth by force of arms—whereas other nations, investing their resources in peaceful manufactures, can acquire the goods they need by peaceful trade.
The trade figures just published indicate that imports into Germany are still being so severely restricted that the new Greater Germany is taking almost precisely the same amount of goods from the outside world as it took before the acquisition of Austria.
That is a picture of national want, deliberately contrived, flowing from the national policy of “cannon instead of butter”. If the resources of Germany went into the manufacture of goods for export, she would have to wheel and deal for increasing needed imports of raw materials, food and fats. But that requires a system of government in Germany with which other nations could live at peace, and it would also require a will toward peace, neither of which exist in the Reich. The munitions are made for war use; they are not manufactures for export; they leave Germany nothing with which to buy.
She is impelled, by the dynamics of her perverted system, to grab. Needing gold, she takes Czechoslovakia and the $300,000,000 of the metal in the Prague banks. Needing grain, she takes the wheat fields of Slovakia. Needing lumber, she cuts down the forests of Bohemia and Moravia. Trying to feed both Austria and Germany on imports which were not enough for Germany alone, she is pushed into her drive against Poland.
Germany’s desperate effort to extort loans from her own people, through her “tax pre-payment certificates”, floated instead of a currency issue, has failed. Tax exactions for the first three months of the current fiscal year are 5,220,000,000 marks, compared with 3,670,000,000 marks for the same period last year. The nation’s debt is rising rapidly, and is now close to 70,000,000,000 marks.
This elaborate structure is based on the making of arms, not on a true increase in national wealth. Arms are property only in the curious sense that firecrackers are property; they vanish with use. The only means of capitalizing on them is to use them as a burglar uses his gun in a holdup.
That the German people are not so hot for war is indicated by Hitler’s speech at Danzig in which he tries to reassure the German people themselves that their enthusiasm for war is an inward enthusiasm, that they do not need any hurrah patriotism in Germany, and that there is no discrepancy between the German people and their leadership. Sounds like a boy whistling as he passes a cemetery at night.
Though Hitler was busy doing everything possible to plunge Germany into war, he was not quite ready for it when it did come; for, while Germany is heavily armed, it lacks many things that would make it self-sufficient. Some of the immediate results of the general mobilization indicate that the war is placing a severe strain upon the German system as a whole. Even its military preparations were not complete.
Sixty days after the war began the Germans were still pouring concrete in certain parts of the Siegfried line. It takes months for concrete to harden sufficiently to withstand bombardment, and it looks as if, with Stalin at his back, Adolf Hitler does not feel quite so sure of himself as his boastful threats might suggest. Stalin would certainly not hesitate to knife Hitler in the back, once the war got under way in dead earnest.
On September 1, the day the war started, Hitler warned Britain and France that Germany was ready to wage a ten-year war against what he termed British aggression and less than ten weeks later he told his intimate followers that he had given orders that Germany must be made strong enough to withstand a five-year war, no matter what the hardships. At that rate, splitting the length of the war in half every ten weeks, the end would come on the evening of July 29, 1940, and there are some that think Hitler’s racket may not last any longer than that, and there are certainly hundreds of millions, including tens of millions of Germans, that hope that very thing.
The Russians tried delivery of soldiers by airplane, but the Finns cut their throats as fast as they came down in their parachutes. Then the Germans tried delivering spies in the same manner, and the French government made every peasant an informer and in no time the spies were rounded up and shot.
Villard’s Opinion of Germany
Oswald Garrison Villard, famous editor, back from a visit to Germany, declares that one cannot overestimate the ability and determination of the men who now run Germany; that everywhere there is power, vigor, force, strength, and administrative and executive ability. At the time he was there, in midwinter of 1939-1940, the militarists were fully expecting the break-up of the British Commonwealth of Nations by midsummer of 1940.
Prisoners from Dachau and Buchenwald German concentration camps (in which are many hundreds of Jehovah’s witnesses) are now being employed in the German front lines in building fortifications and clearing damaged roads. Though forced to work under fire they are unprotected in any way visible to human eyes.
(To be continued)
Tribunal Report
WEST LONDON COUNTY COURT, Fulham.
October 19, 1939.
Chairman: Judge Hargreaves
Conscientious Objector:
Frank Cousins (Jehovah’s witness)
His Witness:
R. J. Fuller, solicitor (one of J. W’s)
(Report made to W. T. B. & T. S. by R. J. Fuller)
On his name being called Frank Cousins entered the witness box, whereupon the Chairman, Judge Hargreaves, read out publicly to the tribunal Cousins’ statement as to his conscientious objection.
THE CHAIRMAN: I see you are a draftsman.
MR. COUSINS: Yes. I am employed in electrical work in connection with commercial vehicles.
THE CHAIRMAN: What church do you belong to?
MR. COUSINS: I don’t belong to any church. I am a Christian, one of Jehovah’s witnesses. I preach the gospel of the Kingdom, which is the only hope for the world and which will bring everlasting peace and prosperity. Religion and Christianity are not the same. It is impossible for imperfect men to establish a righteous government to bring about this. I object to killing or taking any part in war. God’s law forbids killing.
(The judge seemed a bit nonplussed at this.)
THE CHAIRMAN: But you are in employment. How do you preach?
MR. COUSINS: By going from door to door telling the people about the Kingdom as opportunity occurs.
THE CHAIRMAN: How long have you been doing this?
MR. COUSINS: About three years.
THE CHAIRMAN: Would you not take any part in a war for a just cause? Don’t you think this is a war of justice?
MR. COUSINS: No. This is not a just war. It is a war between wicked men and does not have God’s approval.
THE CHAIRMAN: Have you ever read Revelation?
MR. COUSINS: I have read the book of Revelation.
THE CHAIRMAN: It there says, “In righteousness he doth judge and make war.” Isn’t that inconsistent with your view that it is not right to take part in war?
MR. COUSINS: That war is a righteous war and refers to Armageddon.
THE CHAIRMAN: Wars are mentioned in the Old Testament too.
MR. COUSINS: Yes, but the wars mentioned in the Old Testament had Jehovah’s approval and were for the purpose of destroying God’s enemies. The present war is a war of wicked men and I cannot support any of the governments in a war which has not God’s approval.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Have you anyone who would like to speak for you?
MR. COUSINS: Yes. Mr. Fuller is with me.
THE CHAIRMAN: How long have you known Mr. Cousins?
MR. FULLER: About three years. I am connected with the same message and came to a knowledge of the Truth in 1917. I am a solicitor by profession and attend this court. (Addressing the other members of the tribunal) I know the chairman very well in this court, Judge Hargreaves, of West London Sessions.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, in the other court (referring to the judge’s regular court).
MR. FULLER: I am one of Jehovah’s witnesses and support Mr. Cousins that God’s Kingdom is the only hope for the world and we are commanded to give this message particularly at the end of the world, where we now are; “before the end,” meaning the end of Satan’s wicked rule in the earth. The Devil has caused all the present trouble, and at Armageddon, now due, God will destroy the Devil and all his wicked organization and establish the righteous Kingdom under Christ Jesus. Jehovah foretold that He had appointed a day wherein He would rule the world in righteousness by that man whom He had appointed, namely, Christ Jesus, whereof He has given us an assurance in that He had raised Him from the dead. Jesus Christ foretold of Armageddon in these words: “Then shall be great tribulation.” We are now in that time, and Armageddon will very shortly follow.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is this war Armageddon?
MR. FULLER: No. Armageddon has nothing to do with men. Armageddon is the great battle of the day of God Almighty mentioned in Revelation 16. Many people thought 1914 was Armageddon, but this was not correct.
THE CHAIRMAN: But do you say there is to be a third war after this? How is Armageddon going to be fought?
MR. FULLER: Armageddon, I have said, has nothing to do with men fighting each other, but it is the great battle in which Jehovah will vindicate His name and destroy the Devil and all his host. It will not be fought by men, but by the invisible hosts of God, and will completely destroy all who are opposed to God’s Kingdom and His King Christ Jesus. Battleships, guns, poison gas, sandbags, and other earthly weapons won’t save anyone at Armageddon.
THE CHAIRMAN (after consulting the other members of the tribunal): We have considered your case, Mr. Cousins, and have concluded that the work you are doing is important and you will be placed on the list of conscientious objectors and continue in your present employment.
Magazine squad at St. Petersburg, Florida
Finland
◆ The work with the sound machines has considerably increased, and a very powerful witnessing has been done in our country. From the interesting campaign I can mention some instances. One publisher writes: “Jehovah knows that our company had not a sound-car. It is doubtful if we shall have it before Armageddon. For that reason he has blessed our company with more than usually strong rowers, and boats, and provided us with a territory very rich in lakes. We hope that you have had the joy to hear and experience how incomparable a place a lake is for presenting the record lectures. Here in the no man’s land our loudspeaker has been able to work with its full capacity. Those on shore have naturally been in their best tune: when the sun is shining and the airbath calm the nerves. We can be happy and grateful as Jehovah has favored his people with such matchless lectures as are, eg., “Value of Knowledge” and “Safety”.
When some of our publishers came back from a witnessing trip to country, they had an opportunity to present lectures on the steamer with their loudspeaker. That aggravated some, who said so: “I came here to the finest steamer on this lake in order to admire the nature and enjoy the silence, but now the Jehovah’s witnesses are allowed with the consent of the captain to present during the whole journey lectures with their loudspeaker.” Yes, it was so, but not only did the captain give his permission to present the lectures, but he still offered a dinner to these “noise-makers”. Then still some words how some this time are tormented in the presence of the Lamb and His holy angels. Their woe-cries are rising in following way: “At home we have no peace; Jehovah’s witnesses are ringing the bell. We go in parks, but even there the witnesses are with their books. Now we seek outlying swimming places and sandshores, but immediately we are followed by the same witnesses with their loudspeakers.”—1940 Yearbook of Jehovah’s witnesses, pages 192, 193.
Some of the German Martyrs
◆ August Dieckmann, company servant of a Rheinisch-Westphalian company of Jehovah’s witnesses, was in the Buchenwald concentration camp at the time when he was ordered out to become a soldier for Adolf Hitler. He preferred to lay down his life for the Lord instead, and so was stood against a wall and shot.
In Salzburg, Wegscheider and Pichler, two of eight of Jehovah’s witnesses there arrested, refused military service as conscientious objectors and were also shot. To try to break down their determination, their wives were brought into court, but were as firm in the faith as their husbands, and said to them in the courtroom: “Your life is in God’s hands.” This made a tremendous impression on the judge. He struck his fist on the table and said, “These are not criminals or traitors, but it is a movement actuated by motives of faith, the adherents of which are not limited to two or three but run into hundreds and thousands. A reservation must be made here.” But an application to Berlin for clemency was refused and the two were shot. At their request the judge himself personally brought Bibles to their cells, and waited with them till midnight. As he turned away he said, “During these last hours both men have been alone with their God; they are godly men.”
Advertising the Kingdom in Liverpool, England
Kingdom publishers, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan
Both Wegscheider and Pichler said they did not need to be blindfolded when shot, but their eyes were bandaged anyway. The soldiers who finally did the shooting lagged in the execution. The judge suffered a nervous breakdown and had himself transferred to another judicial appointment. Even the Catholic clergy of the town commented upon the steadfastness of these witnesses of Jehovah.
About 300 persons were present at the interment. A request had been made to sing three songs and offer a prayer. The Gestapo refused to let the songs be sung, and harshly interrupted the prayer, declaring it too long. They had forbidden the use of the name Jehovah, though one person called out to the dead ones: “Till we meet again in Jehovah’s kingdom.” Those at the interment were photographed many times by the Gestapo, who shortly thereafter, on the basis of the photographs, made a whole series of arrests.
In Vienna another witness of Jehovah, Alarm, refused to give the oath of allegiance to Hitler for auxiliary police service and was tortured to death. His wife was instructed to come and fetch away his clothing and wedding ring.
In Berlin a police inspector from Lienz, Tyrol, was beheaded because he refused, on grounds of faith and conscience, to serve in Hitler’s army. He also was one of Jehovah’s witnesses.
Others were sentenced to life imprisonment. The last letters from all these men are touching beyond words.
Kingdom magazine publishers (ages 3 and 5), Bowie, Arizona
Jehovah’s Kingdom publishers, Mount Vernon, Washington
Kingdom Joys in California
◆ The cops stopped four of the witnesses while marching at Salinas, California.
Cop (to one of the publishers carrying overhead banner “Religion is a snare and a racket”): You’ll have to take that sign down.
Witness: Does that mean I am under arrest?
Cop: No. The Christianity signs are O.K., but that sign has to come down.
Witness: I am sorry but I have no other excuse to be here except to carry this sign. (And walked off)
They passed the police station three more times but no arrests. Some of the publishers were threatened, “We’ll have to call the wagon. You people pay no attention to us,” but no wagon ever came. More victory!
An experience I witnessed last Sunday is too good to keep. A publisher saw a lady sitting on the steps of the “Church of Christ”. The publisher approached the lady and gave her a witness with the Salvation book. The lady said, “I would like to have that book, as I have read a good deal of this literature, but I have no money with me for a contribution. You see, my husband is pastor of this church and he is inside now preaching a sermon and I can’t interrupt him now to get the money. However, if you are around in half an hour, he will be through and I can get it then, as I want the book.” Needless to say she got the book and I promised to call on her.
At the “Holy Ghost Festival” at Holy Cross Catholic Church, Santa Cruz, July 4, at 11 a.m., a large crowd stood outside. Two Portuguese stood talking; a third one walked up and looked into the church. One of the others said, “Go on in.” The reply was, “I am a God-fearing man; I do not believe in profane religion”; then he walked away.
Three Drum Corps men standing by asked, “What does profane mean?” One said he would ask his preacher; the other, a Catholic, said there must be something to that and he was going to find out. The third said, “If that weren’t the truth he wouldn’t dare say it here!”
A lady who was a “good Catholic” has attended meetings in Livermore about three weeks. She gave a friend some booklets, then bought her a Bible to prove things, then got her some glasses to read them with. A real neighbor!
The priest called and she explained that she didn’t believe “purgatory”, etc. He hasn’t called since; and had told her, “You must be reading some books.”
Rumania
◆ One publisher worked in the woods as a lumberman and had taken his Bible and the Yearbook with him, to read in leisure hours. One day the clothes of all lumbermen were searched by a squad of police-soldiers, and the publisher was arrested for having the Bible and the Yearbook. He had to go with them afoot for 200 kilometers [125 miles], and was then taken before the court and given six months in prison.—1940 Yearbook of Jehovah’s witnesses, page 161.
(To be continued)
Supplementary German News
Hitler’s Decisions Made in Trances
Hermann Rauschning, former president of the Nazi senate in Danzig, but now banished from the Nazi party, stated in an interview in Paris that Hitler’s dramatic speeches in front of masses, and all his most important decisions, are made when he is in a trance condition. In other words, they are not his speeches and decisions at all, but the speeches and decisions of the demon or demons controlling him. And in his heart Hitler is such a perfect child of the Devil that these speeches and decisions flow through him like water through a well-built sewer. There is just enough water of Truth flowing in the dirty sewer to carry its filthy contents along.
Hitler’s speeches and those of other Nazi bigwigs reveal much of the real power behind the whole Nazi movement. So when the world’s most renowned madman, Adolf Hitler, nee Schicklgruber, made his momentous decision and plunged his own and other misled nations into war, he made a speech. That was on September 1, in the Reichstag. During that speech he used the word “me” forty-four times, the word “my” twenty-seven times, and the “I” seventy-eight times. The other words of the speech hardly matter. So says Australian Consolidation.
In Section 2, Article 2, of his agreement with Stalin Hitler refers to the line drawn between Russia and Germany, through the heart of Poland, and designates it as “the frontier of their imperial interests”. In this language Hitler betrays himself as determined to be an emperor. Stalin, though almost as evil a tyrant as the paperhanger, did not use this language, but referred to the line as “the frontier between the interests of their respective states”.
It has been known for many years that the Nazis burned the Reichstag and executed van der Lubbe, a half-wit, for the crime that was performed under Goering’s direction. Goering boasted of the crime to Rauschning, and as he did so he explained that Hitler knew of it in advance. Thus both Hitler and Goering were guilty of both arson and murder, as well as public and private perjury. Nothing in this is new, except that Rauschning, former Nazi, confessed the whole thing.
During the first three months of the war the Gestapo (Nazi Secret Police) were executing more than 4,000 persons per month for lack of enthusiasm in prosecuting the Hitler war.
Butter by Wireless
Carloads of butter are being sent into Germany every day, bought in Netherlands or other neutral countries, paid for by friends in the United States, and the funds and shipping directions wirelessed to the neutral country that does the shipping. At Bremen the packages are put into the German mails. An $8.50 package contains 4 pounds of butter, 3 pounds of Holland cheese, 1 pound of evaporated milk, ½ pound of coffee, and ½ pound of cocoa. The cost of this package in an American retail food store would be about $2.85; so it does not appear that the one-time German steamship employees who are navigating this new enterprise are in any great danger of losing anything.
Nation-wide Bastardy Encouraged
Inviting nation-wide bastardy, Heinrich Himmler, Gestapo chief, and Rudolf Hess, deputy Nazi leader, have officially advised motherhood out of wedlock for German women and girls, of children begotten by soldiers moving to the front. Himmler issued a circular letter that he would appoint special sponsors for all children of good blood born in or out of wedlock whose fathers fall in the war.
Railroads Overloaded
The German railways are unable to handle the strain put upon them by war conditions, as is indicated by the fact that in the first four months of the war 238 persons were killed in eight wrecks. About as many more were seriously injured.
COUNSEL
by Judge Rutherford
Democracy’s End
DEMOCRACY is either direct or indirect. Where the people elect their representatives who form the governing power, such government is designated an indirect democracy or a republic. A direct democracy is a government in which all the people have some voice in the enactment and enforcement of the laws.
The dictators of today sneer at the democracies and call their system of government “putrid”. Totalitarian dictators and religious heads are now working together, and the so-called “democracies” are permitting all independent nations to be dragged into the camp of the dictators. All, without one exception, are against God’s kingdom by His Anointed King Christ; as prophetically foretold: “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples meditate a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Jehovah, and against his anointed, saying, Let us [rulers] break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh; the Lord will have them in derision. Then will he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure: Yet I have set my king [Christ Jesus] upon my holy hill of Zion.”—Psalm 2:1-6, Am. Rev. Ver.
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