Memo from Ernst Kaltenbrunner to Heinrich Himmler

This memo from high-ranking SS official Ernst Kaltenbrunner to Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler gives a glimpse into how leading Nazis viewed Jehovah’s Witnesses during World War II.¹

German authorities had begun persecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses shortly after the Nazi rise to power in 1933. Most Jehovah’s Witnesses would have been considered “Aryan” according to Nazi racial ideology, but their beliefs and lifestyles defied Nazi expectations for members of the so-called “national community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”). Jehovah’s Witnesses often refused to say “heil Hitler,” perform the Nazi salute, display the Nazi swastika flag, or vote for Nazi candidates in elections.² The German government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses from meeting, preaching, or distributing their publications. Many Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested and imprisoned in jails, prisons, and concentration camps.

Kaltenbrunner’s June 1943 memo to Himmler discusses several aspects of the Nazis’ treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses imprisoned in concentration camps.³ Kaltenbrunner notes that some imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses were now working as forced labor in SS households and Lebensborn homes.⁴ Himmler had suggested that imprisoned Witnesses could be assigned to these jobs because they would not try to escape.⁵

Kaltenbrunner also mentions prewritten statements that authorities sometimes pressured imprisoned Witnesses to sign in exchange for their release.⁶ The memo notes that alternative versions had been drafted that would potentially allow more Witnesses to be released.

Kaltenbrunner’s memo also reveals another rationale for Nazi leaders targeting Jehovah’s Witnesses during World War II. Kaltenbrunner mentions that religious prophecies and predictions about the end of the world were spreading among the German population as the war turned against Nazi Germany. According to Kaltenbrunner, Jehovah’s Witnesses were responsible for leaflets and rumors that claimed that Adolf Hitler was the Antichrist and Germany was facing defeat.⁷

The observations and attitudes documented in Kaltenbrunner’s memo to Himmler suggest some of the tensions in Nazi policies toward Jehovah’s Witnesses. Nazi authorities still assigned imprisoned Witnesses to work in SS homes even though they targeted them and excluded them from Nazi society. Himmler had suggested changing the agreements that might allow imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses to be released, but Kaltenbrunner did not want Witnesses who were working as forced laborers to be informed that there was a chance that they might be released from custody. Why might Himmler and Kaltenbrunner have considered allowing more Jehovah’s Witnesses to be released from concentration camps? Why might they have needed them to work as forced laborers in SS homes at this time?⁸

Ernst Kaltenbrunner was Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and Chief of the Security Police. To learn more about Kaltenbrunner, see Peter R. Black, Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).

Jehovah's Witnesses claimed to be a politically neutral religious group and generally did not vote or participate in civic rituals of any kind. This was also true in the United States and Canada. To learn more, see Robert L. Tsai, Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture (Yale University Press, 2008); Merlin Owen Newton, Armed with the Constitution: Jehovah's Witnesses in Alabama and the U.S. Supreme Court, 1939-1946 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995); and M. James Penton, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics under Persecution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 120–130.

Scholars estimate that roughly 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were imprisoned during Nazi rule. Of these, about 2,000 German Witnesses were sent to concentration camps along with roughly 1,000 non-German Witnesses. To learn more, see Detlef Garbe, Between Resistance & Martyrdom: Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich, translated by Dagmar G. Grimm (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 481, 484.

The Lebensborn ("Fount of Life") program was created by the SS in December 1935 to help boost Germany’s dwindling birth rate and expand the size of the Nazis' so-called "national community." For more information about imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses assigned to forced labor in Lebensborn homes, see Detlef Garbe, Between Resistance & Martyrdom, 448-450. To learn more about the Lebensborn program, see the related Experiencing History items, Brochure for the Lebensborn Program, Request to Replace Nurse Anna Hölzer, and Letter to SS Doctor Gregor Ebner.

Nazi authorities permitted Jehovah’s Witnesses to do domestic work and help care for children in SS homes—even as the court system challenged the parental custody of many Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany because they had failed "to educate [their children] spiritually and morally in the spirit of National Socialism." To learn more about legal challenges to the parental custody of Jehovah’s Witnesses under Nazi rule, see the related Experiencing History item, Decision in the Case of Franz Josef Seitz.

Local Nazi officials used their own versions of these forms until late 1938, when Himmler ordered the adoption of a single uniform text. The older statements required people to have nothing more to do with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and to cooperate with the police—but the new forms also required Witnesses to renounce their faith itself. For a primary source example of these statements, see the related Experiencing History item, Copy of Form Promising to Renounce Jehovah’s Witnesses. To learn more, see Detlef Garbe, Between Resistance & Martyrdom: Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich, translated by Dagmar G. Grimm (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 286–93.

To learn more, see the related Experiencing History item, Bible Study Materials Smuggled into Dachau.

For more primary sources on forced labor under Nazi rule, see related Experiencing History items tagged with "forced labor.""

Copy

The Chief of the Security Police [SiPo] Berlin SW 11, June 15, 1943 and the SD Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8
IV B 2 – 496/42 S

The Reichsführer-SS
and Chief of the German Police
Currently: Field Command Post

Concerning: Release of female Jehovah’s Witnesses who are deployed in SS households or at other places of employment for the performance of work.

With reference to: Order dated January 6, 1943 – RF/Dr. I 37/43

Enclosures: 1

The deployment of imprisoned female Jehovah’s Witnesses for the performance of work in SS households and in Lebensborn homes—mandated by the order cited above—has taken place continually during the past weeks, according to information from the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, Department D, Concentration Camps. It has not yet been possible to gather specific experience concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses assigned to these tasks, because corresponding reports from the individual households are yet to be submitted. Releases of such prisoners also have not been carried out thus far.

According to the findings of the RSHA [Reich Security Main Office] and the State Police [Gestapo] headquarters, including quite recent assessments, imprisoned or newly emerging Jehovah’s Witnesses are willing in only a few instances to obtain their release by signing the declaration of commitment that is customary thus far.

Because individual Jehovah’s Witnesses have often objected to the wording of the declaration of renunciation, particularly the stipulation requiring them to declare their own belief to be a heresy, but have otherwise agreed to follow the state’s orders and to carry out all work assigned to them, two new draft declarations were presented, as ordered, with the report dated October 29, 1942. The draft declarations take those facts into account. One of the drafts had in view Jehovah’s Witnesses who have completely freed their minds from the false doctrine of the IBV [Internationale Bibelforscher-Vereinigung; International Bible Students Association] and are also willing to perform military service. The other draft, whose content is significantly moderated, was supposed to be presented for signature solely to prisoners who have not yet completely adjusted their thinking, but—after an extended period of observation in the camp—seem to offer the guarantee that, once released, they would conduct themselves blamelessly in every respect and give no cause for complaints of any kind. Furthermore, it had been suggested that this milder undertaking be limited to the female Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as those males no longer in the age range subject to military service. No decision has yet been made with respect to these new draft declarations.

With regard to a mere commitment on a handshake in the event of releasing female Jehovah’s Witnesses who have been detailed from camp imprisonment to perform work in SS households and elsewhere, please allow me to draw attention to the following: Investigations have revealed that a number of imprisoned female Jehovah’s Witnesses are willing, in principle, to adhere to the requirements imposed on them in the declaration of commitment, but they stubbornly refuse to provide their signature. They do so because, in accordance with the Bible verse “Let your speech be yes, yes, no, no; anything more than this is of evil,” they absolutely reject, out of their irreligious considerations, every oral and especially every written assurance that goes beyond this framework. In particular, these female Jehovah’s witnesses would be ready to agree, merely by handshake, to the commitments imposed on them, provided the terms are approximately the same as those of the more moderate draft declaration accompanying the report dated October 29, 1942.

[Page 2]

Undoubtedly, however, another factor plays a substantial role in their refusal to sign: They point out the female Jehovah’s Witnesses who, already deployed outside the camp to perform work, are thereby semi-free; and they hope that they themselves, in the same way, can someday obtain even complete freedom without entering into any oral or written obligations. They hold a deeply rooted conviction that Jehovah in the near future will establish his kingdom in this world, open the gates of their prisons, and lead them into freedom. This conviction causes them to view a labor deployment in semi-freedom outside the camp as a sign of Jehovah’s potency with respect to their final liberation. The same conviction reinforces them in their stubborn stance: under no circumstances will they insult Jehovah or even be unfaithful to him and his commandments by signing the declaration of renunciation.

With reference to the previous remarks, I thus allow myself to present the following suggestion:

The release of female Jehovah’s Witnesses by means of a mere commitment by handshake will take place only in very specific exceptional cases and only for persons who, in the unanimous opinion of the camp and the employer for whom they work, offer absolute assurance that, regardless of their inner religious conviction, they will, once released, adhere strictly to the commitments made by handshake and will refrain from every public expression of their own religious views, as well as the teachings of the IBV in general. All other female Jehovah’s Witnesses must, as a precondition for their release, sign the declaration presented with the report dated October 29, 1942.

The decision whether a female Jehovah’s Witness is released by a mere handshake indicating commitment will be made by the RSHA, based on the judgment of the camp commandant and the employer after thorough examination of the environment in which the prisoner, once released, plans to live.

The female Jehovah’s Witnesses in line for release without providing their signature must, by means of a handshake, indicate to the camp commandant or his designated representative that they enter into specific commitments. Please see these in detail in the enclosed draft declaration. A short record of the commitment entered into will be prepared, and will contain the information that the prisoner has voluntarily provided the declarations in question and has been informed that any breach of the commitments undertaken will result in immediate re-arrest.

This record will be sent to the RSHA, which will promptly order the release.

In connection with the overall complex of the IBV, please allow me to point out a general observation: The longer the war lasts, with all its emotional distress for individual Volksgenossen, the more so-called auguries and prophecies appear in all parts of the Reich, reduced to writing and especially spread by word of mouth. By reference to a fanciful interpretation of specific Bible passages, they make certain predictions about the length and outcome of the war, and they contain statements about the war as a precursor of the end of the world and about the so-called Antichrist. These prophecies and statements have a defeatist and demoralizing effect. Unfortunately, in rural areas they also make an impression on quite a number of Volksgenossen. As is generally known, the Bible tells us that the Antichrist—who is always interpreted as the Führer—is destroyed by God himself by means of a war, and then God intends to cause a new world to arise on the ruins of this world order, under his personal guidance.

Even though it is not always possible to ascertain the producers of such “prophecies” more specifically, their style and content make it clear that the originators of the fliers and rumors are to be sought among the Jehovah’s Witnesses and related sectarian schools of thought. As a consequence of their exclusive rootedness in the Old Testament with its “auguries,” prophesying about the end of the current world order is the principal pursuit of all IBV members. Indeed, it is quite plainly their central dogma. No other religious community is so receptive to such thoughts or spreads them with such fanaticism as the members of the IBV.

In consideration of this fact and the current general situation, I further suggest that all employers to whom Jehovah’s Witnesses are assigned for work be instructed, for the time being, not to voluntarily inform the prisoners of the possibility of their release by a mere handshake as a sign of commitment. Further, they should be instructed not to effect release until the desire for it is expressed by the female Jehovah’s Witness herself.

I ask for a decision.

signed Dr. Kaltenbrunner

F.d.H. d.A.
sgd. signature
SS-Hauptscharführer

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