Modern History of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Part 25—Expansion in Europe and Africa (1945-1955)

EUROPE with its population of nearly 400 million is the home of Western civilization. Politically Europe seems to be the center of struggle for world power and has been so ever since the Greeks under Alexander established European ascendency over Asiatic and African powers nearly 2,300 years ago. Culturally Europe is the seat of old-world pagan-influenced learning, music, art, drama, sports and philosophy, which occupy the minds of millions. The full scale of European thinking includes the rightist conservative mind, which is rooted in ancient family aristocracy, class privilege (castes) and traditions perpetuated by Roman Catholicism. It hates change, hates intrusion, thinks itself exclusive, superior and remote from all new thinking. The shades of thinking vary toward the center, where there is the liberal mind that is largely the product of the Protestant Reformation democratically and progressively desiring only gradual change. In theory they think all men are created equal and that each man by his own capitalistic or socialistic efforts can attain security and salvation. To the extreme left of the scale of European thinking we find the radical mind of atheistic thought eager for revolutionary change toward mass control and distribution of wealth. Materialism is the system that makes man merely a number or cog in a vast national machine.

What chances does true Christian thinking have in the battle against such entrenched, formidable positions of the European mind?

Since 1880 the Watch Tower Society’s literature has been circulating in Europe.a In time the three centers, Britain, Central Europe (headed by Switzerland) and Northern Europe (headed by Denmark and Sweden), became the strongholds of Jehovah’s witnesses. From these points the entire continent was served, with Germany eventually becoming a most fruitful field of expansion. During both World War I and World War II these three centers survived intact and became generating points for quick revivals for all other parts of Europe. In 1942 the witnesses operated in thirteen countries, with 22,796 active ministers on the continent of Europe, not counting the German associates whom Hitler had banned and imprisoned. At the close of the second world war there was a rapid reopening of activities in banned countries, sparked by a survey tour by President Knorr and his secretary, M. G. Henschel, during the winter of 1945-1946.b By 1947 the revived witnesses in nineteen countries of Europe reported 74,196 ministers in the field service. In 1946 the Society began to send some Gilead-trained missionaries into Europe, and in this year it spent money, a hundred thousand dollars, in opening up branch offices and purchasing printing equipment.c Recovery has been rapid. Results in gathering the other sheep have been astounding. In 1955 there were 227,374 active European ministers of the witnesses. Of these, 278 were Gilead-trained missionaries, working full time.

This amazing postwar expansion has not been undertaken without opposition directed from Communist sources. As Russia gradually lowered the iron curtain in Europe after 1948, thousands of the witnesses found themselves subjected to persecution as severe as, if not worse than, under Nazi occupation. After only three or four years of freedom from concentration camps thousands again had to return to such devilish institutions or be sent to work as slaves in Russian mines or, still worse, be banished to Siberia. In the East Zone of Germany alone 1,016 men and women of the witnesses have been sentenced to a total of 6,865 years in prison and fourteen have been killed.d

Take for example the tragic story of the witnesses in Poland. In 1939, before World War II began, there were 1,039 ministers valiantly withstanding bitter persecution from the fanatic Catholic Hierarchy, which had subjected the witnesses to a catacomb existence for years.e Release from Nazi tyranny in 1945 was sweet but proved to be short-lived. The Polish witnesses began quickly to reorganize theocratic worship in their land. In 1946 they reached a new peak of 6,014 ministers. Then in 1947 Gilead missionaries arrived to aid them further in organizing for expansion. By 1948 there were 10,385 active ministers preaching and in 1950 the amazing total of 18,116 was reached.f Nothing seemed to be able to stop these courageous Polish fighters for true worship in gathering Jehovah’s “sheep.” In 1950 Poland found itself behind the iron curtain. The witnesses were banned in that year, the branch office was closed and leaders were arrested, not to be heard from again, and the Gilead missionaries were deported. Once again the Polish witnesses went underground to their former “catacomb” activities to keep the torch of Christian worship brightly blazing for the many other sheep still desirous of fleeing to Jehovah’s place of safety.

In Czechoslovakia the witnesses likewise manifested themselves as true fighters for Christian freedom. Before Hitler took away the freedom of this progressive democracy in central Europe in 1938 there were 1,166 active ministers. During Hitler’s time, underground activity kept alive a limited association among Jehovah’s witnesses in Czechoslovakia. In 1945, with the downfall of Hitler, the work was quickly revived and for the year 1946 there were 1,209 active witnesses. When Czechoslovakia began to disappear behind the iron curtain in 1948, the witnesses were banned, their branch office was closed down and many were arrested.g Did this stop the expansion of the ingathering work? No. In 1950 there were 2,882 active preachers of Jehovah’s kingdom and in 1951 the number grew to 3,705.h Similar experiences can be reported for the witnesses in Communist Yugoslavia,i Bulgaria, Hungaryj and Romania.k Even in Russia itself in 1948 there were more than eight thousand ministers of Jehovah’s kingdom actively keeping up, in many clever, ingenious ways, the Bible-preaching service.l Thousands also are reported to be banished in Siberia, from whom there has been no word of contact. For the year 1954 it was grand to see that there were 64,123 witnesses of Jehovah still active in all these countries behind the iron curtain.a

The picture of European expansion is remarkably shown in the accompanying table.b

Number Number Number of

Year of Lands of Ministers Preaching Hours

1942 13 22,796 5,344,006

1947 19 74,196 12,819,994

1952 24 158,867 19,147,879

1955 24 227,374 23,720,651

Nearly twenty-four million hours a year of Christian preaching is certainly a mighty force to bombard the European mind. In Jehovah’s mercy this campaign continues, that honest-hearted Europeans may free themselves from their bondage of wrong thinking to that of a new hope of everlasting life in God’s new world. In 1955 there was one active minister of Jehovah’s witnesses for every 1,746 of the population. In 1955 in Europe the greatest witness ever given there by Jehovah’s witnesses was given on both sides of the iron curtain. Though still a small minority, they are a growing minority whose voices are being heard in every part of the continent.

AFRICA

Spiritually, Africa used to be called the “dark” continent because of its paganism. But since 1945 the advances made by true Christianity through Jehovah’s witnesses no longer leave this continent of 203 million as an unenlightened area of the world. In the northern part of this vast continent the Mohammedan mind dominates. This type of thinking is fanatical, religious, unreasoning and highly sensual. Women hold an inferior status and polygamy is widely practiced. Morals are very corrupt, disease is rife, living is hard, education is lacking and higher spiritual values are not appreciated. As for the Europeans on this continent, they reflect a superior attitude, hold a state of mind similar to that of their cousins in Europe and maintain segregation from the black and colored natives. Then as to the African, his mind is deeply rooted in heathen customs and superstitions. He holds loyalty to his patriarchal system of tribal society. He has a settled dislike for and suspicion of the conquering and exploiting white masters. The African has little natural affection and does not understand what it means to love one’s neighbor or even his wife and children. Wives are bought in exchange for cattle, according to their tribal system, in order to produce children and thus build up the local village. They have a belief in the departed “spirits of the forefathers,” who can help them or punish them, depending on the suffrages of the living. Moreover, there has been a mind to “do business” with such “spirits,” not on a basis of love for them, but on the basis of fear and gaining a material advantage in exchange for prescribed animal sacrifices. Cruel witch doctors have been the unloving agents to keep this system operating.

How have Jehovah’s witnesses coped with such a variety of European, Mohammedan and primitive pagan thinking? In the early 1900’s the Watch Tower Society began to have associates in South Africa and established a branch office there, and then in the 1920’s the educational work began to move northward into African sections. Also in the 1920’s beginnings were made in British West Africa, where soon a branch office was established and the work was pushed inland. In the early 1930’s work was started in Egypt to spread over slowly across the top of Africa. Through this three-pronged move, by 1942 some 10,070 witnesses were found in eleven African lands. Then in 1947 Gilead missionaries began to be sent into Africa, twenty that year. December, 1947, January, 1948, and then again in 1952 the Society’s president visited almost all the branches in Africa, talked with the African witnesses and studied their preaching problems.c The number of active witnesses kept growing until, in 1955, there were 98,146 with 108 Watch Tower missionaries in thirty-four lands. This is a 875 per cent increase in thirteen years!

This has required a great amount of educational work and patient training on the part of the unselfish European ministers of the witnesses and their Gilead missionaries. Schools had to be operated to teach many of the Africans to read and write. Practically every angle of congregational organization had to be simplified, and rules and practices had to be introduced from no previous conception of matters Biblical. Christian moral standards had to be introduced, of one wife to a husband in marriage properly legalized, fornication put away and cleanliness insisted upon before permanent association with the Society could be permitted. The African mind has one obvious characteristic, that of being imitative. The white and long-trained native ministers socially mix with these eager newly interested Africans and set before them a good example of Christian love and loving association. The African quickly detected this as not hypocritical but sincere and genuine. The Africans are being granted equal Christian dignity as they mature. In this way Christian love and warm fellowship are being inculcated to develop correct Christian thinking and higher standards of association, that they may take an equal position along with their New World society brothers in other parts of the earth. While these Africans are not encumbered with modern “comforts” of life, they have time to study the Bible to learn about God’s new world. They are building up hope of gaining everlasting life.

The moral and intellectual transformation of the African witnesses is an amazing spectacle even to the secular governing authorities. The following table indicates the swells of Christian increase in Africa that give promise for many more of Jehovah’s other sheep in that continent to be gathered into the “one fold.”

1942 11 10,070 2,200,163

1947 17 24,896 6,298,189

1952 32 72,228 15,460,243

1955 34 98,146 20,222,817

The method of preaching from house to house by Jehovah’s ministers and making of return calls to hold Bible studies with newly interested ones is carried on in Africa uniformly, just as it is in other parts of the earth, according to the pattern set by Jesus and the apostles nineteen hundred years ago. In this manner over twenty million hours of Christian preaching from the Bible in various native versions was done during 1955 in what was formerly “dark” Africa. During 1955 there were 98,146 or one minister of Jehovah’s witnesses for every 2,068 people living in Africa.

(To be continued)

[Footnotes]

[Graph on page 5]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

POLAND

ACTIVE WITNESSES

29,460 1954 UNDERGROUND

18,116 1950 RED BAN

10,385 1948

1947 MISSIONARIES ARRIVE

6,014 1946

1945 NAZIS RELEASE

1,039 1939 CATHOLIC PERSECUTION UNDERGROUND