• Part 3—Germany
    1974 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • EXPANSION​—AS VIEWED BY THE BETHEL FAMILY

      The Watch Tower Society’s branch office in Wiesbaden has been kept busy as a result of the work done by Jehovah’s witnesses throughout Germany. Since it is from here that their literature supplies come, the brothers are keenly interested in it, and large numbers come to tour the Bethel home and factory. The brother who works at the reception desk can tell you how, especially on holidays, thousands of visitors are taken on tours through the Bethel home and factory. Once over 4,000 came. There were fifty-one buses standing out front! Brothers from foreign countries also enjoy stopping in to visit us. Some years ago a gentleman took a tour of Bethel and was afterward encouraged to start a Bible study. Correspondence developed between a brother in Bethel and this certain gentleman, who later accepted the truth, was baptized, went into full-time service and today serves as a circuit overseer.

      Those who actually live and work at Bethel have enjoyed many blessings over the years. They have seen the Society’s facilities enlarged, new work undertaken, special activities prepared for​—and it has been their privilege to be at the hub of all this activity. At times others too have been asked to help out.

      In the winter of 1951/52, for example, construction was started on a new addition to enlarge the branch facilities. This kept the brothers busy all day and sometimes up into the night, in snow, rain and wind. About twenty brothers were called into Bethel to help out. Evenings, after their regular working hours, many members of the Bethel family also shared in the construction work.

      There was real rejoicing then when a rotary press arrived from the Swiss branch office in Bern. But this was not just any rotary press! It was the first press used for printing books back in the Magdeburg branch office in 1928. After the Nazi ban it was taken to Prague, Czechoslovakia, from where it was taken a few years later to Bern so as not to fall into the hands of the Nazis. Now it was once again back in a German branch office and today, despite its age, it is still busy printing books or up to 7,000 magazines an hour.

      Another cause for joy was the appearance of the German Awake! magazine in its 32-page edition on January 8, 1953. Starting with this issue, distribution of this magazine began in Germany. It did much to increase the brothers’ zeal for magazine work.

      The Bethel home in Wiesbaden kept expanding. In 1956 there was a peak of 50,530 publishers and they distributed some 1.3 million pieces of literature. The next service year the peak was 56,883. Brother Knorr arrived in Wiesbaden at the end of November 1956 on a flying visit of less than twenty-four hours. The reason? He himself explains in his published report in the English Watchtower of May 1, 1957. “Here too the purpose of the visit was to work on the expansion problem. Our Bethel home and present factory are too small and we called in an architect, a brother. With him we worked all day in designing a larger factory and Bethel home. The Society was able to purchase some property from the city of Wiesbaden, and after considerable discussion the city authorities consented to our changing the location of a street, thus making it possible for us to put our new structure right up against our present one, relocating the street beyond our new building. . . . The building will be sufficiently large to take in some new presses, now being built, its high ceiling giving us plenty of headroom.”

      Instead of having the traditional “Richtfest” with its drinking (held after the framework of a building is completed), a tasty meal was prepared for the workers and the building officials and served in the dining room of the Bethel home. They were waited on by our brothers and seated at tables covered with white tablecloths. They heard a talk in explanation of the purpose of the building, Jehovah’s witnesses’ activity in general, and how the financial end of the building project had been handled. Members of the Bethel family presented a musical program. Most of the guests got an altogether different opinion of Jehovah’s witnesses and their activity. The delicious food served and the way all were treated as equals was a matter of discussion among construction workers in Wiesbaden for years thereafter. At the conclusion each of them was given a book and a booklet as a gift. Some of the workers who due to prejudice had not attended the supper came the next day and asked if they might at least have the gift book. That they had missed the meal was their own fault; now it was up to them to take in spiritual food with the help of the gift publication.