• Austria
    1989 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • Nevertheless, Charles Taze Russell, the first president of the Watch Tower Society, decided to go to Vienna in 1911 to direct his attention first to the Jewish populace.

      Traveling by train, he arrived in Vienna, where the large hall of the Continental Hotel had been hired for March 22. His talk, designed to appeal to sincere Jews, was to be “Zionism in Prophecy.” What would be the reaction of the Jewish population here to his explanations of Bible prophecy? From New York, a Jewish rabbi had cabled a long message of misrepresentation, warning the Jews against the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known. As a result, although the hall was packed when Brother Russell stepped to the platform, he soon realized that about a third of those in the audience were determined to prevent him from speaking.

      Russell later reported: “From the very beginning of our address, from all over the hall, they shouted and screamed and some of them appeared possessed of demons. . . . We endeavored to speak a word or two to allay their fears, but to no purpose. . . . Several seemed anxious to get their hands upon us, but a strong cordon of the more sensible ones formed a barricade around us. We had no fear, but those who knew our opponents better seemed quite fearful for us. Finding that we could accomplish nothing, we smilingly waved our hand, indicating that we would give up the attempt, and left the platform. The same Jews opened the way before us and kept off any opponents and guided us out of the hall . . . About fifteen came the next day and questioned further respecting the divine plan.”

      For the benefit of sincere truth seekers, arrangements were also made to publish the full text of Russell’s discourse in the newspaper Neues Wiener Journal (New Viennese Journal).

      This was not the first time that Brother Russell had seen Vienna. Twenty years earlier, in 1891, he had made a trip that took him from Dresden, Germany, via Vienna to Kishinev in Russia. Commenting on the situation as he understood it back at that time, Brother Russell stated in Zion’s Watch Tower of November 1891: “We saw no opening or readiness for the truth in Russia, . . . nothing to encourage us to hope for any harvest in Italy or Turkey or Austria or Germany.”