• Producing Bible Literature for Use in the Ministry
    Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom

    • Expansion After World War II

      After the war ended, Jehovah’s Witnesses met in international assembly in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1946. There Nathan H. Knorr, then president of the Watch Tower Society, spoke on reconstruction and expansion. Since the outbreak of World War II, the number of Witnesses had increased by 157 percent, and missionaries were rapidly opening up the work in new fields. To fill the global demand for Bible literature, Brother Knorr outlined plans to enlarge the facilities of the world headquarters. As a result of the proposed expansion, the factory would have more than double the space that was in the original 1927 structure, and a greatly enlarged Bethel Home was to be provided for the volunteer workers. These additions were completed and put to use early in 1950.

      The factory and office facilities at the world headquarters in Brooklyn have had to be enlarged again and again since 1950. As of 1992 they covered about eight city blocks and included 2,476,460 square feet [230,071 sq m] of floor space. These are not just buildings for making books. They are dedicated to Jehovah, to be used in producing literature designed to educate people in his requirements for life.

      In some areas it was difficult to get the Society’s printing operations under way again after the second world war. The factory and office complex that belonged to the Society in Magdeburg, Germany, was in the Communist-controlled zone. The German Witnesses moved back into it, but they were able to operate only briefly before it was again confiscated. To fill the need in West Germany, a printery had to be established there. The cities had been reduced to rubble as a result of bombing. However, the Witnesses soon obtained the use of a small printery that had been operated by the Nazis, in Karlsruhe. By 1948 they had two flatbed presses running day and night in a building that was made available to them in Wiesbaden. The following year they enlarged the Wiesbaden facilities and quadrupled the number of presses in order to meet the needs of the rapidly growing number of Kingdom proclaimers in that part of the field.

      When the Society resumed printing openly in Greece in 1946, the electric power supply was far from dependable. Sometimes it was off for hours at a time. In Nigeria in 1977, the brothers faced a similar problem. Until the Nigeria branch got its own generator, the factory workers would go back to work at any time, day or night, when the power came on. With such a spirit, they never missed an issue of the The Watchtower.

      Following a visit by Brother Knorr to South Africa in 1948, land was purchased in Elandsfontein; and early in 1952, the branch moved into a new factory there—the first actually built by the Society in South Africa. Using a new flatbed press, they proceeded to print magazines in eight languages used in Africa. In 1954 the branch in Sweden was equipped to print its magazines on a flatbed press, as was the branch in Denmark in 1957.

      As the demand for literature grew, high-speed rotary letterpresses were provided, first to one branch and then another. Canada received its first one in 1958; England, in 1959. By 1975 the Watch Tower Society had 70 large rotary presses operating in its printeries worldwide.