Despite severe opposition to our work there, the Society established a printing plant in Cluj, in order to lower the cost of the literature and make it more readily available to truth-hungry people in Romania and nearby countries. In 1924 that printery was able to turn out nearly a quarter of a million bound books, in addition to magazines and booklets, in Romanian and Hungarian.

In Germany following World War I, large numbers of people were flocking to the meetings of the Bible Students. But the German people were suffering great economic distress. In order to hold down the cost of Bible literature for their benefit, the Society developed its own printing operations there too. At Barmen, in 1922, printing was done on a flatbed press on the staircase landing in the Bethel Home and on another in the woodshed. The following year the brothers moved to Magdeburg to more suitable facilities. They had good buildings there, more were added, and equipment for printing and bookbinding was installed. By the end of 1925, it was reported, the production capacity of this plant was to be at least as great as the one then being used at the headquarters in Brooklyn.