1933 Following the Reichstag fire, the emergency presidential decree for the “prevention of Communist violent acts against state security” suspends many fundamental civil rights (February 28). Jehovah’s Witnesses banned in most states of the Reich based on false accusations; a petition, addressed to the Reich Chancellor and to officials remains unsuccessful (April and June). Confiscations of congregation property, burning of Watch Tower literature, and the first imprisonments of Witnesses in concentration camps (July).

1934 Jehovah’s Witnesses duplicate Watch Tower publications underground, since the police check their mail in order to stop the importation from abroad. By March, some 4,000 house searches, 1,000 arrests and 200 cases of maltreatment are registered. Many Witnesses in civil service are fired (as of June). On October 7, a flood of protest telegrams reach Hitler, who shouts hysterically: “This brood will be exterminated in Germany!”

1935 General ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Reich with the aim of removing them from civil service (April 1). Special courts sentence countless Witnesses to long prison sentences and heavy fines because they held Christian meetings and distributed their publications. Disregarding the given legislation, the Gestapo arbitrarily orders protective custody for Jehovah’s Witnesses and sends them to concentration camps (June 17 and September 9).

1936 The Minister of the Interior of the Reich prohibits the Witnesses’ selling of “Bibles or other religious publications, which usually are not offensive.” This leads to even more imprisonments (January 30). The authorities are allowed to withhold unemployment benefits and old-age pensions (as from February 2) from Jehovah’s Witnesses. Many Witnesses have to endure abuse or public humiliation because of not participating in the “Reichstag elections” (March 29). The Gestapo and the criminal police form special units, and the special courts set up special departments in order to investigate Jehovah’s Witnesses and to sentence them (June). Despite massive arrests (August 28), Jehovah’s Witnesses succeed in distributing the Lucerne protest resolution all over the Reich (December 12).

1937 Police and the courts are instructed to “use the harshest measures” against Jehovah’s Witnesses. The court sentences grow longer. After having completed their sentence in prison, the Witnesses are often sent to concentration camps or back to prison. About 4,000 Witnesses are arrested, and often groups of them are sentenced at Bible Students’ trials, about which the newspapers report openly. The family and probate courts successfully initiate lawsuits to isolate children from their parents. Jehovah’s Witnesses organize a second tract campaign all over the Reich in order to draw people’s attention to the Gestapo terror (June 20).

1938 About 5 to 10 percent of the concentration camp inmates in the pre-war time are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are kept isolated in special barracks, surrounded by barbed wire, (in some camps even earlier), and for nine months they are not allowed to send or receive any mail (March). In Switzerland, the Witnesses document the persecution in Germany in the book Crusade Against Christianity and mention that “now already 6,000 . . . suffer in prisons and concentration camps” (May). In a speech held in New York and broadcast by 60 radio stations, J.F. Rutherford, then president of the Watch Tower Society, condemns Hitler and the persecution of the Jews with explicit statements (October 8).

1939 As the first conscientious objector of the war to be sentenced to death by police judiciary, August Dickmann is publicly shot at Sachsenhausen camp (September 15), and  in the succeeding days, this is publicized in broadcasts and press releases. With the outbreak of the war, the abuses of imprisoned Witnesses have increased. During the severe winter, 100 of the 400 Witnesses in Sachsenhausen die from maltreatment, hunger, or exhaustion.

1940 State police order the arrest of all Witnesses in the Reich at a set time; on June 12, Witness homes are raided. In July, Swiss authorities confiscate the book Crusade Against Christianity (up to September 1944). The German judiciary has already sentenced to death 112 conscientious objectors who are Jehovah’s Witnesses (August). (By the end of the war, the number of Witnesses executed will reach about 270, among them 50 Austrians.)

1941 Ludwig Cyranek, who secretly forwarded Watch Tower literature in Germany and Austria during 1939 and 1940, is sentenced to death (March) and executed in Dresden (July 3). Julius Engelhard and others continue his work (1939 until April 1943).

1942 Mitteilungsblatt der deutschen Verbreitungsstelle des W.T. an alle treuen Zeugen Jehovas in Deutschland (Newsletter of the German Distribution Center of the W.T. to All Faithful Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany), as well as other items, circulate among Jehovah’s Witnesses inside and outside the camps. The brutal torture of Witnesses in pretrial detention is officially allowed to continue. Hitler insists that the Bible Students have to be exterminated (August). However, the extreme situation of the Witnesses in the camps eases somewhat because the SS come to value the labor force of the camp inmates.

1943 In many places in Germany and Austria, Jehovah’s Witnesses are supplied with Watch Tower literature from the underground, and letters are smuggled out of the concentration camps. The SS have to recognize that Jehovah’s Witnesses are standing firm despite their isolation in the camps, and they disperse the Witnesses to the other barracks (September). At Ravensbrück camp, Asoziale (inmates considered “antisocial”) are put into one barrack (block) with the Bibelforscher (Bible Students).

1944 Himmler orders surprise police raids within various concentration camps, and large quantities of Watch Tower literature are found (April). Outside the camps, the Gestapo also breaks up underground networks, and 254 Witnesses are arrested. Julius Engelhard and Auguste Hetkamp are sentenced to death (June) and executed in Brandenburg (August). Nevertheless, the underground work continues in different places, and Watch Tower literature is duplicated even in the Wewelsburg camp. The Military Court of the Reich, which is overloaded, delegates processes against conscientious objectors​—numerous cases involve Jehovah’s Witnesses—​to subordinate courts (August). Death sentences have by now become a pure formality.

1945 Liberation of Auschwitz (January 27). During the forced evacuations of the concentration camps and on the death marches south and west, the inmates with the purple triangle (Jehovah’s Witnesses) help one another in order to avoid being shot by the SS. Liberation of the camps Buchenwald (April 11), Bergen-Belsen (April 15), Sachsenhausen (April 22), Dachau (April 29), and Ravensbrück (April 30), as well as of the penitentiaries in Brandenburg (April 27) and Waldheim (May 6), and of other detention centers. All 230 Witnesses survive the death march to Schwerin (May 3). The surviving Witnesses from the Stutthof concentration camp go ashore on the Danish isle of Møn (May 5). Capitulation​—the German Reich ceases to exist (May 8)! Jehovah’s Witnesses begin their German postwar history with 7,000 members.