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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Karl Barth / Καρλ Μπαρθ:
Jehovah's Witnesses are not related with the Communists (Feb. 2, 1937) /
Oι Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά δεν σχετίζονται με τους Κομμουνιστές (2 Φεβ. 1937)





«Die Beschuldigung, daß die ‚Zeugen Jehovas‘ mit den Kommunisten zusammenhängen, kann nur auf einem unfreiwilligen oder auch absichtlichen Mißverständnis beruhen.»
«The accusation that Jehovah's Witnesses are linked with the Communists can only be due to an involuntary or even intentional misunderstanding.»
«Η κατηγορία ότι οι Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά συνδέονται με τους κομμουνιστές μπορεί να αποδοθεί μόνο σε ακούσια ή και σκόπιμη παρανόηση».


* Karl Barth / Καρλ Μπαρθ,
letter of February 2, 1937 / επιστολή της 2 Φεβρουαρίου 1937,
cited in / όπως παρατίθεται στο
Franz Zürcher,
Kreuzzug gegen das Christentum

[Σταυροφορία κατά του Χριστιανισμού] (1938)
p./σ. 32 (following photo section).



Book's review / Βιβλιοκριτική:
Nathaniel Micklem,
Reviewed work(s): Kreuzzug gegen das Christentum. by Franz Zurcher,
International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1939), pp./σσ. 125-126:

«The book opens with an account of the tenets and ideas of the "Witnesses of Jehovah" or "Earnest Bible Students," a sect originating in America, but finding many followers among the humbler classes in Germany. They are shown to be simple, literalistic Bible Christians, pious, unoffending and wholly non-political. It is contrary to their tenets to vote at political elections or to raise their hand to any but God; hence they refuse the Hitler salute on conscientious grounds. Being a relatively small sect and counting in their membership none of standing or prestige, they have been handed over to the brutality of the Nazi machine. The rest of the book tells how they have been imprisoned, flogged, chained, tortured and often murdered in concen- tration camps by the secret police and the Party roughs. They have taken their sufferings, it appears, as the lot which Christians must expect in this world. I do not think that any man can be expected to read the whole of the second part right through; it is a story of cruelty and beastliness such as sears the imagination. I am afraid there is no doubt about the facts: they are unspeakable, but ought to be known by those whose duty it is to know. There is a plan of the concentration camp where Dr. Niemoeller is confined; to hear the screams from the posts of torture must be torture enough for him.
Nathaniel Micklem.
»

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