Jehovah's Witnesses were isolated and harangued from 1933 on.

Suspicion and harassment turned, into bitter persecution as the Witnesses refused to surrender. They refused to enlist in the army, to undertake air raid drills, and to stop meeting or proselytizing.

"Heil Hitler" never passed their lips. The Nazis believed the Witnesses had American connections and international aspirations.

They read a political message into the Witnesses' description of chaos, anarchy, and revolution that would precede the coming of the millennium. Prophecies about the return of Jews to the Holy Land prior to Armageddon classified the Witnesses in Nazi eyes as Zionists.

Twenty thousand among sixty-five million Germans, the Witnesses entered the battle against the Nazis as soldiers of Jehovah in the spiritual war between good and evil. They taught that Jehovah's forces would defeat Satan. Nazi ideology could not tolerate such "false gods."

Persecution began immediately in 1933 and continued until 1945. After 1937, Witnesses were sent to concentration camps.

Outside the camps, Witnesses lost children, jobs, pensions, and all civil rights.