Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, “Germany”
“The present government of Germany has declared emphatically against Big Business oppressors and in opposition to the wrongful religious influence in the political affairs of the nation. Such is exactly our position; and we further state in our literature the reason for the existence of oppressive Big Business and the wrongful political religious influence”
The third paragraph printed under the subheading “Our Literature”, in a passage answering the charge that the Society’s books were a danger to the state. The first paragraph of the same section concedes that “the same truths might be stated in a less blunt and more pleasing phrase”. The quotation stops at “influence”, where the print has a comma; the sentence continues at the foot of p. 135 and finishes at the head of p. 136: “… because the Holy Scriptures plainly declare that these oppressive instruments proceed from the Devil, and that the complete relief therefrom is God’s kingdom under Christ.”
Scan of original (opens in new tab)
Provenance and verification note for Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, Germany
Confidence note. Read on the page image of p. 135 (leaf 131) on 19 September 2026, whose own running head reads “Year Book 135”, and confirmed word for word; re-read on the page image for a second audit. The words “Such is exactly our position” are followed in print by a semicolon, not a full stop, and the sentence runs on past the end of the quotation to the head of p. 136; the words that follow are given in the context note.
Scan provenance. Scan of the 1934 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses held by the Internet Archive as item “1934-JwYearbook”. The item was uploaded to the Internet Archive in January 2012 by a private account; its “creator” field reads “watchtower”, but the upload is not by the publisher and the Internet Archive is not the publisher. The scanned title page names the corporate publishers as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Peoples Pulpit Association and International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn, New York, and carries the notice “Copyright 1933”. The volume is the Year Book for 1934: it carries the branch reports for the 1933 service year, and it is dated here by its edition year, the form in which the organisation’s own publications cite it (“1934 Yearbook, pp. 127-146”, The Watchtower, 1 August 1955, footnote h).
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-de33-yb34-same-position