German Bible Students in World War 1

With grateful thanks to Bernhard who provided the graphics and nearly all the original information for this article on the situation faced by Bible Students in Germany during the First World War.

There are a number of articles and at least one book that deal with how Bible Students coped with conscription during World War 1. Prior to the war, their magazine had given this advice on joining the military. From The Watch Tower for August 1, 1898 (reprints page 2345) CTR wrote:

"If, therefore, we were drafted, and if the government refused to accept our conscientious scruples against warfare (as they have heretofore done with "Friends," called Quakers), we should request to be assigned to the hospital service or to the Commissary department or to some other non-combatant place of usefulness; and such requests would no doubt be granted. If not, and we ever got into battle, we might help to terrify the enemy, but need not shoot anybody."

How could you avoid shooting anyone? Perhaps you could do this by shooting over their heads? In The Watch Tower for July 15, 1915 (reprints page 5728) CTR expanded on this:
"In Volume Six of SCRIPTURE STUDIES, the friends are instructed to avoid taking life. If they were ever drafted into the army they should go. If they could be sent to the Quartermaster's Department to take care of the food, that would be desirable, or into the hospital work. They should endeavor to get such positions. They could not be expected to do service in the way of killing. If they were obliged to go on the firing line, they could shoot over the enemy's head, if they wished."

The problem for Bible Students dealing with this well-intentioned advice would only come to the forefront if and when conscription was introduced. So it came to the fore in Britain in 1916 and in America in 1917 when the draft was introduced. In Germany however, universal conscription was there from the start of the war.

There was a German Watch Tower magazine that gave some details of the situation and also gave the names of many of those involved. The two images below are from the issues for July and August 1915.

This explains that more than 200 brothers were now in the military and lists many of their names. They are on land, on sea, some in garrisons, some in hospitals. One of them was Max Freschel who we will come back to later.

The numbers increased as the months went by. From the November 1915 German Watch Tower:

Translated it reads:

From our brothers on the field (i.e. the battlefield)

“It is of interest to all brothers and sisters to know that there are currently about 350 of our brothers in the military. As a result of close correspondence with many of the loved ones, we receive many evidences of joyful faith and trust and patient perseverance in many difficulties. Some brothers wrote us that they feel strong knowing that so much is being thought of in prayer.”

The article then details the deaths in “the theater of war” of two Bible Students, Fritz Kownatzki from Zollernhöhe, East Prussia, and Johannes Finger from Barmen.  Fritz was 23 and Johannes was 33.

The article concludes: “Both brothers had written to us with expressions of love until shortly before their deaths, from which we could see that these dear ones sought to walk with Jesus ......”

Little is known about how individual Bible Students coped with being in the military while striving to adhere to their principles. One experience though is found in the German Watch Tower for June 1915.

In a letter August Kraftzig wrote: “I'm not directly at the front, but in the baggage (stores?) and consequently by God's grace not directly involved in the war.”

Years later in 1938 August became Branch overseer in Austria. He died in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1940.

As noted above, one name in the lists of Bible Student conscripts was Max Freschel. Freschel was an Austrian of Jewish parentage. (The area is now part of Poland but was then Austria). At the outbreak of war his parents were in Switzerland while he was in the German Bethel. Max chose to stay in Germany, but this meant that, with universal conscription, he was called up for the German army.

In 1915 he wrote to CTR at least twice. We don’t know what he wrote but there is a letter in the German Watch Tower for October 1915 from Fred Leon Scheerer from Brooklyn. Friedrich Leonhardt Scheerer was a German Bible Student responsible for the German foreign work and he translated Max’s letters so that CTR could read them.

Max Freschel moved to America in 1926 and lived for the rest of his life in Brooklyn Bethel. He changed his name to Maxwell Friend. He would become heavily involved in radio dramas for the Society’s Station WBBR, and was one of the first instructors at Gilead School. When dramas were introduced to convention programs from the late 1960s onwards, many readers may remember his voice playing various patriarchs.

His life story appeared in The Watchtower in April 15, 1967, and is well worth reading. However, he does not cover the war years. All he basically says is that when everything was revived after the war in 1919, he was too.