This issue of Religion, State & Society brings together the work of four British and German scholars who have conducted research in recent years on the experiences of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the “Third Reich” and the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The original papers were presented at a workshop held at Stafford in February 2004 which was co-organized by the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Education and Research, Staffordshire University, and the History and Governance Research Institute of the University of Wolverhampton (UK).

On the basis of newly available primary sources, as well as the testimonies of Witnesses themselves, the revised articles focus on the tribulations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the National Socialist concentration camps and in GDR prisons, the experiences of the children of Witnesses during the years 1933 to 1989, the policies of the two regimes, and the persecution of the Witnesses by the Ministry of State Security.

The publisher presents the fruits of collaboration with Mike Dennis, Professor of Modern German History at Wolverhampton University, on the subject of Jehovah's Witnesses under two dictatorships.

Free online access to this article/ Ordering single issues:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a747700584
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637490600624691

CONTENTS

PHILIP WALTERS:  Editorial (page 85)

Notes on Contributors (page 87)

JOHANNES WROBEL:  Jehovah’s Witnesses in National Socialist Concentration Camps, 1933 – 45 (page 89)  

HANS-HERMANN DIRKSEN:  ‘All Over the World Jehovah’s Witnesses are the Touchstone for the Existence of True Democracy’: Persecution of a Religious Minority in the German Democratic Republic (page 127)

MIKE DENNIS:  Surviving the Stasi: Jehovah’s Witnesses in Communist East Germany, 1965 to 1989 (page 145)

JOHANNES WROBEL:  Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany: Prisoners during the Communist Era (page 169)

ANNEGRET DIRKSEN:  Children of Jehovah’s Witnesses under Two Dictatorships (page 191)

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