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Authority and accountability · Claim record

The Society’s literature at Magdeburg was destroyed in 1933. Its own 1974 Year Book records that on 21, 23 and 24 August books, Bibles and pictures weighing 65,189 kilograms were taken from the factory, loaded into twenty-five trucks and publicly burned at the edge of the city. Separately, on 7 September 1933 the United States Secretary of State telegraphed the consulate in Berlin that the Society had reported “a portion of the Society’s property including books is being burned today by soldiers or police acting as custodians of the Society’s factory”, and asked the consulate to lend assistance.

Claim ID claim-authority-de33-literature-burnedConcerns August 1933Context
Context · August 1933 Verified

The Society’s literature at Magdeburg was destroyed in 1933. Its own 1974 Year Book records that on 21, 23 and 24 August books, Bibles and pictures weighing 65,189 kilograms were taken from the factory, loaded into twenty-five trucks and publicly burned at the edge of the city. Separately, on 7 September 1933 the United States Secretary of State telegraphed the consulate in Berlin that the Society had reported “a portion of the Society’s property including books is being burned today by soldiers or police acting as custodians of the Society’s factory”, and asked the consulate to lend assistance. Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1974Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1933, Volume II, 7 September 1933

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses, “Part 1—Germany”

1974 · p.111 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“Even though the declaration had been weakened and many of the brothers could not wholeheartedly agree to its adoption, yet the government was enraged and started a wave of persecution against those who had distributed it.”

The following paragraphs record that on 28 June 1933 thirty SA men occupied the Magdeburg premises and hoisted the swastika over the building (pp. 111-112), and that on 21, 23 and 24 August 1933 books, Bibles and pictures weighing 65,189 kilograms were taken from the factory, loaded into twenty-five trucks and publicly burned at the edge of Magdeburg (p. 112).

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording confirmed. The sentence quoted stands on p. 111, between the pageNum markers for pp. 111 and 112; the events described in the context note follow on pp. 111-112.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-de33-yb74-aftermath

Official public record Verified

Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1933, Volume II, “The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Berlin (Messersmith)”

7 September 1933 · p.412 · Cordell Hull · United States Department of State

“Representative of the Watch Tower Bible Tract Society informs Department that an order has been issued by the German authorities requiring the vacating of the Home at Magdeburg owned by the Society and now occupied by Harbeck, an American citizen and the Society’s resident manager, and that a portion of the Society’s property including books is being burned today by soldiers or police acting as custodians of the Society’s factory. You are requested to lend appropriate assistance and report by cable.”

A telegram from the Secretary of State in Washington to the American Consul General in Berlin, passing on what the Society had reported to the Department. It is the Department repeating the Society’s account, not an observation by any American official. Two days later a further instruction to the Ambassador (document 290 in the same volume) states that “the Department is also informed that recently the German authorities burned some of the Society’s publications”.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Opened on the United States Department of State Office of the Historian site on 19 September 2026 and read in full. The telegram falls between the printed page breaks for pp. 412 and 413 of the volume.

Corroborated by. src-de33-yb74-aftermath

Notes. The burning this telegram reports was reported to Washington on 7 September 1933. The organisation’s own 1974 Year Book dates the large burning of literature at Magdeburg to 21, 23 and 24 August 1933. Whether the two accounts describe the same destruction is not established by either document.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-de33-frus-burning-telegram

Claim page Correct or update

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-authority-de33-literature-burned/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.