Les Témoins de Jéhovah dans les prisons et camps nazis

le comportement des Témoins de Jéhovah dans les camps et les prisons fait preuve de vertus qui, aujourd'hui comme autrefois, sont indispensables pour le maintien d'un état de droit démocratique, je pense à leur fermeté face aux SS et leur humanité vis-à-vis de leurs codétenus. Au vu de la violence croissante envers les étrangers ou ceux qui ont des opinions politiques différentes, ces vertus doivent être une ligne de conduite pour le citoyen de notre pays
déclaration de Steffen Reiche, ministre du Land pour la Science, la Recherche et la Culture, lors de la manifestation centrale du souvenir du Brandebourg, le 27 janvier 1998 à Sachsenhausen

Source principale : Hans Hesse (sous la dir. de), « Am mutigsten waren immer wieder die Zeugen Jehovas » (« Les plus courageux étaient toujours les Témoins de Jéhovah », Persécution et résistance des Témoins de Jéhovah sous le national-socialisme), Edition Temmen, Brême, 1998.

Jehovah's Witnesses were subjected to intense persecution under the Nazi regime. The Nazis targeted Jehovah's Witnesses because they were unwilling to accept the authority of the state, because of their international connections, and because they were strongly opposed to both war on behalf of a temporal authority and organized government in matters of conscience. 
[...]
While Witnesses contended that they were apolitical and that their actions were not anti-Nazi, their unwillingness to give the Nazi salute, to join party organizations or to let their children join the Hitler Youth, their refusal to participate in the so-called elections or plebiscites, and their unwillingness to adorn their homes with Nazi flags made them suspect.
[...]
When Germany reintroduced compulsory military service in March 1935, the conflict with the Witnesses escalated. For refusing to be drafted or perform military-related work, and for continuing to meet illegally, increasing numbers of Jehovah's Witnesses were arrested, tried by judicial authorities and incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps.
[...]
Some Witnesses were tortured in attempts to make them sign declarations renouncing their faith, but few capitulated to this pressure.

PREMIER STUDENT CONFERENCES, 6 MARCH 2002
RESISTANCE IN NAZI GERMANY
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Who opposed Nazism and why?
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Mention should also be made of Germany’s 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, who rejected Nazism long before Hitler came to power, and who refused on principle to come to any accommodation with the regime (for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to give the Hitler salute or serve in the Wehrmacht). A number of officers and clergymen were also active resisters, though their numbers were always small. 
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Of the 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, probably nearly three-quarters were imprisoned at some point. By 1939, Witnesses made up 5-10% of the population of the concentration camps. Given the fact that they made up approximately 0.03% of the German population as a whole, this is an astonishingly high figure.
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Gareth Pritchard