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Why did the Nazis persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses?

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Samuel Bak: Smoke — Holocaust *Smoke*, oil on linen by Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak, 1997.

During the Nazi era, Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted primarily because their religious convictions directly conflicted with the demands of the Nazi state. The Nazis viewed the group as a threat because Witnesses refused to conform to the regime's political and military requirements.1

Specifically, Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to:
* Swear allegiance to the Nazi state.1
* Register for the military draft.1
* Utter the phrase "Heil Hitler".1

Because of this stance, the Nazis imprisoned many of the approximately 20,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses living in Germany at the time. While the regime offered them the opportunity to be released from concentration camps if they signed a document renouncing their faith and promising to cease proselytizing, very few chose to do so, as most preferred to maintain their religious integrity.1