Professor Dr. Wolfgang Benz, Research Center for Antisemitism, Technical University Berlin:

“The religious community, numbering 25,000 souls in Germany was banned in 1933. About half of them continued their ‘preaching work’ underground. Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to give the Hitler salute and especially refused to perform military service. They were persecuted mercilessly. About 10,000 were arrested. The resistance of this group, which also tried to inform the population about the criminal character of the Nazi state by distributing leaflets in the years 1936/37 and thus acted against the regime of injustice beyond their own interests, cost them about 1,200 lives.”​—Informationen zur politischen Bildung, no. 243, (1994): Deutscher Widerstand 1933-1945, page 21.