Bohumil Müller

Bohumil Müller (1915-1987), an underground religious leader in Czechoslovakia during World War II and the communist period, led the Jehovah’s Witnesses during a very turbulent time for them when they were banned by the Nazis and later by the communists. He spent fourteen years in concentration camps and communist prisons.

Early life

Müller was born June 30, 1915 in the town of Zbiroh, in Central Bohemia, some 30 miles west of Prague. His parents were both Czech. He came from a religious family. His father, Tomáš Müller, was a leading member of the Unity of Brethren church, but the family converted to become Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931. Bohumil was 16 at the time and learning to be a typesetter while his brother, Karel, was learning bookbinding.

Young Bohumil became very active in his faith and shortly after he started working in the main office of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Prague. He progressed very quickly within their organization, gaining greater responsibility. The Witnesses at that time used two legal corporations to facilitate their religious activities. In 1936, at the age of 21, Müller was elected a director of the International Bible Students Association, Czechoslovak Branch, and the vice-director of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Czechoslovak Branch.

Müller was called to report for military service on October 1, 1937. He later wrote: “My conscience, however, told me that God does not want his servants to ‘learn war’ (Isaiah 2: 4).” Consequently he refused to serve and was arrested, becoming the first person imprisoned in Czechoslovakia for his Christian beliefs as a conscientious objector. Between October 1937 and the end of March 1939, he had been arrested four times, serving several months in prison each time.

Nazi Period

On April 1, 1939, Müller was released from prison after serving his fourth term. Meanwhile, two weeks before, on March 15, 1939, Nazi German forces had invaded and occupied all of Bohemia and Moravia. Müller reported back to his office and found many were fleeing Czechoslovakia before the Gestapo could arrest them. He too obtained a passport and was preparing to leave when word reached him asking him to stay and to prepare and coordinate the underground activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Czechoslovakia. He accepted and took on the responsibility of providing leadership during extraordinarily difficult times.

In 1941, Müller was caught and arrested after which he was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp. Years later he wrote of his time in the camp. The Witnesses could have been released if they would only sign a form renouncing their faith. The SS tried different tactics to get them to sign, but very few did. After describing various unspeakable tortures he underwent in the course of his four years there, he said: “Towards the end of 1944 Himmler’s special deputy, SS-Hauptsturmbannfüher Kramer, came from Berlin to try and persuade us to sign with various promises and smooth talk. When he met with the decisively adverse attitude of the Witnesses, repressions against us started. We were distributed into blocks so that nowhere would two brothers [Witnesses] live together. The camp commander published an order that "Kapos" [prisoner functionaries] and "Blockälteste" [block elders] were to watch us so that we would not go out of the blocks, and the other prisoners were allowed by a special command to kill us whenever they would see two of us together.” Still he survived and was released when the camp was liberated.

Communist Era

Müller was one of the first Witnesses to return home. He began the process of trying to reestablish contact with Witnesses both inside Czechoslovakia and outside. Once communication with the outside was established, Müller was appointed coordinator for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Czechoslovakia in November 1945.

Thus began a three-year period of relative peace for the Witnesses in Czechoslovakia. After the end of Nazi occupation and before the full imposition of communism they were granted their freedom and took full advantage of it. However, on November 28, 1948, officials of the State Security showed up at the Witnesses’ office in Prague and arrested Müller and the rest of the office staff, and confiscated their building. However, in July 1949 the State Court stopped the criminal proceedings due to lack of evidence and released them. But as they were leaving the court they were arrested again and informed of a decision by the Communist Political Commission that they were to be sent to a labor camp for two years. Müller was sent to Kladno where he worked in a coal mine.

Suddenly, early in 1950 all Jehovah’s Witnesses were released from labor camps and they experienced a brief reprieve from their persecution. Then in the early morning hours of February 4, 1952, in a major crackdown, Müller and 108 other Witnesses were arrested. For the next fourteen months, Müller was not allowed out of solitary confinement without a blindfold and subjected to long interrogations. Then on March 27 and 28, 1953, a show trial was held. The Communist Party newspaper Rudé Právo (The Red Law) of March 30, 1953, reported on the results. Under a dateline of Prague, March 29, (CTK) it said: “On trial were the leading members of a religious sect whose adherents call themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses. This organization, directed in Brooklyn, USA, and which has been banned in our country since 1949 for its destructive tendencies, has smuggled into Czechoslovakia cosmopolitan ideologies which under the veil of pure Christianity are designed to undermine the morale of our working masses.” Müller was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment; others were given lesser sentences.

In May 1960, he and the others were freed as part of a large-scale amnesty for political prisoners. He continued to direct the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Czechoslovakia until his death on November 7, 1987.

References

*1972 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, 1971.
*2000 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, 2000
*Adamy, Herbert – Bauer, Zdenek – Sobička, Eduard – Vodička, Karel: Fialové trojúhelníky. Zapomenutá kapitola holocaustu. Praha 2000.
*Bauer, Zdenek: Antisemitsky laděné útoky namířené proti svědkům Jehovovým a mimořádný lidový soud s Karl Eichlerem. In: Poválečná justice a národní podoby antisemitismu. Praha – Opava 2002, pp. 204–222.
*Bauer, Zdenek: Heftlinci s fialovým trojúhelníkem. In: Národní osvobození 2003, December.
*Bauer, Zdenek: Tisk a kolportáž Biblí a náboženských tiskovin badatelů Bible. Preprint. Praha 2005–2006. In: http://www.kolportaz.cz
*Hesse, Hans, ed.: Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah’s Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945. Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2001.
*Müller, Bohumil: Z mých vzpomínek. Typescript, 1987.
*Müller, Lubomír and Wolfram Slupina: Verfolgung und Unterdrückung der Zeugen Jehovas in der Tsechoslowakei. (Persecution and Suppression of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Czechoslovakia). Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte Contemporary Church History. 17 (1/2004): 171-221.
*Müller, Lubomír: Bitvy beze zbraní 1990-2000. Praha, 2000.
*The Process with the Subversive Sect of ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses.’ Rudé Právo, 30 March, 1953.