• Doing a bit of editorializing on this academic page, here's my own rendering of Niemoeller's quotation to suit our times--the cravenness of our elected representatives in facilitating Mr. Trump's lies and incitement (also on Facebook and Twitter--feel free to share):
  "First they came for the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, and I did nothing. then they came to Charlottesville, and I said nothing. Then they came for the Michigan statehouse, and I looked away. When they came for Congress my party had already lost the Senate, so I could safely say something."

This is a restatement of German pastor Martin Niemoeller's famous mea culpa statement in the late 1940s and early 1950s to suit our time.
Niemoeller was expressing his personal regret that he, as a "bystander," did not stand up and show solidarity sooner, when it might have made a difference, first for ideological reasons, then out of cowardice.
I ask: Will having The McConnells and Grahams cower under their desks and get frog-marched to a secure location, like the schoolchildren they refuse to protect from mass shooters, be a lesson to them that sticks?
Oh, I forgot to add Mother's husband Mike Pence, bravest, cravenest of them all.
Background photo by Andrew Harnik, AP.

1. What did Niemöller himself say?

• A: Niemöller told a narrative anecdote upon which the poetic version of this quotation is based many times during the years from 1946 to 1979. In those prose versions he named different groups on different occasions. However, even after exhaustive researching I could find NO printed document connected directly to Niemöller quoting or authorizing his exact words in a or the poetic version. In his many narrative (non-repeating, non-poetic) uses in speeches he published he varied some of the groups in the middle, while always starting with Communists and ending with himself--see question 2.
  For a detailed history of Niemöller's own uses and his own answers to questions about the quotation, please read my article "The Origin and Reception of Martin Niemöller's Quotation 'First They Came for the Communists...'" (2016) (pdf).
  I think you'll find it quite interesting--it addresses questions 2, 3 & 4 below, as well..

2. Which groups did he name? In what order?

• A: In the narrative versions directly traceable to Niemöller he always started with "the Communists." He always ended with "me." As far as I can tell he always included "the Jews." He usually also named Social Democrats and/or trade unionists. In his first invocation in January 1946 he also included disabled people, whom he called 'the sick, so-called incurables' [in the original German "Kranke, sogenannte Unheilbare," and in a speech shortly thereafter he used another Nazi term for that group, 'lives unworthy of life'].
  At that time he also named 'occupied countries' (namely those conquered by Nazi Germany).
  In 1946 and 1964 he included Jehovah's Witnesses ["ernste Bibelforscher"].
  An April 1954 article with the earliest poetic version includes Catholics--a group some scholars have claimed he would not have included. However, Niemöller was imprisoned with many Catholic priests in Dachau, so we know he knew that they 'had been come for." Additionally, "Dear Abby" van Buren included the version with Catholics in at least seven columns from 1977 to 1993, making that a common version seen today, including on the Boston Holocaust memorial. In a 1984 column van Buren said she first encountered the quotation "nearly 30 years earlier," thus around 1955. Thus I conclude that he didn't include Catholics before 1950, but that he did at least beginning in 1954.
  

3. What point did Niemöller want to make?

A: The point he wanted to make was that we--bystanders--have to stand up even for people being physically persecuted, even and especially when we disagree with their views. Thus the quotation has often been called the bystanders' credo (declaration of belief). Right after the war in 1946 he wanted his German audiences to admit that they had failed morally, to accept their responsibility for the mass atrocities committed by their Nazi government in their name.
Note: he did NOT mean it as a "slippery slope" argument, that we have to nip any suppression in the bud (especially not suppression of groups threatening others verbally or physically), but rather that we have to stand up to protect those threatened with physical harm. When groups threatening others with harm invoke the quotation to call for protection for themselves, they are perverting his meaning, turning it into a kind of perpetrators' credo, that is for perpetrators wanting to see themselves as victims.

4. What version of the quotation is the most accurate?

A: Given the answers to Qs 1, 2 & 3, there is some leeway in determining a version. Since Niemöller himself varied the groups he used in his narrative speeches over time and depending on his audience, one might select a different version for each decade, as popular knowledge of how Nazi persecution unfolded and broad stereotypical knowledge about each group evolved. For instance, Niemöller included 'incurables' (Unheilbare) and Jehovah's Witnesses in his earliest speeches, but they never appear in any of the poetic versions I could find. A case might be made that they should be added back in in the 21st century, where awareness mainstream society's marginalization of mentally and physically challenged people needs to increase. Today Jehovah's Witnesses aren't persecuted, nor is their persecution under Nazism widely known, so most people wouldn't understand their inclusion.
Still, given the history of the poetic quotation, I would suggest (in English):
Communists, Trade Unionists and/or Socialists, possibly the Disabled, Jews, and me.

5. Is the poem/quotation copyrighted? Do I need permission to use it?

A: The Niemöller Foundation in Germany includes an--incorrect!--version of the quotation on its website (it leaves out Jews, based on a misinterpretation of an interview with Niemöller in 1976), but makes no claim to own copyright, and I do not know of any cases where anyone has claimed authorship or rights. Thus I think you are safe from violating copyright in using whatever version you want. Of course, if you want to refer your readers to information about the quotation's history or why you chose your version, I would appreciate a link to this webpage, or a citation of my 2016 print publication about it:

• "The Origin and Reception of Martin Niemöller's Quotation 'First they came for the communists …'", in: Michael Berenbaum et al (eds.), Remembering for the Future: Armenia, Auschwitz, and Beyond (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2016), 173-200. (18 page pdf)

• April 2021: Here are a couple of recent invocations of the quotation, the first satirical:
  • “First they came for Mr. Potato Head” is the clincher line in:
    Andy Borowitz, "Ted Cruz Accuses Democrats of Trying to Cancel Poverty," The New Yorker, March 15, 2021.
  • Socialists, Trade Unionists, Jews, Me: by Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock at a press conference on April 20, 2021, posted by Now This Politics on Facebook. (at the very beginning of the clip, in connection with a bill co-sponsored by Chuck Schumer, allowing the collection of data on hate crimes against Asian-American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).
    For the context, CSpan has the full press conference; the relevant statement begins at 12:25 into the clip.
• January 2021: I'd like to illustrate one of the ways the USHMM's patently false order of groups in Niemoeller's quotation (starting with Socialists, not Communists) feeds into the decades-long disinformation campaign spearheaded by Fox News. For years evil "Communists" were the object of Fox's fear-mongering derision. Then came celebrity liar Donald J. Trump's mollycoddling to Russia's authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin. At the same time one of Trump's most threatening opponents was the [shudder] Democratic Socialist Bernard Sanders. Especially since 2018 and the victories of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an unapologetic Democratic Socialist, Fox has shifted its fear-focus to SOCIALISM as the dirty word its cult members should guard against.
  Now I don't want to either brand of this fear stoking, but I do want to inject some historical truth into the public discussion. Fox has shifted the so-called Overton Window so that socialism should now appear as the specter haunting its adherents.
  • USHMM, how about starting the shift back, and getting the false version off of your Holocaust encyclopedia website? Changing or at least acknowledging the false version chiseled into your walls would be next. Your employee Victoria Barnett keeps ignoring my emails.
  • With that said, here's an example of a righteous activist who gets it right using your false version: A letter to the editor in the Baltimore Sun by retired history teacher Laurie M. Davis on August 22, 2017 after the Charlottesville mass murder, 'I can no longer remain silent or complicit', quotes your version. Let those who, like her, areinspired by the quotation, know Niemoeller's true sentiment: He started by acknowledging his acquiescence to the persecution of those he thought furthest from his own beliefs.
• September 15, 2020: After the unidentified federal security agents in unmarked vans started kidnapping people off the streets of Portland since July 14 during the regular Black Lives Matter protests, cartoonist Neal Skorpen from Minneapolis reposted a cartoon he had made in January 2017 (after Trump's electoral college coup). Here is the cartoon:
• Sept. 3, 2018: I often receive requests for evaluation or comment on uses of the quotation. For instance, in Durham, North Carolina the initiative FirstTheImmigrants.org created a website and bumper sticker/yard sign templates to mobilize people to speak out against the Trump administration's anti-immigration policies. My involvement was to advise them on the history of the saying (that is, what version to consider original) and their rationale for modifying it for our current context to start with immigrants. See their page on the "Bystanders Credo" for details.
• Feb. 1, 2018: Finally uploaded: the published version of my research on this quotation, in a 2016 publication based on a 2014 talk. (I've since found more material and will be submitting a revised version to journals once I revise it.)
  • "The Origin and Reception of Martin Niemöller's Quotation 'First They Came for the Communists...'," in: Michael Berenbaum et al (eds.), Remembering for the Future: Armenia, Auschwitz, and Beyond (Paragon, 2016), 173-199. (18 page pdf)
• Sept. 2018: The neo-Nazi group "Daily Stormer" adapted and perverted the quotation for a flyer they taped to three doors of a Methodist church in a town in Michigan near Detroit on Sunday Sept. 2.
  • This is a great example of a perversion of Niemoeller's meaning in his famous quotation--"they" (what a fantasy!) are coming for me, so you have to--what--exterminate? them. We could call this the perpetrator's credo: "First the Jews came for the antisemites, ... then they came for the racists, and when they came for the raging conspiracy theorists and fear mongers, there was no one left to speak for them."
  • See JC Reindl, "Anti-Semitic flyers appear outside Ferndale church," Detroit Free Press (Sept. 2, 2018)
  • My thanks to E.J. Berman for this link.
• Aug. 19, 2017: Michael S. Rosewald of the Washington Post published an article "‘Then they came for me’: A Hitler supporter’s haunting warning has a complicated history," which cites and summarizes my research on this quotation. In the 14 days after publication it received 228 public comments, available at the end of the web version of the article.
• Jan. 29, 2017: US President Trump's executive order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority states sparked a wave of protest across the US. Some protesters included Niemoller's quotation on their signs, and it was discussed in this Jan. 29 Atlantic Magazine article:
  • Megan Garber, "‘First They Came’: The Poem of the Protests. Martin Niemöller’s lines, written just after the Holocaust, argued against apathy—and for the moral connectedness of all people"
  • An AP photo and an instagram by comedian Amy Schumer show signs with a shortened version starting with "FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE MUSLIMS" and adding a new ending: "AND WE SAID ‘NOT TODAY." Other images show the endings And we said: "Not this time," "Not today (Satan, Mother Fuckers)," "Hell no."
  • This web page is cited and quoted at length, beginning with: 'One scholar, UC Santa Barbara’s Harold Marcuse, who has studied Niemöller’s diaries, suggests that “First They Came” might have crystallized during a visit Niemöller took to Dachau in November of 1945, mere months after his liberation from the camp. The quotation itself, as it’s used today, Marcuse notes, “most likely emerged in 1946, and it definitely took on the well-known poetic form by the early 1950s.”'
• May 2, 2016: Yasmin Rehman, "Islamist Terrorism: Chilling Echoes of Pastor Niemoller," at: www.opendemocracy.net/5050/yasmin-rehman/islamist-terrorism. She uses the USHMM version: Socialists, Trade Unionists, Jews, me.
• Dec. 22, 2014: "First the came for ... McDonald's"--title of an article on OneNewsNow.com. I can't resist some sarcasm: Oh those trade union activists and their Obama-era government backers! Oh franchise owners, you poor victims of the slippery slope! [2/2018: internet archive version from July 2017, after which this page was taken down]
• Sept. 20, 2014: I'm working on a total overhaul of this page, since I've finally conducted quite a bit of systematic research into the origin of the quotation for a March 2014 presentation at the Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches (website, see p. 6 of the program), which I wrote up for publication this past summer. My results were quite surprising, even to me.
  • If you are looking for detailed answers to all of your questions, read this pdf!! You can read my pre-publication manuscript (19-page pdf). If you would like to cite it, please send me an email letting me know. (I'd like to try to keep track of how interesting people find this.) It will be published with other papers presented at the conference. Here is my concluding paragraph:
    "In conclusion, what can we say about the "original" groups and their order? I would argue that we can ignore the 1970s statements by Niemöller, as they are corrupted by loose paraphrasing, poor memory, and new contexts. Based on the documents from 1946-47 and 1962-64, Niemöller always mentioned Communists, and with one exception Jews as well, although never as the first group. From the 1951/1955 Mayer and 1955 Lightfoot versions we can infer with some confidence that in the yet undocumented earliest poetic version(s), whether spoken by Niemöller himself or not, Communists came first, then Socialists/Social Democrats/trade unionists or Jews, perhaps depending on which language and which venue. As for the inclusion of Catholics, until new documentary sources are found, we cannot definitively state whether, when or by whom they came to be included in the quotation. Is it proper to include other groups? In some narrative versions Niemöller did name others, in particular incurably ill and Jehovah's Witnesses, but we have no evidence that he named them in any of his poetic versions. As a final point: Niemöller's original argument was premised on naming groups he and his audience would instinctively not care about. When his poem is invoked today it is usually to add one's own group to the list of persecuted. That was not a meaning that Niemöller ever wished to convey. The omission of Communists in Washington, and of Jews in Germany, distorts that meaning and should be corrected."
• Niemöller in Farsi. In 2010 I received a manuscript from Hamneshine Bahar (his website?) , who wrote up the history and uses of the quotation in Farsi for an Iranian audience. Here is a pdf of his illustrated and hyperlinked text. He also sent me his 2-page summary for Wikipedia.

About the Author (back to top)

Hello, I am Harold Marcuse, a professor of German and public history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I've been teaching since 1992.
My research specialization is how various groups have looked back on the Nazi period over the years since 1945. I've written a book Legacies of Dachau, 1933-2001 about how various groups used and shaped the former Dachau concentration camp since its liberation in 1945. My approach to history is called reception history, meaning the history of how, over time and space, different groups have taken past events and reinterpreted them.

How did I get interested in this famous quotation? Niemöller was imprisoned in the Dachau camp, and shortly after World War II formulated this saying based on an experience had when going back for a visit.

In November 1945 German Pastor Martin Niemöller and his wife visited the former Dachau concentration camp, where he had been imprisoned from 1941 to April 1945. His diary entry about that visit and some subsequent speeches he gave show that that visit triggered the thought that became this famous quotation. Since discovering the diary entry in the late 1980s I've tried to find out when Niemöller first said that quotation in its poetic form, but I have not been able to document it with a published source linked directly to him. Thus I can't say what his original version was. However, the quotation most likely emerged in 1946, and it took on the well-known poetic form in the early 1950s, by 1955 at the latest.

• I began the research for this page by obtaining published speeches Niemöller gave in the period 1945-1954, and searching in them for this or similar statements (jump to discussion, below). Below (and on separate pages) readers will find passages from these published speeches, with English translations, and some interpretative discussion, including a list of other sources I obtain and examine as time permits.
• I then went on to research mentions in the press, that is in newspapers and magazines.
• I also went to archives that have Niemöller's papers and materials relating to him.
• I have also examined other researchers' discussions of the origins of this quotation (jump to section, below).
• Finally, I have a section with other versions of the quotation I found on the web (jump to section).
• As usual with websites, this page is continually being expanded, and I welcome your comments <mailto: marcuse@history.ucsb.edu>.

Old News/Site History (back to top)

• Feb. 28, 2013: Conference paper by Matthew Hockenos, Skidmore College, "Martin Niemöller in America, 1946-1947: ‘A Hero with Limitations’" in: ACCH Quarterly 18:2 (June 2012).
  • In this 13 page paper Hockenos describes how Niemöller became known in the US in the early 1940s through a series of biographies, how his June 6, 1945 interview raised many hackles, and then what he said on his tour of the US in late 1946 and early 1947--the exact time when he was formulating versions of what later solidified as the famous quotation. From this summary (pages 6-9 of my printout), based on the scripts of N's sermons, it seems he emphasized German suffering quite a bit, while only touching on German guilt. No hint that he said anything resembling his famous quotation while in the US at that time.
  • However, Hockenos gives the archival location of the sermons/addresses N gave: "WCC Archives," located north of Geneva, Switzerland (google map).
• Jan. 26, 2012: Florida governor Rick Scott, speaking to the Board of a state business group, used his own interpretation of Niemöller's quotation to defend Mitt Romney. He began by saying that he had a poster of the quotation on his walls (beginning with "... the Jews ..."), then said other Republican candidates shouldn't attack Bain Capital.
  • Miami Herald blog post; Local channel 10 news blurb;
  • One of the responses to the Herald blog post was this adaptation:
    First Rick Scott came for the teachers, but I said nothing as my kids were nearly out of school.
    Then he came for the university professors, but my kids don't take anthropology so I said nothing.
    Then he came for the prisons and handed those over to corporations. And still I said nothing because I hadn't broken any laws.
    "Then he came for the writers and thinkers and the political activists, and I thought, serves those people right for being so mouthy.
    Then he came for our county commissions, our school boards, he wanted it all. And since I had said nothing all through this, there was no one left to help me.
    Now I am in corporate jail raising tilapia in a fish pond for 25 cents a day."
• 4/22/11 (updated 9/12/11): I added 13 pages scanned from a 1986 German book composed of 15 biographical interviews upon which a film about Niemöller's life was based. In one interview Niemöller talks in 1976 about a 1974 event in which he resurrected the quotation. The book is titled Was würde Jesus sagen? -- What would Jesus say?
  • Note that the book is in German. The German Niemöller Foundation uses this passage (Niemöller Foundation quotation page [link updated 7/2016]), in which Niemöller refers to what the Niemöller Foundation dates as a 1976 event, to call this the "classical" version. However in this 1976 interview Niemöller no longer remembered the version he had used in the late 1940s. When he gave the interview in the 1976 he was 84 years old (born in 1892), so it is understandable that he might better remember something he said a few years earlier than an even earlier use 30 years before that..
  • Note further that the separately printed version on p. 71 of that book does not include the Jews (!), as if Niemöller himself had not mentioned them. However, since the interview question was about Jews, the fact that N. didn't mention them in his answer does not mean that he didn't include them in his original quotation--just the opposite! This adds another point of confusion to the already murky lineage of the quotation.
  • Finally, I've included extra pages in the pdf, namely the prefaces, the table of contents, and a timeline of Niemöller's life (final pages). I added asteriks in the margin to indicate where, in his answer, he mentions the Communists, Trade Unions, and Social Democrats, in that order (see p. 69).
• 12/13/10: A video version of the quotation is embedded on silentconscience.org, Dec. 2, 2010; originally by karmic courage on youtube (5:20), uploaded Feb. 15, 2008 [14,488 views on 12/12/2010; 38,037 views on 7/25/2016].
  • Jews, gays, Muslims, me
  • Also Spanish video version from May 2008 (1:06) [8,232 views on 12/12/2010; 18,456 on 7/25/2016].
    Communists, syndicalists, religious, me
  • Javoc999's Dec. 2008 version starts with the Jews (:56) [7,166 views on 12/12/2010; unavailable in 2016].
  • tarfin posted a 2:33 version with contemporary updates in February 2009 [6,624 views on 12/12/2010]
  • dholicky has a March 2009 animated version (1:44; silent with text) {12/12/2010: 1,935 views]
• 5/20/10: Another flagrant misappropriation of the quotation (see 12/16/09 announcement, below), this time by Glenn Beck, as shown on the 5/13/10 Daily Show (salon.com page "Lewis Black tells Glenn Beck a thing or two about Nazism" with embedded Daily Show video clip "Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's"; the references come at 4:30 and 5:15 into the clip)[link updated 7/24/16]:
  • "You ever heard of the old poem 'first they came for the Jews'? Well, first they came for the banks, then it was the insurance companies, then it was the car companies." (Black: difference "they came for the Jews to kill them, but to the companies give them $700 billion.)
  • Beck: "First they came for the Jews and I stayed silent----next I'll show you the very latest attacks on me ...". Black: "Glenn, the Nazis are everywhere ...".
  • Update 4/22/11: See also this 10/14/2009 mediate.com article "Glenn Beck compares Fox News to the Persecution of the Jews". This article gives its own "correct" version of the quotation with the groups: communists, socialists, trade unionists, Jews, me.
• 5/2/10: I received an inquiry about how to teach this quotation in a high school class:
  • I am a teacher for the City of Boston, high school special education; I taught a unit on the Holocaust, and will introduce the famous passage, First they came, and have my students analyze this quote.
    I am in need of your help as I wish to teach my students how to effectively analyze this quote. Any suggestions?
  • Here is my answer:
    As a historian at the college level, I'd probably say have students compare the original texts on my website with the "poem" version. Especially for a special ed class it might be of interest that in the earliest versions Niemöller definitely included the disabled (which is historically correct and logical), while none of the later poem versions do.
    Since this may be too advanced for high school, here is a site with a lesson plan for high school that I think is very good: 6-page lesson plan "Exploring Personal and Collective Responsibility in WWII" by the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.
    I'd give the students a little more biography of Niemoeller than that site offers. An excellent primary source is this Feb. 1938 Time magazine article that talks about what Niemoeller did in WWI and how close he had been to the Nazis at the outset, and how he got into trouble with them.
    In addition, if I recall correctly, Niemöller later often told an anecdote about how his sub sank a ship off Greece, and although international law required the rescue of drowning passengers, he did not do that, which later came back to haunt his conscience.
• March 20 05: I've added my translation of the October 1945 Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt (Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis)
• 1/29/07: Another quotation of mysterious origin: "One man with courage makes a majority"--is often attributed to US president Andrew Jackson, but he never said it. In fact, it was penned by an 1860 biographer who was critical of Jackson. See Daniel Feller, "The greatest thing Andrew Jackson never said," LA Times, Jan. 26, 2007. (hi-res printable scan)
• 2/13/07: rendition of the Niemöller quotation published in 1955 by Milton Mayer added. The quotation was clearly circulating before ca. 1951, when Mayer conducted that interview. The importance of this publication is that it sets a so-called terminus ante quem--a date before which Niemöller must have said whatever version(s) he used.
• 10/29/07: Images of Quotation page added.
• 8/19/08: Discussion of false attribution to Bertolt Brecht added, below.
  YouTube clips:
  • 1:11 by nyprogressive, added 9/27/06; text montage a la Star Wars; 1946: Communists, Socialists, trade unionists, me; 2006: foreigners
  • 2:07 by Michelle Malkin, added 12/31/06; montage of news photos; about violence after Danish Mohammed cartoons
  • 5:29 by Kate Chaplin, added 2/15/08; recited by a professional with a gas-guzzling Hummer: Jews, gays, Muslims, me. [38,037 views on 7/25/2016]
  • 1:38 by VoxRoxx
    Writers, students, musicians, Greeks/ns, Muslims, trade unionists, Christians, Jews, travellers, homosexuals, journalists, artists, taggers, doctors, philosophers, economists, anarchists and politicians, nerds, Europeans, Americans, Communists, cockers, illegals, homeless ... [uploaded May 11, 2009; 76,507 views on 7/25/16]
• 12/16/09: a reader of this page sent me a link to Jon Stewart's persiflage of one of the Republican speakers' bowdlerization of the quote at a recent "tea party" in Washington D.C. Fox News star and talk radio host Laura Ingraham said (roughly) the following (note: she was not very articulate, although she appears to be reading from a script):
  First they came for the rich, and I did not speak out because I was not rich,
  Then they confiscated the property owners,
  Then they took away our right to bear arms, but I didn't speak out because I wasn't armed.
  (This segment starts about 2:40 mins. into the full episode, but worth watching from the beginning.)[July 2016: link updated]

Biography of Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) (back to top)

German theologian and Protestant (Lutheran) pastor, founder of the anti-Nazi Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church) in 1934, and a president of the World Council of Churches from 1961 to 1968.

Niemöller was a commander of a German U-boat in World War I. A seminal incident in his moral outlook, as he related in many public speeches later in his life, occurred when he commanded his submarine crew not to rescue the sailors of a boat he torpedoed, but let them drown instead. Niemöller began studying theology in Münster in the 1920s. At this time, and at least until the mid-1930s, Niemöller was a typical Christian antisemite who openly professed his belief that the Jews had been punished through the ages because they had "brought the Christ of God to the cross." [See Niemöller, First Commandment (London, 1937), 243-50; reference provided by Werner Cohn. See also my discussion of Niemöller's antisemitism with Prof. Cohn, and this exchange with Harry Reynolds.

• Why spell antisemitism as one word?
  • Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism newsletter, Summer 1989, "What's in a Hyphen" by Shmuel Almog [2/2021: web archive version]: "So the hyphen, or rather its omission, conveys a message; if you hyphenate your 'anti-Semitism', you attach some credence to the very foundation on which the whole thing rests. Strike out the hyphen and you will treat antisemitism for what it really is--a generic name for modern Jew-hatred."
  • Haaretz, Nov. 6, 2008: " What's in a hyphen? How an innocuous mark justifies antisemitism" by Dave Rich [2/2021: web archive version]
  • Jewish Week/Times of Israel, February 5, 2020: "Is it Time to Retire the Term ‘Anti-Semitism’?"
  • Haaretz, May 20, 2020: "Anti-antisemitism? A Battle Rages Over the Jewish Hyphen" by Alison Kaplan Sommer. "Acclaimed historian Prof. Deborah Lipstadt is leading a fight to lose the hyphen from anti-Semitism, saying its presence ‘completely distorts the meaning of the word’."
    • Sticking to the old hyphen as of mid-2020:
      Anti-Defamation League, The Forward, Haaretz, Jewish News Syndicate and Tablet, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, New York Times, Simon Wiesenthal Center, The Times of Israel,
    • Recognizing the distorted meaning:
      The American Jewish Committee, German Studies Review, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, World Jewish Congress, Yad Vashem
      Authors: Deborah Lipstadt,

According the Niemöller quotation article on the USHMM website, Wolfgang Gerlach, in his And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Jews (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), p. 47, says that Niemöller first made a "statement of regret" about his own antisemitism in a 1963 TV interview. This is in my opinion clearly incorrect, since Niemöller's 1945 diary entry and use of the quotation in subsequent speeches expresses regret about his earlier antisemitism.

In 1931 Niemöller became a pastor in a wealthy Berlin suburb. As a German nationalist he initially supported Hitler, but as the Nazis began to interfere in church affairs, he moved into opposition. In 1934 Niemöller founded first the Pfarrernotbund (Pastors' Emergency League), then the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), a branch of the German Protestant (Lutheran) Church. In 1937 he was arrested because of his outspoken sermons, and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1941 he was moved to Dachau, where he stayed until the end of the war.

1980s peace movement poster Martin Niemöller: "Wer den Frieden will, muß mit dem Gegner gemeinsam leben wollen. Wir müssen vertrauen wagen. Darum Schluss mit dem Rüsten." ('Whoever wants peace must want to live together with their opponents. We have to risk trusting each other. There stop the arms race.')

After the war, he helped to rebuild the reputation of the German Protestant Church, and was one of its leading officials until well into the 1960s. In 1947 his reputation was challenged because he devoted substantial energy to protecting Nazi war criminals from the death penalty, and because of some pro-German things he had said in his own defense while on trial by the Nazis in 1937. However, during the 1950s and 1960s he refused to join in the dominant anticommunist sentiment in the West, which earned him the respect of the left again. His uncompromising stance allowed him to remain a figurehead of the German peace movement into the 1980s. He died in 1984.

Shortly after the end of the war Niemöller became convinced that the German people had a collective responsibility (he often used the word Schuld, guilt) for the Nazi atrocities. In October 1945 Niemöller was the the prime mover behind the German Protestant Church's "Confession of Guilt" ("Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis")(see this quotation from Oct. 1945). In later speeches Niemöller claimed that a November 1945 visit to Dachau, where the crematorium was being kept as a memorial site, began that process of recognition. (I tell his story of that visit in detail in my book Legacies of Dachau, excerpted here: Niemöller's postwar Dachau anecdote.)

It was clearly in this Oct/Nov 1945 context that Niemöller's most quoted saying began to evolve. This early statement implies that he may have thought first of the Communists, then the disabled, then Jews, and finally countries conquered by Germany. However, it is also likely that he modified what he said for different audiences, perhaps including other groups, or changing the order depending on his goals. (I am suggesting that there may not be ONE SINGLE master quotation, but several versions used by Niemöller himself.)
In a 6 January 1946 speech delivered for representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt (published in Die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung, Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1946, pp. 1-19, quotation on pp. 5ff), Niemöller said (translation by Harold Marcuse)[May 31, 2003: I have obtained and scanned the 1946 English translation of this work (the linked page includes a detailed discussion of a crucial shift in meaning in the translation):

[p. 19] Now, you're being asked: "Where were you from 1933 until July 1, 1937?" And I couldn't avoid this question any more. In 1933 I was a free man. 1933 -- at that moment I realized --, yes, 1933, indeed: Hermann Göring bragged publicly that the communist danger was eliminated. Because all communists who weren't already under lock and key because of their crimes, were now sitting behind the barbed wire of the newly established concentration camps.
[...]
[p. 20; reference to Matthew 25] As a Christian I should have and must have known that from each of these fellow human beings -- be they called Communists or whatever -- God in Jesus Christ was asking me whether I would serve him. And I refused this service.

Niemöller's published speeches and sermons, 1946-54 (back to top)

Here is a list of published speeches Niemöller gave around the same time (based on the online version of the Biographisch-Bibliographischen Kirchenlexikon at www.bautz.de/bbkl/, with additions from the research libraries database RLIN, June 2002). As I obtain these materials, I add my comments, analysis and links to my longer discussions.

Dachau Sermons, translated by Robert H. Pfeiffer. New York/London, Harper & Brothers [c1946] vii., 97 p. [UCSB: BX8066.N47 D3]

Über die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung [6 Jan. 1946] , Zollikon-Zürich 1946; [also French, Dutch, English editions:][excerpted above]
Of Guilt and Hope. [Tr. by Renee Spodheim] New York, Philosophical Library [1947] 79 p. 21 cm. According to a short announcement in the New York Times on Aug. 5, 1947, this translation was withdrawn from circulation by the Philosophical Society after it became known that Niemoeller may have supported the Nazis as early as 1924.
Detailed analysis of the relevant passage, added May 31, 2003.

Zur gegenwärtigen Lage der evangelischen Christenheit. Tübingen-Stuttgart, Furcheverlag [1946] 24 p. [RLIN: NYPL]
also in Reden 1945-54, 43ff. (excerpt Oct. 2002) On p. 48: "Wenn wir erkannt haetten, dass in den Kommunisten, die ins Konzentrationslager geworfen wurden, der Herr Jesus selber gefangen dalag und nach unserer Liebe und Hilfe Ausschau hielt, wenn wir gesehen hätten, dass beim Beginn der Judenverfolgung der Herr Christus es war, der in den geringsten unserer menschlichen Brueder verfolgt und geschlagen und umgebracht wurden, wenn wir da zu ihm gestanden ... hätten, ich weiss nicht, ob Gott uns dann nicht beigestanden hätte und ob dann nicht das ganze Geschehen einen andern Lauf hätte nehmen müssen. Und wenn wir mit ihm [sic] in den Tod gegangen waeren, ob es dann nicht bei einigen zehntausend Opfern geblieben wäre? Ich bin überzeugt, ein Chamberlain und ein Daladier hätten danach Hitler keinen Glauben mehr geschenkt, und der ganze Kreig mit seinen dreissig und mehr Millionen Opfern hätte nicht zu kommen brauchen."

Die Erneuerung unserer Kirche, München 1946; in: Reden 45-54, p. 19. No exact date is given for this sermon. I have a photocopy of the original, and it contains nothing close to the quotation. However, in light of the discussion whether MN included the Catholics (Littell, Zerner, see below), one passage indicates he thought primarily of persecuted minorities (Catholics were no minority in Germany), regardless of the variant of belief in Christ they professed. On p. 9 MN writes as part of his description of his Nov. 1945 return-to-Dachau experience:

Gott fragte mich ja nicht, wo ich von 1937 bis 1945 gewesen war, sondern wo ich von 1933 bis 1937 war. Von 1933 bis 1937 hatte ich keine Antwort. Haette ich vielleicht sagen sollen: Ich war ein tapferer Bekenntnispfarrer in jenen Jahren, ich habe ein Wort riskiert und schliesslich Freiheit und Leben riskiert? Aber danach fragte mich Gott nicht. Gotte fragte: Wo warst du von 1933 bis 1937, als hier Menschen verbrannt wurden? Das waren nicht meine christlichen Brueder, die dort verbrannt wurden, das waren Kommunisten, ernste Bibelforscher usw. Darum hatte ich mich nicht gekuemmert .

God didn't ask me where I was from 1937 to 1945, he asked me where I was from 1933 to 1937. From 1933 to 1937 I didn't have an answer. Maybe I should have said: I was a brave pastor of the Confessing Church in those years, I risked speaking critically and thus risked freedom and my life? But God didn't ask me about all that. God asked: Where were you from 1933 to 1937, when human beings were being burned here? Those weren't my Christian brothers, who were burned there, those were Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. That's why I didn't do anything.

Wir rufen Deutschland zu Gott: Eine Rede. [Luton]: [Dragon Press Ltd.], [1946]. 23 p. [RLIN: Yale](not in Reden 45-54)

Reden 1945-1954. Darmstadt : Stimme-Verlag, 1958. [RLIN: IISH, UPenn] (exceprts Aug-Sept. 2002)
p. 43: see above, Zur gegenwärtigen Lage der evangelischen Christenheit
p. 87: May 46 Marburg, see below.
p. 103: "1848-1948: Nur Erinnerung -- oder mehr?" MN talks about 100 years of Marx' Communist Manifesto
p. 142 "Das Bekenntnis der Kirche" in Stimme der Gemeinde, 6/1949. 148 "Was hat nicht seit 1945 die sog. Denazifizierung angerichtet! Es war die grosse Gelegenheit zur Selbstrechtfertigung fuer die Verfolgten von gestern. Aber zugleich war es auch die fluchbeladene Saat neuen Hasses. Und nun fuehlen sich die einstigen Verfolger wider als die Verflogten, rechtfertigen sich selber und trachten danach, ihren einstigen Opfern die Schuld zuzuschieben. Und doch sind sie beide--Verfolger und Verfolgte von gestern, Verfolgte und Verfolger von heute--elende Menschen, denen nur einer helfen kann, wenn wir uns mit unserer Schuld zu seiner Gnade fluechten und ihn als den Heiland bekennen." Oben auf S. 150 sagt N., dass Christus auch fuer die Kommunisten gestorben ist. (so he was clearly NOT an anti-communist at this time, as one writer has claimed, but exactly the opposite!).
p. 191 "Die Krise der Zeit und die christlich Verantwortung" (Copenhagen, 5 Nov. 1951): nothing like the quote, but he's (rhetorically?) exaggerating the number of victims and thinking about World War III: (p. 194): "Ein unerklaerliches, unheimliches Geschehen, und es kann doch nicht rueckgaengig gemacht werden, weil ein paar hundert Millionen Leichen, Menschenleichen im Wege liegen! -- Wie war das moeglich? -- Und schon wieder reden Menschen von einem weiteren, dritten Weltkrieg, und schon wieder suchen Menschen nach Menschenmaterial, um diesen Krieg zu fuehren, nach Menschenopfern, ..."
p. 209 "Wege und Grenzen christlicher Solidaritaet" (Stimme der Gemeinde, 6/1952). Starts with the 1945 Schuldbekenntnis, talks about the Bekennende Kirche as a "geschlossene Gesellschaft," bible quotes, but not the quotation we want.
p. 219 "Von der politischen Verantwortung des Christen in der heutigen Welt" (Geneva, 24 Nov. 1952). Mostly an abstract discussion of biblical passages, about West German rearmament and the "18 million German Menschen behind the iron curtain," and 9 million Heimatvertriebene in West Germany--they need our solidarity. Nothing close to the quotation.
p. 229 "Eindruecke aus Indien" (Stimme der Gemeinde 2/1953): he was clearly impressed by Gandhi.
p. 253 "Unser Volk unter den Voelkern" (Hamburg Kirchentag, Aug. 1953): very interesting talk, lots about meaning of "Volk" and special obligations of Germans, but nothing close to our quotation.
p. 279: "Die gemeinsame Verantwortung der evangelischen Kirchen in der Welt" (Speyer, 20 April 1954). Not here, either, but he does imply that Protestants should stick up for those people being defamed as communist (p. 281): "Fuer den Protestantismus macht es auch keinen Unterschied, ob der Mensch, dessen Freiheit bestritten wird und deshalb geschuetzt werden muss, die gleichen oder etwa abweichende Ansichten und Ueberzeugungen vertritt: der Protestantismus als solcher weiss sich dem Menschen als solchem verpflichtet, unabhaengig von dem Inhalt seines Glaubens, seines Gewissens, seiner Ueberzeugung ..."
He then criticizes and calls to resist "politischer Totalitarismus" like that of Senator McCarthy.

Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein. 6 Predigten, München 1946, 60 pages;
From the publisher's ad in Wilhelm N's Macht vor Recht (1952): "Die Themen der Schuld und der inneren Heimatlosigkeit und Ratlosigkeit nach dem Zusammenbruch klingen hier auf und werden in vollmächtigen Antworten geklärt."
In this collection of six sermons from Dec. 1945 to Jan. 1946 MN does single out Jehovah's Witnesses as positive examples for their principled stance against serving in the army. See my detailed description and discussion, with excerpts. (added Jan. 2004)

An die Göttinger Studenten. Rede, gehalten auf Einladung der ev. Studentengemeinde am 17. Januar 1946 zu St. Jacobi in Göttingen, Göttingen 1946; [RLIN: Harvard] us-israel.org claims MN first used the quotation as an answer to a student's question, so the discussion after this might be relevant. (quoted in Wilhelm Niemöller's 1952 book)[ordered ILL 10/15/03-Harvard, the only supplier, will not loan this][2006: I have a photocopy of this, and the quotation is not developed in it]

Ansprache in der Neustädter Kirche in Erlangen am 22. Januar 1946, Dortmund 1946 (auch in: Die Neue Zeitung Nr. 13 v. 15.2.1946); [UCSB: DD232.5 .N481 microfilm: 1945:Oct.-1949:July (5 reels)]

Not und Aufgabe der Kirche in Deutschland. Vortrag in Zürich, Großmünster, 7. März 1946, hrsg. im Benehmen mit dem Schweizerischen Hilfswerk für die Bekennende Kirche in Deutschland von den ökumenischen Kommissionen für Kriegsgefangene und Flüchtlinge, Genf 1946 (auch in: Flugblätter der Bekennenden Kirche 46/3, Stuttgart 1946);

The Spanish Wikiquote Niemoeller page attributes the quote to an Easter 1946 sermon in Kaiserslautern: "Martín Niemöller, su autor, menciona que no se trataba originalmente de un poema, sino de un sermón en la semana santa de 1946 en Kaiserslautern, Alemania “¿Qué hubiera dicho Jesucristo?”. [Martin Niemöller, its author, mentions that it was not originally a poem, but part of a sermon on Easter of 1946 in Kaiserslautern, Germany "What would Jesus Christ say?"] This is probably an incorrect reference to the 1976 publication mentioned below, in which Niemöller himself incorrectly dates the quotation to 1974.
That Wikiquote page also mentions that the quotation is sometimes (esp. in Spanish) falsely attributed to the Marxist German poet & playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), a claim several readers of this page have confirmed.
However, even if the Niemöller quotation is somewhat Brechtian, since Brecht was himself a communist, he would not have included the Communists in the groups, so I think that that origin can safely be ruled out.
Still, a poem Brecht published in 1927, Liturgie vom Hauch [Liturgy of Breath], has a similar theme: an old woman dies of hunger because the military ate all of her bread, then a doctor certifies her death and she is buried, ensuring her silence. A single man comes and protests, then a policeman clubs him to death. Then 3 bearded men come and protest until they are shot. Then many men come to speak with the military, which answers with machine guns. Finally a red bear (allegory of Russian communism?) comes and eats up the birds. The birds are a reference to the refrain after each meeting: 'Then the little birds in the forest fell silent / Above all treetops is quiet / In all peaks you feel / Barely a breath.' After the bear's entrance the refrain changes: 'Then the birds were no longer silent / Above all treetops is unrest / In all peaks you feel / Now some breath.' Full German text of Liturgie vom Hauch.

Die politische Verantwortung des Christen im akademischen Stand : Vortrag gehalten auf Einladung der evangelischen Studentengemeinde vor Studierenden der Philipps-Universität zu Marburg an der Lahn am 4. Mai 1946 / Martin Niemöller. Giessen : W. Schmitz, 1946. 23 p. [RLIN: Yale, Harvard] Also in Reden 45-54, 87ff, from which the passage below is quoted:

97f: "Hier gruendet unsre christliche Schulderkenntnis im Blick auf das, was unter uns geschehen ist. Wir haben den Herrn Christus nicht erkannt, als er in Gestalt des leidenden Bruders in unser Leben trat. Ich habe ihn weder erkannt, als er als Kommunist ins Lager gesteckt wurde, ich habe ihn nicht erkannt, als er als unheilbar Kranker gemordet wurde, noch habe ich ihn erkannt, als er in den armen Opfern seines eigenen Volkes [eine Anspielung, dass Christus Jude war] vergast und verbrannt wurde. Hier bin ich schuldig geworden an meiner ganz persoenlichen Verantwortung und kann mich nicht entschuldigen, weder vor Gott, noch vor den Menschen."

Here is the basis of our Christian recognition of guilt in consideration of what happened. We did not recognize the Lord Christ when he came into our lives in the form of a suffering brother. I didn't recognize him when he was put in the camp as a Communist, nor did I recognize him, when he was murdered as an incurably ill person, nor did I recognize him, when he was gassed and burned as the poor victims of his own people [probably an allusion to the fact that Christ was Jewish]. Here I became guilty in my very personal responsibility and I cannot excuse myself, neither before God, nor before humanity.

Thus in these early texts (Jan-May 1946) MN spoke of the Communists, the disabled, and the Jews, in that order. He also sometimes (but not always) mentioned Jehovah's Witnesses.

1. Der Weg ins Freie. Vortrag in Stuttgart am 3. Juli 1946, Stuttgart 1946.
   This was NOT the origin or the famous quotation, as claimed on two excellent sites (photo.net; scrapbookpages.com).
   See my detailed analysis and discussion. Excerpts from this book are also in Reden 45-54, pp. 19-23.
2. Die Brücke über den Abgrund. Wort am 6. Juli 1946 in der Johanniskirche zu Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken 1946;
3. Was Niemöller in Amerika wirklich sagte. Eröffnungsansprache auf der Tagung des Federal Council of Churches am 4. Dezember 1946 in Seattle (Flugblätter der Bekennenden Kirche Nr. 7), Stuttgart 1947.
   Jan. 2003: I have a copy of this, and it does NOT contain the quotation, or anything resembling it.
4. M.N.antwortet seinen Freunden, Bielefeld 1947 (auch in: Amtsblatt der Bekennenden Kirche Hessen-Nassau Nr. 3 v. 20. Sept. 1947);
5. Gedanken zur europäischen Lage, in: Amtsblatt der EKD 1, 1947, 101-106;
6. Zur gegenwärtigen Aufgabe der evangelischen Christenheit: Predigt über 1. Johannes 4, 9 - 14. Salzburg: Rorschach; München: Friedensverlag, 1947. 32pp. Series title: Worte zur Zeit; 1 [RLIN: Swiss National Library]
7. Das Wort des Bruderrates der Ev. Kirche in Deutschland zum politischen Weg unseres Volkes. Auslegung i.A. des Bruderrates verfaßt von Joachim Beckmann, Hermann Diem, M.N. und Ernst Wolf (Flugblätter der Bekennenden Kirche Nr. 9/10), Stuttgart 1948;
8. Das christliche Zeugnis inmitten der Welt. Ansprache am 26. August 1948 in Amsterdam, in: EvTH 8, 1948/49, 123-129 (unter dem Titel »Das christliche Zeugnis in der Welt« auch in: ThLZ 73, 1948, 519-524);
9. Fritz Müller-Dahlem, in: Wilhelm Niemöller (Hrsg.): Lebensbilder aus der Bekennenden Kirche, Bielefeld 1949, 74-80;
10. "Meine Reise nach Moskau," in: Der Spiegel v. 16. 1. 1952, 13-15;
11. Bekennende Kirche: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag [1952] von Martin NIEMÖLLER (publisher's ad)
12. Für oder gegen Christus - die Entscheidungsfrage des deutschen Arbeiters. Vortrag vom 18. September 1953, Duisburg o.J.;
13. "Das Vermächtnis des deutschen Widerstandes," in: Günther Weisenborn (Hrsg.): Der lautlose Aufstand. Bericht über die Widerstandsbewegung des deutschen Volkes 1933-1945, Hamburg 1954, 11f.; 4. Aufl. 1974, 13 ff. (auch in: Ihr Gewissen gebot es. Christen im Widerstand gegen den Hitlerfaschismus, Berlin [Ost] 1980, 391 ff.);
14. "Der Christ darf nicht zu spät kommen": Rundbrief. Berlin : Christlicher Arbeitskreis für den Frieden, [1955?] [4] p. [RLIN: International Institute of Social History]
15. Herr, wohin sollen wir gehen? Ausgewählte Predigten, München 1956;
16. "Der Nächste in seiner Bedeutung für das menschliche Zusammenleben," in: Antwort. Karl Barth zum 70. Geb., hrsg. von Ernst Wolf, Charlotte von Kirschbaum, Rudolf Frey, Zollikon-Zürich 1956, 661-665.
17. Prophet dieser Zeit: Erinnerung an Martin Niemöller, herausgegeben von Wolfgang Erk. 1. Aufl. Stuttgart: Radius-Verlag, c1984. 98 p. [RLIN: LC, IISH, NYPL, Yale Divinity]
18. AUDIOVISUAL. Brown, George, designer. "First they came for the Jews". Beelddocument = Visual document. (Leeds : s.n.) [picture postcard, undated] [RLIN: International Institute of Social History]
19. "First they came for the Jews..." : the legacy of pastor Niemoeller / Author Rothery, Tim. London: Minority Rights Group, 1991. 7 p. + poster and postcard. [IISH]

• Here is an intriguing reference from RLIN: Author: Niemöller, Martin, 1892- Title: [First they came...]. Publisher: [United States : s.n., 1986-1994]. Source: Exile in the Fatherland 1986, p. viii. Source: Christian Century Dec. 14, 1944, p. 1207. Description: [2] p. ; 28 cm. Related Titles: Two versions of famous Martin Niemöller quotation, one from introduction to Exile in the Fatherland (1986); one from Christian Century, Dec. 14, 1944, p. 1207. Subjects: Niemöller, Martin,--1892---Quotations. Libraries: Hebrew Union College (Ohio) [CC=UCSB AP1 .C5]
• In an interview published in the following book, p. 69f, MN himself answered a question about the quotation:
  Niemöller : was würde Jesus dazu sagen? Eine Reise durch ein protestantisches Leben; ein Film Bilder-Lesebuch von Hannes Karnick und Wolfgang Richter.
  Published: Frankfurt am Main : Röderberg, c1986.
  Physical Details: 167 p. : chiefly ill. ; 25 cm.
  Location: Princeton Theological Seminary
  PTSS BX4827.N53 N53 1986 [ILL received 10/2004]--pages scanned, need to upload.

Other Researchers' Claims about the Origins of the Quotation (back to top)
[last updated 11/22/07]

1. Ruth Zerner, "Martin Niemoeller, Activist as Bystander: the oft-quoted Reflection," in: Marvin Perry and Frederick Schweitzer (eds.), Jewish-Christian Encounters over the Centuries: Symbiosis, Prejudice, Holocaust, Dialogue (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 327-340. [back to reference about Catholics, above]
   • I haven't prepared an online version of Zerner's article, but I offer this assessment of it:
     This is a sophisticated discussion of the origin of the quotation, but it appears that Ms. Zerner doesn't know German, and did not attempt to trace the quotation in older published sources. Her main sources are a letter written by Sibylle Niemoeller von Sell (Martin's second wife) to Ingeborg Godenschweger, a staff member of the German Information Center in New York City, dated March 14, 1986. Apparently Ms. Godenschweger was trying to confirm the origin of the quotation after Martin's death. Zerner also conducted phone conversations with Franklin Littell in 1990, and with "Brigitte Johannesson, the only surviving daughter of Martin and Else Niemoeller," in 1991. Both say that Niemöller used this quotation first in English speaking countries. Littell dates the quotation from Niemöller's trip to the US right after World War II; Brigitte Johnnesson thinks he used it first in England in the early 1960s, although it might have been at any time between 1955 and 1969, according to her. Littell, Johannesson, and Sibylle Niemöller all think that Martin Niemöller never included Catholics in the quotation.
     The dating to the US trip in 1946 sounds reasonable to me [Marcuse], since the similar statements made by Niemöller since early 1946 in Germany logically precede the pithy, poetic formulation. In any case, the well-known version appeared before 1954 and was also known in Germany by that time, as the use by Milton Mayer's interloqutor indicates.
     
2. Drew Kadel disputed Zerner's assessment, in a 1996 article critiqued by John Conway in the Aug. 1997 Association of Contemporary Church Historians Newsletter [paragraph breaks added]:

"Niemoller's most famous quotation: "First they came for the Communists . . . "
In the June issue of this Newsletter, I drew attention to an article by Ruth Zerner on this subject in the book "Jewish-Christian Encounters". Drew Kadel of the Burke Library, Union Theological Seminary, New York has now sent me a response he published in the Journal of Religious and Theological Information, Vol 2 (2) 1996, which disputes Zerner's findings.

Instead, Kadel asserts, this quotation was probably first made during the Cold War of the 1950s, and did not include any reference to Jews. He bases this claim on his view that the purpose was to point to the failure of organised groups to co-operate together in resisting evil. Hence the inclusion of the Communists, Socialists and the Trades Unions, but also the omission of the Jews who were in no position to mobilize resistance. He believes the quotation stems from the time of Niemoller's active opposition to Adenauer's anti-Communist and pro-armament policies, i.e. any time between 1950 and 1959.

He therefore disputes Franklin Littell's long-held view that this quotation was first and frequently used during Niemoller's visits to the United States in 1946-7. Littell recalls conversations with the staff member of Church World Service at the time, Marlene Maerten, affirming this earlier date. Kadel dismisses this as the "somewhat equivocal report of an eyewitness many years after the fact (which) should not be regarded as entirely authoritative". Littell, he avers, only put his view in writing in 1986 i.e. "forty years after Niemoller's American tour - a longer lapse of time than between the crucifixion and the writing of Paul's epistles". But Kadel himself blatantly claims as his authoritative source a letter from Niemoller's daughter written in 1991!

To be sure Kadel is right in saying that such famous and evocative quotations take on a life of their own, and get adapted and adopted for different purposes. But the fact that they have not (yet) found written documentation from the 1940s does not prove Littell and Zerner's view incorrect. As a librarian, Kadel should know that just because a book is not on the shelf does not mean it doesn't exist. Furthermore I find Zerner's explanation of the saying's origins more convincing, i.e. that Niemoller listed the Nazis' victims in the order in which they were attacked. First the Communists, then the Socialists and the Trades Unions, and then the Jews. This also explains the omission of the Catholics whom Niemoller always believed had compromised any possible resistance by signing the Concordat. (It is all the more curious to find the Catholics included on posters and cards being sold at the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum!)

Niemoller emerged from seven years of concentration camp deeply impressed by the sufferings of those oppressed by the Nazis, and hence it was only to be expected that he should mention them in his immediate post-war speeches. Even though he had earlier held traditional anti-Judaic prejudices, his experiences in prison opened his eyes to the enormity of the Nazi antisemitic persecution, as clearly proved by the Kristallnacht, the news of which shocked even the inmates of Sachsenhausen. In my view, identification with the victims, and regret at the indifference of the bystanders, rather than the need to organise political resistance in the 1950s, was the main purpose of this quotation. JSC [John Conway]"

3. Franklin Littell, "First they came for the Communists..." in: Christian Ethics Today, vol. 3, no. 1 (February 1997); on-line version (updated May 2001; Oct. 2013 note: now available at the internet archive from Jan. 2003 to Nov. 2010; also published on mojowire.com in 2005/06). Littell writes:

After the war, active in international church affairs, he made preaching trips across the United States. At that time he brought the message of concern for others, often driving the point home with a confession of his own blindness when the Nazi regime rounded up the communists, socialists, trade unionists, and, finally, the Jews. The quotation is now famous, but often in corrupted form.

In a recent bulletin of the Social Studies School Service, a 23" by 16 1/2" poster is advertised for $4.95. It begins, "First they came for the Jews...." A beautiful new folder from Yad Vashem, featuring "The World Center for Teaching the SHOAH," has the Niemoeller statement on page 2 as the banner opening; it uses the same corrupted form. An educational video on skinheads and other racist extremists, produced by Jansen Associates, jumbles the sequence of Niemoeller's warning and adds "then they came for the Roman Catholics, and I didn't protest...." In other freely invented materials, we read "Then they came for the gays, and I didn't protest...."

The latter corruption of the text was never seen by Niemoller: he died before homosexual exhibitionism [note by hm: I apologize for Prof. Littell's bigoted choice of words--so much for him understanding what Niemöller meant!] became a public spectacle [ouch!]. But when we asked him years ago about the addition of the Roman Catholics, he said, "I never said it. They can take care of themselves." (Not particularly friendly, perhaps, remembered today in the modern climate of Catholic/Protestant rapprochement; but the report has the virtue of telling the truth.) When asked about the re-arranged order, "First they came for the Jews...," he simply laughed and passed it off.

There is a more than pedantic point to insisting that the Niemoeller quotation be truthfully used, if at all. Through the texts corrupted to promote special interests, literally millions of school children and also adults are being taught lies about the Holocaust. The damage is not as serious, perhaps, as the steady infiltration of "Holocaust revision" (i.e., denial). But it does help to create an atmosphere of playing fast and loose with the facts through intellectually dishonest and self-serving manipulation of the text.

Niemoeller knew the sequence of Nazi assault, because he was there. Any average student of the third Reich should be able to give the record accurately; it is a shocking display of professional incompetence when materials that are supposed to be vetted by specialists can be issued that are simply contrary to the record. Even if a corrupt text appears in print, whether published by an ignoramus or a special pleasure, the literate reader should catch the mistake.

As Martin Niemoeller gave the message, it was true to the facts. "They" didn't "come for the Catholics" any more than "they" came for the Protestants. The true historical sequence, which Niemoeller of course followed, was communists, socialists, trade unionists, and Jews. The assault on the Jews was the culmination of the Nazi dictatorship's ruthless elimination of targeted communities and individuals.

Martin Niemoeller's message, in its true form, carries a powerful moral impact. Telling the story and drawing the lessons of the SHOAH are weakened, not strengthened, when carelessness or self-indulgence permits a corrupted text to be widely disseminated. The true sequence, which culminates the Nazi genocide of the Jews, is both literally and morally stronger than the corrupt forms that are becoming now widespread:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Updated Sunday, May 27, 2001

• Assessment of Littell by Marcuse: Littell cites no sources in this article, but as Zerner notes, he claims to have himself heard Niemöller say the quotation in the late 1940s. I agree with Littell's dating, and think that the historical ordering culminating with the Jews makes sense, although I cannot confirm it at this time. Also, although I am inclined to agree that Niemöller did not include the Catholics, I cannot agree that Littell's listing of groups is in any way definitive. And I hope Niemöller would not have agreed with Littell's homophobic slurs!
  
4. The on-line Jewish Virtual Library page (at us-israel.org) draws on Sibylle Niemoeller, but without citing the exact source. It claims laconically: "This quotation is often cited incorrectly. The exact phrasing was supplied by Sibylle Sarah Niemoeller von Sell, Martin Niemoeller's second wife. The remark was made in reply to a student's question, 'How could it happen?'" [page viewed Jan. 2003] [Sibylle Baroness von Sell published her autobiography in German in 1992 and 1996, which was published in English translation in 2012: Crowns, Crosses, and Stars: My Youth in Prussia, Surviving Hitler, and a Life Beyond (Purdue press w/ abstract; $23 at amazon.com). This is worth looking at. When did she meet Martin? Does she mention the quotation?]

• Assessment by Marcuse: This comment appears to be based on Niemöller's response to the question in 1974, which he mentioned in an interview published in 1976. At that time he may not have remembered having used the quotation decades earlier, much less which groups he had included back then. So that version is "definitive" only in the sense that it is by Niemöller himself. It indicates the groups he included in the 1970s, not those that he included when he originally formulated the quotation in the mid to late 1940s.

Other versions of the quotation on the web (back to top)

• Snapshot taken at a 2002 peace march in San Francisco (image at right)
• Before early 2002 Jerry Gordon created a site "Europe: A 20th Century Journey" at Liverpool College, with a page discussing various versions: The quotation with a Life of Its Own, [2018: link to web version; off line since 2005-2007]
  His own version was (after Novick, Holocaust in American Life): Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, Jews, me.
  Gordon also offers several other common versions:
  • Time magazine: Jews, trade unionists, Catholics, me
  • Al Gore: Communists, Social Democrats, Catholics, Jews, me
  • US Holocaust memorial museum: Social Democrats, trade unionists, Jews, me
    [note: Gordon quotes an Apr. 15, 2000 article in The Guardian that claims that in "Dachau, Belsen and Buchenwald, only a minority of the prisoners were Jews". This is at best misleading. Certainly in Belsen, and probably in Dachau, a large proportion, probably even a majority of the inmates were indeed Jews. This probably goes for Buchenwald as well. One must include the Nov. 1938 mass arrests, the massive post-1943 use of Jewish prisoner labor, and the evacuations to these camps at the end of the war.]
• New England Holocaust memorial in Boston (with photo and javascript applet): Communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholics, me
• Time magazine, 28 August 1989: Communists, Jews, Catholics, me
  reported on a page of fireblade coffeehouse after a query on alt.activism (another contribution to that discussion)
• Still more versions, collected by Swiss author Peter Meyer on his Serendipity web site
  Jews, communists, trade unionists, me
  

  New England Holocaust Memorial, Boston

  Communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholics me
• Congressional Record, 14, October 1968, page 31636: Jews, Catholics, trade unionists and industrialists, me and the Protestant church (source attribution)(cited by Scott Hayes as well)
• Golden Gate University library has tracked the Congressional Record citation down, and found that a US representative rendered it. According to them, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations gives it as:
  Communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholics, me
• Version from Simpson's quotations, quoted at Niemöller's death in 1984. (on Bartleby.com, a reference web site that started as a "great books" site in 1993)
  Jews, Communists, trade unionists, me
• German version from Georgia Southern University's Dept. of Foreign Languages: Communists, Social Democrats/Socialists, Catholics, me remember.org's version: Communists, Socialists, labor leaders, Jews, me
• holocaust-history.org: Communists, Socialists, labor leaders, Jews, me
• The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles gives it as: Jews, Communists, trade unionists, me The Anti-Nazi League (UK): Jews, communists, trade unionists, me
• US-Israel.org's jsource gives it as: communists, Jews, trade unionists, me
• The Adult Christianity site has a page collecting various additions in contemporary contexts, for example:
  poor women, hackers, uninsured, drug dealers, Blacks, Latinos, panhandlers, pot smokers, DOS users, …
  original reported as: Communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholics, me
• Another "modernized" version (Symbionese liberation army, MOVE in Philly) at syninfo.com [9/01: gone]
• more links on the debate site discussion list
• more versions from a Colorado State Univ. peace forum
• Wathena, Kansas school district English II lesson

• Spanish version on Venezuelan movement for democracy site:
  Primero, ellos vinieron por los socialistas,
  pero yo no hablé porque no era socialista,
  Después vinieron por los sindicalistas,
  pero yo no hablé porque no era sindicalista,
  Luego vinieron por los judíos,
  pero yo no hablé porque no era judío,
  Al final vinieron por mi y, para entonces...
  ya no quedaba nadie que hablara por mi.

Other discussions of Niemöller (back to top)

• Harry Reynolds, blog entry, Jan. 10, 2004 (archive copy w/ e-mail introduction & link to published article)

Other Quotations by Niemoeller (back to top)

• On 25 Jan. 1934, at a meeting in the Reich chancellory, Niemöller said to Hitler:
  "Wir werden nicht aufhören, für unser ganzes Volk wachsam zu sein und niemand, nicht einmal Sie, werden imstande sein, diese Verantwortung uns abzunehmen."
  "We will not stop watching over our entire people, and no one, not even you, will be able to take this responsibility from us."
• Probably in the 1980s (see poster, above):
  "Wer den Frieden will, muß mit dem Gegner gemeinsam leben wollen. Wir müssen vertrauen wagen. Darum Schluss mit dem Rüsten."
  ('Whoever wants peace must want to live together with their opponents. We have to risk trusting each other. There stop the arms race.')

1. Franz Beyer, Menschen warten: Aus dem politischen Wirken Martin Niemöllers seit 1945 (Siegen, 1952) Wilhelm Niemöller, Martin Niemöller: Ein Lebensbild (Munich, 1952)
2. Wilhelm Niemöller, Macht geht vor Recht: Der Prozeß Martin Niemöllers (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1952)[Univ. of Wisconsin libraries, OCR 6/03].
   Written by MN's brother as a kind of birthday present, this 117 page book summarizes MN's work during the Nazi period, with special focus on his July 1937 trial. See this excerpt from pages 108-110 about MN's mea culpa statements from summer 1945 to his Göttingen speech in January 1946. The Göttingen speech contains a narrative version of the content that developed into the famous quotation.
3. Dietmar Schmidt, Martin Niemöller (Hamburg, 1959); Pastor Niemöller, trans. from German (1959)
4. Clarissa Start Davidson, God´s Man: The Story of Pastor Niemoeller (New York, 1959; reprinted 1979)
5. Marlene Maertens, "Martin Niemöller in den USA," in: Stimme der Gemeinde 1/2(1966)
6. Encyclopedia Britannica article
7. James Bentley, Martin Niemöller (1984)
8. Mathias Schreiber, Martin Niemöller: Mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten(available from amazon.de for DM12,90)
9. US Holocaust Memorial Museum biographical article about Niemöller, and brief article about the quotation. The quotation article says that N. mentioned the Catholics in his speeches of the 1940s; I do not believe that he did. However, since the USHMM includes them in their version of the quotation, they are wont to claim that.
10. Wolfgang Gerlach, And the Witnesses were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Jews (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). According to the USHMM, Gerlach claims on p. 47 that the first time N. expressed regret about his antisemitism was in 1963.

• Was will die Bekennende Kirche? Vortrag, gehalten am 25. September 1934 in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Als Ms. gedr. ([S.l.], 1934).
• Das Bekenntnis der Vaeter und die bekennende Gemeinde: Zur Besinnung dargeboten .., 2nd ed. (Munchen: Kaiser, 1934).
• Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel: mit 16 Bildertafeln und 1 Karte (Berlin: Warneck, 1934).
• Alles und in allen Christus! Funfzehn Dahlemer Predigten (Berlin: M. Warneck, 1935).
• Dienst der Kirche am Volk (Berlin: Buchholz & Weißwange, 1935).
• Ein Wort zur kirchlichen Lage (Wuppertal-Barmen: Verl. Unter dem Wort, 1935).
• From U-boat to Concentration Camp: The Autobiography of M. Niemöller (London, 1936).
• Die Staatskirche ist da! (Wuppertal-Barmen: Rheinisch-Westf. Gemeindetag, 1936).
• Ein Briefwechsel statt einer Antwort (Berlin-Steglitz: Eisemann, 1936).
• From U-boat to Pulpit (Chicago: Willett, Clark & company, 1937).
• Here Stand I! (Chicago, New York: Willett, Clark & company, 1937).
• Pastor Niemoller and his creed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939).
• Martin Niemoller und sein Bekenntnis, 6th ed. (Zollikon: Evangelische Buchhandlung, 1939).
• Martin Niemöller and Schweizerisches evangelisches Hilfswerk für Bekennende Kirche in Deutschland, Dennoch Getrost; Die Letzten 28 Predigten Des Pfarrers Martin Niemöller Vor Seiner Verhaftung, Gehalten in den Jahren 1936 Und 1937 in Berlin-Dahlem (Zollikon: Verlag der Evangelischen Buchhandlung, 1939). [UCSB: BX8066.N47 D42]
• The Gestapo Defied, Being the Last Twenty-eight Sermons (London: W. Hodge, 1941).
• Dachau Sermons (New York: Harper & brothers, 1946).
  
• Über die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung: Ansprache vom 6.1.1946 (Zollikon-Zurich: Evangelischer Verl., 1946).
• Die Brücke uber dem Abgrund: Wort Martin Niemollers am 6. Juli 1946 in d. Johannis-Kirche zu Saarbrucken (Saarbrucken: Amt d. Bevollmachtigten d. Evang. Kirche d. Rheinprovinz fur d. Saargebiet, 1946).
• Wir rufen Deutschland zu Gott: Eine Rede ([Luton: Dragon Press, 1946).
• Der Weg ins Freie (Stuttgart: F. Mittelbach, 1946).
• Die Erneuerung unserer Kirche (München: Neubau-Verlag, 1946).
• Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein: sechs Predigten (München: Chr. Kaiser, 1946).
• Kriegsschauplatz oder Brucke: Ein evangelisches Wort zu der Not der Deutschen (Frankfurt am Mainl: Verl. Neue Presse, 1946).
• “Ein Interview mit Pfarrer Martin Niemoller,” Mitteilungen aus der Neuen Mädchenschule (1946).
• Martin Niemöller, De la culpabilité allemande (Neuchatel [etc.]: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1946).
• An die Göttinger Studenten: Rede gehalten ... am 17. Jan. 1946 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1946).
• Die politische Verantwortung des Christen im akademischen Stand. Vortrag gehalten auf Einladung der evang. Studentengemeinde vor Studierenden der Philipps-Univ. zu Marburg an d. Lahn am 4. Mai 1946. (GießenÖ Schmitz, 1946).
• Chapel address, 1947, Jan. 7, 1947.
• Was Niemöller in Amerika wirklich sagte: Eroffnungsansprache auf der Tagung des Federal Council of Churches, am 4. Dez. 1946 in Seattle-USA (Ubertr. aus d. Engl.), 4th ed. (Stuttgart: Quell-Verlag der Evangelischen Ges., 1947).
• Visit of Martin Niemoeller. (Toronto, 1947). [ord ill 5/10]
• Martin Niemöller, Of Guilt and Hope, translated by Renee Spodheim, New York, 1947.
• Deutschland, Wohin? Krieg Oder Frieden? Rede Vom 17. Januar 1952 in Darmstadt (Darmstadt: Jupiter-Verlag, 1952).
• Briefe Aus Der Gefangenschaft Moabit (Frankfurt: Lembeck, 1975).
  Martin Niemöller, Carl Ordnung, and Walter Feurich, Was würde Jesus dazu sagen? Reden, Predigten, Aufsätze 1937 bis 1980 (Union Verlag, 1980).

Other excerpted works

• New York Times index: articles 1933-2004 (also Howard Samuels and "Dear Abby")
• Sibylle Niemöller-von Sell, Zu neuen Ufern lockt ein neuer Tag: Erinnerungen II (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1994).
  p. 230: N's second wife describes N's visit to Dachau with his first wife Else in Fall 1945, very much according to Niemoeller's famous sermon about it. She then launches into a tirade against Nestbeschmutzung (soiling the nest) and Bitburg. From there she goes on to write about the family's suffering on some baron's rural property. She doesn't mention anything about Martin's troubles in the US in 1946.
• Charlotte Guthmann Opfermann e-mailed me the following biographical note about Niemöller-von Sell: [to be added after clarification; 4/21/03; added 3/2/06]:
  • "I was a close friend of Pastor Niemoeller's first wife (killed in Sweden in an automobile accident some years ago [1961]) and am a good friend of his former adm. asst. and second wife Sibylle Niemoeller.
    Mrs Niemoeller lives in the US (near Philadelphia) and has become a practicing observant Jew. She uses the first name Sara[h].
    After WWII Pastor Niemoeller lived in my former home town Wiesbaden and befriended my mother, Claire Guthmann - a concentration camp survivor and the first post WWII president of the Christian-Jewish discussion group.
    Pastor Niemoeller had been pastor of my first post WWII psychiatrist, Dr Anna Mollenhof, formerly of Berlin and a one time member of Niemoeller's church in Dahlem. Dr Mollenhof related to me ca. 1947 that Niemoeller used to mount the cancel [German for pulpit] and extend the Hitler salute to the Dahlem congregation."
  • Charlotte Guthmann Opfermann passed away on November 22, 2004 after a brief illness (memorial page).
  • See also this 4-page biographical interview of Theresienstadt survivor Guthmann Opfermann on about.com. On p.4 she talks about her publications and work in Holocaust education.
    
• According to a page at spartakus.schoolnet.uk (link), MN's first wife Else was killed in an automobile accident on Aug. 7, 1961. MN married Sibylle von Sell in 1971.
• Hans Speier, From the Ashes of Disgrace: A Journal from Germany, 1945-1955 (Amherst: UMass, 1981), p. 69.
  In his entry on Nov. 16, 1950, Speier writes about a conversation in Berlin with French ambassador Francois-Poncet. "To many Frenchmen, Berlin is nothing but a liability, I was told, and the Soviet zone ought to be forgotten, i.e., left to the Communists. Even Pastor Martin Niemöller, who recently wrote to Adenauer that he opposes German participation in Western defense--his letter has been posted by the Communists all over the Soviet zone--was dubbed by these Frenchmen as 'a sincere pacifist,' and warmly applauded. I said a few harsh words about Niemöller. Regardless of his opposition to Hitler, which was rooted in his concern with religious freedom--as a Protestant he signed his letters to the Führer with 'Heil Hitler'--he has always been an ardent nationalist. When he visited the United States in 1946 (upon John Foster Dulles's insistence), I heard him publicly malign the GI's in Germany: 'Look at them chewing gum. They have no military bearing. They could never fight the Russians,' and so on."
  hm note: I have not verified that any of Speier's claims are more than his personal opinion.

Time Magazine Articles (search keywords at Time.com)(back to top)

• Aug 16, 1937
  The four-year-old struggle between Dictator Hitler and the Confessional Synod, Germany's anti-Nazi Protestant Church, has been a clash between ruthlessness and spunky defiance. Last week, however, the Third Reich tried a Confessional leader in a way that would have brought credit to any Government. Up before an emergency court in Berlin was Rev. Dr. Friedrich ...
  474 words
• Feb 21, 1938 "Dynamite"--this longer article has an excellent biographical summary
  In Berlin, jittery with continued crisis, opened last week the sedition trial of Rev. Martin Niembller, who during the War served Kaiser Wilhelm II as one of the most indomitable, hellraising U-boat commanders ever to spread high-powered "frightfulness" for the Fatherland. In 1916, young Lieutenant Niemoller set off on the ramshackle U-73 told to do ...
  1459 words
• Mar 14, 1938
  Sturdily up to the War Ministry in Berlin last week marched a delegation of farmers from East Prussia, "The Hindenburg Country." They urged embarrassed War Ministry officials to do something about 30 East Prussian pastors in jail or concentration camps. "We want to render every possible service to the Führer—in peace time as farmers and ...
  436 words
  
• Mar 20, 1939
  In Germany last week, Rev. Martin Niemöller began his second year in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he is confined for refusing to cut his faith to Nazi patterns. In the U. S., The Federal Council of Churches asked its constituents to devote attention to Pastor Niemöller's anniversary. In the Union Church of Bay Ridge (Brooklyn), ...
  104 words
• May 29, 1939
  By last week most of Hollywood's producers had laid before U. S. exhibitors a tempting menu of cinema fare for the 1 939-40 season (beginning about Aug. 31). Some entrees: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, mighty producing subsidiary of Loew's Inc., promised to spend $42,500,000 on 52 pictures, another $2,500,000 to advertise them. Headliners: Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen ...
  457 words
• Jul 10, 1939
  In Berlin's suburb of Dahlem, two years ago last week, the Gestapo (secret police) arrested Rev. Martin Niemoller, onetime U-boat commander, took him to Moabit prison. Pastor Niemoller was no Marxist, no pacifist, no libertarian. He had, indeed, been an early supporter of Naziism, and the .bourgeoisie and old army families who made up his ...
  387 words
• Dec 23, 1940
  Not you, Herr Hitler, but God is my Führer. These defiant words of Pastor Martin Niemoller were echoed by millions of Germans. And Hitler raged: "It is Niemoller or I." So this second Christmas of Hitler's war finds Niemoller and upwards of 200,000 other Christians (some estimates run as high as 800,000) behind the barbed ...
  2550 words
• Apr 07, 1941
  Catholic, Protestant and Nazi officials in Berlin all issued denials last week that Protestantism's martyr Pastor Martin Niemoller had turned Catholic in prison. Said the head of the Evangelical Church: "I have never received any word of Niemoller wanting to leave Lutheranism." Said a high Catholic prelate: "Niemoller has not applied through any channel for ...
  70 words
• Aug 25, 1941
  Pastor Martin Niemoller has been transferred from the dread Sachsenhausen concentration camp to some place of detention in Bavaria "where he is much better off," according to a message smuggled past the German censor last week. The heroic leader of Lutheran resistance to Hitler has been held by the Gestapo since 1937. ...
  206 words
• Jun 18, 1945
  Pastor Martin Niemoller, the one German whom Christians everywhere had respected, shocked a lot of people last week by saying that he had volunteered to serve in Hitler's U-boat fleet. This admission, made to hostile British and U.S. correspondents in Naples, should have surprised nobody. Niemoller was an ace submarine officer in World War I, ...
  411 word
• Apr 22, 1946
  The best-known churchman in Germany spent the war like a Christian in a concentration camp. The ex-U-boat commander of World War I, Martin Niemoller, of Berlin's weathy, suburban Jesus Christus Church, seemed at times the last spark of Germany's all-but-extinguished soul. When anti-Nazi churchmen organized the Confessional Church in 1934 to fight Hitler's attempts to ...
  In a speech before the Synod, Pastor Niemoller touched the uneasy conscience of many a German churchman. Said he: if Germany's 14,000 pastors had stood together to damn the Nazis in the beginning, they might all have been shot, but their deaths might have opened the eyes of the world and saved at least 35,000,000 lives.
• Dec 16, 1946
  NEW YORK Eleanor Roosevelt, noting that German Pastor Martin Niemoller had arrived in the U.S. on a lecture tour (see RELIGION), promptly piped: "I understand that Dr. Niemoller . . . was against the Nazis because of what they did to the church, but that he had no quarrel with them politically. ... I cannot ...
  337 words
• Feb 03, 1947
  Political passions swirled last week around Pastor Martin Niemöller. Was he a democratic hero? His sponsors said he was. An unreconstructed Nazi? His enemies said so. The truth seemed to be that Niemöller was neither: he was not a leader, a thinker, a martyr, a racist or a hypocrite. U.S. opinion had inflated the Niemöller ...
  521 words