Martin Niemoller a warning from history. Yeah, I know, NS Sherlock? But hear me out

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I’ve been reading up on Martin Niemoller (for those that don’t recognize the name he’s the author of the “first they came for…” passage about the Nazis which you’ve probably heard of). And yeah, the dude is literally only known as a warning from history, so why this thread?

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

The point is who that passage is aimed at, and who Martin Niemoller was. My take is that if you take into account who Martin Neimoller was, and what he he did before his imprisonment, then it is clearly a warning from history to conservative American pastors in 2025…

Sure he died in the old West Germany when Trump was still a near bankrupt NY real estate huckster, but seriously I think the facts speak for themselves…

First and foremost, while “first they came for…” is almost universally known, it’s not generally known its Niemoller was a conservative pastor.

He supported Hitler as he rose to power, he even wrote his autobiography in 1933 (the year Hitler gained power) including a passage praising Hitler as beginning a “national revival” after the “years of darkness” of the Weimar Republic (“The System” as he pejoratively refered to it in the book).

TBH if you are a conservative pastor reading this, then the first takeaway should be: if you have just finished your autobiography and have a chapter praising Trump and looking ahead to how wonderful things will be for America under him, maybe hold off a couple of years eh? Write a couple more chapters, see if you won’t want to edit that Trump chapter a teensy bit before you publish? Maybe it won’t age so well as is.

The exact reasons he supported Hitler and the Nazis are also very bloody apropos. The German Lutheran Church Niemoller belonged to was not historically nationalist. But in the last 60 years (post German unification, and especially during WW1) it had become so, the god-fearing “country folk” who made up the Lutheran flock (and clergy) were now god-fearing flag waving proud Germans.

In addition to general nationalist tendencies in the church as a whole Neimoller had a profound hatred of the liberal Weimar Republic with its sexual permissiveness (including incredibly progressive LGBT policies for the time) and general perception of being anti Christian and pro atheist. Even if Hitler was clearly not Christian he was promising to destroy the Weimar Republic and bring back traditional values. This was music to Neimollers ears. So he enthusiastically and publicly supported Hitler.

He was arrested in 1936 after opposing Hitler’s treatment of the Lutheran Church. He was sent to a concentration camp but as a high profile prisoner known to Hitler personally, he was treated relatively well and survived the war.

After the war he was wracked by guilty by what he had done, as well as coming up with those famous lines (he never actually wrote them as a poem, but spoke them in public on numerous occasions) he publicly asked for forgiveness for himself and his church.

That’s where he was coming from, and where “first they came for…” came from. Those lines are obviously a warning for everyone to oppose fascism before it’s to late. But they are very specifically a warning too conservative pastors to not get into bed with fascists just because they claim to share a few of your worldy political goals.

(FWIW I mainly wrote this as there is a conservative pastor among my Facebook friends who suddenly decided after Trump got elected to start spewing Maga propaganda. I mean he’s Baptist pastor in the south, I was not assuming he was liberal even if I met him in SF. But it seems particularly cowardly to wait until Trump was elected before going from apolitical to actively pro Maga just as Trump is being actively Fascist. Not that this will do much, even if he sees it, but probably more than a snarky Facebook reply followed by a block, which is my only other potential response)

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Really great post.

This hits home:

“Make Germany great again”??

Too “woke,” eh?

At least Niemoller changed his tune when the leopards came to eat his face.

3

Yup, “Make <Nation> Great Again” is one of the defining features of fascism.

4

Too little, too late, too bad. To bad there isn’t a Hell he can burn in.

5

If you reached to change it to reflect the current times:

First they came for the …, but I was too busy directly financially supporting the regime by buying a Tesla to really care.

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Yeah, it’s all too easy to read the “Because I was not a” lines as being spoken by a Hans Nobody when the line should have been “Because I hated the” as spoken by someone supporting what was being done.

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Note the discussion of how culpable Niemoller was how much he actually opposed Hitler, and how genuine his contrition was after the war, are beyond the discussion of this post. It gets very complicated very quickly. e.g. Yay Niemoller: he did oppose Hitler over the persecution of the Jews, less yay: he only opposed Hitler over persecution of Lutherans who had converted from Judaism (it’s possible his flavor of anti-Semitism was the old fashioned Christian “they killed Jesus” type, unlike the Nazis with their fancy new “scientific” race based anti-semitism which didn’t care about details like conversion to Christianity)

8

I don’t remember who it was but someone at this board once commented that when you mix church and state, you get state. That has always stuck with me.

9

“There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”

Admiral William Adama/Battlestar Galactica

Maybe not relevant to this particular thread but I’ve always appreciated this statement from a long ago sci fi series.

10

I saw a modern variation a few days ago that I’ve taken to heart;

First they came for the transgender people and immigrants
And I spoke up right away
Because I’m not a dipshit and I know how the rest of the poem goes

11

I’ve heard the quote for years, long before Trump, and literally until a few days ago had not known that Niemoller had been a Hitler supporter during Hitler’s rise to power. It does put a whole new perspective on the quote.

12

I love that.

Back To The OP

I’ve told this story before. During the campaign before his first term, my Mom’s friend Helga said “He reminds me of Hitler and his rise to power.” Normally, I object to such comparisons. They are usually based on very few facts and are hyperbole. Helga was an immigrant from Germany. She witnessed Hitler’s rise to power. She was in a concentration camp and has the tattoo to prove it. When she spoke those words, I was terrified. They become more terrifying with each passing day.

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Niemoller’s pro-Hitler, pro-Nazi stance is properly noted by posters in this thread (and another one.) A few things to add. He was imprisoned in concentration camps, including Dachau, for 7 years. He admitted his culpability and grievous errors, and tried to make amends. He purposely chose to identify Communists, socialists, trade unionists, and Jews in his speech because as he admitted, he and many in his church, community, and social circles had not cared about “those people” at the time. Thus it is in part an ongoing confession of his own terrible failing.

Not arguing for forgiveness here.

Finally, whatever its provenance, the warning is an important one. Thanks, @Smapti, for the updated version!

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The people become the enemy of the state long before the military and police combine. The state is created precisely to govern the people in the interests of the rich, and that requires police to keep “order.”

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Good, but I hope we have also learned to oppose these early outrages even if they didn’t lead to the rest of the poem. In other words, would Niemoller have been so enlightened if they had never come for him?

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Although “socialism,” is still a RW snarl-word, Communism isn’t the standby club to beat progressives it once was. “Tax and Spend Liberals.” is the new scapegoat. Tellingly, Joseph McCarthy’s replacement in the Senate was William Proxmire; remembered for his Golden Fleece “awards” that shed light on ridiculous government spending.

Proxmire, embodying the best qualities of a Wisconsinite by their balance of silliness and common sense, never politicized the issue or went at it ham-fistedly. But of course the cudgel was always there to be taken up by those who were so inclined.

Starting with the National Endowment for the Arts, and instead of a Senate circular a grandstanding subcommittee open hearing. Targeting Robert Mapplethorpe in 1989, and then day dooming thousands of African infants to death by AIDS in 2025.

Of course, “when they came after the photos of the guy with a bullwhip up his butt…” doesn’t have the same catchet, and a responsible holder of the public purse should be wary of how their disbursements can be used against more worthy causes. But the RW really told on itself with inventing “the sin of empathy” out of the ether, or perhaps as a natural (ill)logical extension of Prosperity Gospel

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Really? Because Trump and other MAGA cretins have been throwing around the term ‘Marxist’ like it is going out of style even though none of the people they are applying it to are remotely Marxist in their political views.

Stranger