First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
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.— Pastor Martin Niemöller
It’s spring, and school curricula turn to the Holocaust, in English, in world history, and in U.S. history.
Martin Niemöller’s poem registers powerfully for most people — often people do not remember exactly who said it. I have seen it attributed to Deitrich Bonhoeffer (who worked with Niemöller in opposing some Nazi programs), Albert Einstein, Reinhold Niebuhr, Albert Schweitzer, Elie Wiesel, and an “anonymous inmate in a concentration camp.”
Niemöller and his actions generate controversy — did he ever act forcefully enough? Did his actions atone for his earlier inactions? Could anything ever atone for not having seen through Hitler and opposing Naziism from the start? For those discussion reasons, I think it’s important to keep the poem attributed to Niemöller. The facts of his life, his times, and his creation of this poem, go beyond anything anyone could make up. The real story sheds light.
Resources:
- Time magazine story from 1938 on Niemöller’s trial by the Nazis
- Article by Prof. Harold Marcuse, UC Santa Barbara, on the origins and accuracy of various versions of the poem
[…] Quote of the moment: Martin Niemöller, “. . . I did not speak out . . .” […]
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And in 2015, in the president electoral follies:
http://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/674439878965243904
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[…] When they came for the Cypriots, I did not speak out […]
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