‘First they came for the communists…’ How a ‘poem’ by a rabid antisemite and supporter of the Nazis became so popular in the modern world
Martin Niemöller, the German theologian, was a very strange and unpleasant person, despite his widely quoted meditation on guilt
When former British Cabinet Minister, Esther McVey, denounced a ban on smoking outside public houses by quoting Pastor Niemöller’s supposed words about the Holocaust, there was widespread condemnation. It was felt to be in very poor taste to invoke the memory of the Holocaust in such a trivial matter as to where the patrons of pubs were allowed in the future to smoke. What is often described as a ‘poem’ has acquired some of the sanctity surrounding the Holocaust itself. This is strange, because the man always assumed to be responsible for the sentiments expressed was ferociously antisemitic and a supporter of the Nazi party. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he volunteered to serve the armed forces of the Third Reich in any capacity at all.
When we further learn that Martin Niemöller was banned by the then Home Secretary from entering Britain after the end of the war due to the pro-Nazi views which he continued to propagate, even after the Holocaust was known about, we see that there is something odd going on. To cap it all, he did not even write the famous ‘poem’ which is so inextricably linked to his name!
Martin Niemöller was born in 1892, into a very conservative German family. His father was a Lutheran pastor, the same profession which he too was eventually to follow. After serving as a submarine commander during the First World War, Niemöller enrolled at a theological college. The years following the end of the war saw what was virtually a civil war in Germany, as right-wing militias, known as Frei Korps, fought gun battles on the streets against both the government forces and various communist groups. Martin Niemöller’s extreme right-wing views, which were combined with an almost fanatical antisemitism, led to his being appointed battalion commander of one of the Frei Korps units during the Ruhr uprising in 1920. Little wonder that such a man should have been an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler and his National Socialist movement.
It was not only the right-wing and nationalist nature of the Nazis which appealed to the young church minister, but also their racial policies relating to Jews. Martin Niemöller hated Jews. He reluctantly accepted Christian converts into his church, but thought that it would be better by far if a separate church was set up for Jews who had converted to Christianity. In 1935, two years after Hitler came to power and had instituted many measure directed against Jews, Pastor Niemöller gave a sermon in the course of which he said of the Jews, ‘What is the reason for this obvious punishment, which has lasted for thousands of years? Dear brethren, the reason is easily given: the Jews brought the Christ of God to the cross!’ He went on to say that the Jews were, ‘a highly gifted people which produces idea after idea for the benefit of the world, but whatever it takes up changes into poison’. These are hardly the kind of views which we think of when we read the much quoted line, ‘Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew’. For Niemöller, the Jews were a scourge. It is worth mentioning too that at the time when he gave that sermon, Pastor Niemöller routinely greeted the congregation in his church with the Nazi salute!
It was only when Hitler began interfering in what Martin Niemöller thought should be exclusively ecclesiastical matters that he was imprisoned in 1938, not because he opposed the Nazi party and their treatment of the Jews. He declared after the war that he had never had any political differences with Hitler, which is a revealing admission. When Britain declared war on Germany, he volunteered from prison to serve in the armed forces.
After the Second World War ended in 1945, many Germans were ashamed of their silence during the Holocaust, but Pastor Niemöller was not among their number. In June, 1945, he gave an interview in Naples, following his release and said plainly that he had, ‘never quarrelled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds’. There was anger when this speech was reported in Britain and when it was suggested that Pastor Niemöller might be planning to visit Britain, the Home Secretary intervened and forbade his entry to the country.
Two years after the end of the war, when all the details of the dreadful events at camps such as Auschwitz were known to the whole world, Niemöller was unrepentant of his antisemitism. In June 1947, he wished for his housekeeper to receive help from the a local authority in Hesse, who was responsible for handing out food parcels to some citizens in the part of Germany. When told that she was not eligible for such assistance, Niemöller said, ‘So you only support friends of the Jews?’ The expression he used was Judenfreunde, which translates as Jew-friend. This was a Nazi term, used in a pejorative sense. Later that same year, when asked why he felt that there was still antisemitism in Germany, Pastor Niemöller mentioned during a discussion that, ‘Everywhere in American institutions Jews are placed. Let’s be honest and call a spade a spade.’ This sounds very much like a man who is still in the grip of the feelings about Jews which were so prevalent in Germany during the 1930s under Hitler.
So how was a man who disliked Jews and was ready to express himself using the language of the Third Reich years after the death of Hitler and the defeat of Germany, able to reinvent himself as somebody whose moving poem encapsulated many people’s feelings about the Holocaust? The answer is, quite simply, that he did not. Perhaps we should remind ourselves at this point just what we are talking about. This is the ‘poem’, which is so widely quoted and wrongly attributed to Martin Niemöller;
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
It is undeniably very moving, but has only the most tenuous and insubstantial link to Martin Niemöller.
In 1946, Niemöller gave a speech in which he freely admitted that he had ignored the plight of a number of groups in Germany before the Second World War. Jews were not included in this list and nor was what became known as the ‘confession’ in the form of a poem. Indeed, it was a dry and dull piece of prose and here is a sample of it;
the people who were put in the camps then were Communists.
Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the
newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing
Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion,
those enemies of Christians—should I be my brother's keeper?
This is certainly not as catchy and quotable as the more modern version or course, but it has the virtue of actually being Martin Niemöller’s words.
Over the next thirty years or so, various précis of the speech which was delivered in January 1946 began to be circulated. Some mentioned Catholics, others Social Democrats and from the late 1950s onwards, Jews began to appear in the list. Niemöller allowed his name to be associated with these flowery versions of his ‘confession’, but none were written by him. Interestingly enough, the Martin Niemöller Foundation, at least until 2005, gave the following as their authorised version;
When the Nazis came for the Communists, I kept silent;
I was after all not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I kept silent;
I was after all not a Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I kept silent,
I was after all not a trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could
protest.
It will be observed immediately that Jews did not feature in this version, twenty years ago, although Social Democrats do.
The way in which a convinced antisemite and supporter of the Nazis has somehow been transformed into somebody who wrote the most moving poem about the Holocaust which most people have ever come across, is fascinating. It is probably too late in the day to correct the historical record, but below I give links which will provide more information about the topics which I have covered in this piece.
https://historymatters.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/blog-archive/2023/then-they-came-for-me
https://spartacus-educational.com/GERniemoller.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
Another great iconoclastic expose Simon.
another lie collapses. has this establishment uttered a single word of truth about that conflict, the outcome of which still decides our miserable fate?