Martin Niemöller in an act of the World Council of Churches in September 1954.
(Photo © John Dominis / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images)
recently fell into the hands of the passer, a friend of collecting curiosities, a "gate" or pass a conference of the German Lutheran pastor and theologian Martin Niemöller in Heldelberg, a green piece of paper off. The talk took place on June 21, 1947, and does not specify on which it relates. And since it is so, a curiosity (which in principle has minimal interest to a curious person), gave him to find out who the character in question. AND seems that his biography deserves to be disclosed, it is somehow a test of the relativity of the "historical truths" when they claim to be absolute, or a way to see the inside story, more or less as defined by Miguel de Unamuno .
Born in Lippstadt, a medium city of Westphalia, the Jan. 14, 1892, this church died in Wiesbaden (Hesse) on March 6, 1984. After graduating as an officer-cadet at the Imperial German Navy, actively participated in the First World War, and was even awarded the Iron Cross first class, as first officer of a submarine which counted among his achievements the collapse of thirty-five vessels, although it one of these dips, which took place on January 25, 1917, put a burden of conscience that then it would be unbearable: "It marked a point of no return my life, and that opened my eyes to the absolute impossibility of a moral universe, "commented biographer Jay Winter, Jay and Blaine Baggett [1] . The war ended, however, as commander of another submarine, the U-67, that three ships scuttled allies.
The submarine U-67, under whose command was Martin Niemöller
end of First World War. Over
that conflict, in which Germany was defeated very badly digested, reflections Niemöller led to study theology at the seminary of the University of Münster, and in 1924 was ordained pastor of the Lutheran Church. Commissioned in 1931 to a parish on the outskirts of Berlin, sympathized with Nazism, was even a member of the Freikorps ('Bodies Franks' autonomous militias fighting the Nazis resumed he had created the Frederick II of Prussia in eighteenth century, during the Seven Years War, which used to defend the German borders to a hypothetical Red Army attack) and complied with anti-Semitic nationalism of Hitler. [2]
At the time of their scores
with Nazism.
However, when in 1933 the Nazis implemented the Gleichschaltung ('sync') to impose totalitarian control and created the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs in order to control the Church and place them Arierparagraph ('Aryan paragraph'), which excludes any citizen of Jewish descent, Niemöller decided to oppose such a clause and founded in May 1934, another Lutheran pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) and the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968), the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), whose purpose was to serve " not the German people or history, but to the sovereign word of God, "which rejected the submission of the Church to the State.
At the same time, confessing broke all ties with the German Evangelical Church, which continued faithful to the Nazi regime. The new church was subject to public vilification and persecution, and July 1, 1937 Martin Niemöller was arrested by the Gestapo, which was time he had "pinched" his phone, "charged with" treason against the state and the Party "and sentenced in March 1938 to seven months in prison, which already had served, to deprive him of liberty, was arrested again by the Gestapo and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and in 1941, Dachau, where he remained until he was liberated by U.S. troops on May 5, 1945. When I was in Dachau her young daughter, Jutta, died of diphtheria, his eldest son died fighting in Pomerania and his other son was taken prisoner by the Red Army.
has never been known very well how Martin Niemöller fell out with Hitler, regardless of the affairs of the Church. In fact, he himself confessed in June 1945, during a press conference in Naples, who "had never fought with Hitler on political issues, but only for religious reasons" (sung facts: in 1931 he proclaimed from the pulpit that Germany needed a Führer and spread the views of Hitler on race and nationality, and when Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in October 1933, Niemöller was sent a congratulatory telegram.) At that same press conference said, without blushing, that in 1939, after his arrest, had offered as a fighter for the German Navy.
Niemöller represented among the swastika and the cross
on the cover of an issue of Time .
These public statements, of course, made him suspect in the eyes of the victors of the war, and when he tried to visit Britain unleashed a campaign against him, which took even the Archdeacon of Lancaster, who stated that "the visit of the pastor at this time can not be more damaging." Yes, that visited on the other hand, no problems, the Soviet Union (Years later, in 1967, would be honored with the Lenin Prize for his work for peace, in 1971 he was awarded, for the same reason, the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany). Built
after release to the peace movement, presided over the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau (1947-1961) and starred in a world tour to acknowledge the collective guilt for the Nazi persecution and crimes against humanity committed in the name of German Evangelical Church: his book Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis ("Stuttgart Confession of guilt ', written antre 1946 and 1947) contains his reflections on this issue. He also chaired the World Council of Churches.
With his first wife, Else, in 1961,
shortly before she died in a traffic accident
and resulting
moderately wounded
on 7 August of that year.
As peace was very active in the struggle for nuclear disarmament, having considered immoral bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1959 some strong statements against the military took him back to court. Later he led the German Movement for Peace, where he openly opposed the Vietnam War in 1965 and en pleno conflicto viajó a Vietnam del Norte y se entrevistó con el presidente comunista Hồ Chí Minh, lo cual levantó una fuerte polémica, sobre todo cuando comentó que “está claro que el presidente de Vietnam del Norte no es un fanático, sino una persona con mucha determinación y un hombre poderoso, pero con capacidad para escuchar a los demás, algo poco frecuente en una persona de su posición”.
Pese a su gran personalidad y sus fuertes convicciones, que lo enfrentaron a políticos de talla, nunca perdió su característico sentido del humor. En 1982, durante la celebración de sus 90 años, dijo que había comenzado su carrera política as an ultraconservative who wanted the return of the Kaiser-monarchist always said, "but had become a revolutionary:" If I live to be 100, he added, may end up being an anarchist. "
In 1946, he wrote the poem reproduced below, based on the sermon on the occasion of Easter that year ("What would Jesus Christ said?") And became very popular, although he hesitated for a long time of his own and some attributed it to Bertolt Brecht, his wife Sybille demonstrations after his death, and investigations that would respect Harold Marcuse [3] -one of the greatest researchers work-Niemöller, however, dispelled the doubts. The following is one of several versions circulating of this poem:
When the Nazis came for the Communists,
kept silent,
because I wasn'ta communist.
jailed
When social democrats, I remained silent
,
because I wasn'ta Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak
, Porque yo no era
sindicalista.
Cuando vinieron a llevarse a los Judíos,
no protests, porque yo no era
Judio.
Cuando vinieron a buscarme, no habia nadie
más que pudiera protestar.
[When the Nazis came for the communists, / I did not speak / I was not a Communist. / / When they came for the Socialists, / I did not speak / I was not a social democrat. / / When they came for the trade unionists, / I did not speak out / I was not a trade unionist. / / When they came for the Jews, / I do not have protestiert; / ich war ja kein Jude. / / Als sie mich Holten, / gab's keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.]
However, there are other versions, as can be heard here .
Niemöller the American Chemistry Nobel
Linus Pauling and his second wife, Sibylle, in 1983,
few months before his death.
Martin Niemöller was, therefore, a controversial figure, which moved at any time between their attachment to German nationalism, deeply monarchist, his love-hate relationship with Nazism (Hitler wanted rebuild the lost empire) and his commitment to peace, probably the result of a not very disguised need for catharsis. Characteristics that have defined many biographies, especially of supporting actors on the stage of history.
[1] Jay Winter, Jay and Blaine Baggett: 1914-18: The Gea r t War and the Shaping of the 20th Century. London, BBC Books & New York, Penguin Books, 1996.
[2] See the study by Robert Michael, "Theological Myth, German Antisemitism, and the Holocaust: The Case of Martin Niemoeller" in Holocaust Genocide Studies , Oxford, 1987, 2 (1), pp. 105-122. (This article can be downloaded in full, by subscription, via the link http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/105.full.pdf.)
[3] See http://www .history.ucsb.edu / faculty / Marcus / niem.htm.
Born in Lippstadt, a medium city of Westphalia, the Jan. 14, 1892, this church died in Wiesbaden (Hesse) on March 6, 1984. After graduating as an officer-cadet at the Imperial German Navy, actively participated in the First World War, and was even awarded the Iron Cross first class, as first officer of a submarine which counted among his achievements the collapse of thirty-five vessels, although it one of these dips, which took place on January 25, 1917, put a burden of conscience that then it would be unbearable: "It marked a point of no return my life, and that opened my eyes to the absolute impossibility of a moral universe, "commented biographer Jay Winter, Jay and Blaine Baggett [1] . The war ended, however, as commander of another submarine, the U-67, that three ships scuttled allies.
The submarine U-67, under whose command was Martin Niemöller end of First World War. Over
that conflict, in which Germany was defeated very badly digested, reflections Niemöller led to study theology at the seminary of the University of Münster, and in 1924 was ordained pastor of the Lutheran Church. Commissioned in 1931 to a parish on the outskirts of Berlin, sympathized with Nazism, was even a member of the Freikorps ('Bodies Franks' autonomous militias fighting the Nazis resumed he had created the Frederick II of Prussia in eighteenth century, during the Seven Years War, which used to defend the German borders to a hypothetical Red Army attack) and complied with anti-Semitic nationalism of Hitler. [2]
At the time of their scores with Nazism.
However, when in 1933 the Nazis implemented the Gleichschaltung ('sync') to impose totalitarian control and created the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs in order to control the Church and place them Arierparagraph ('Aryan paragraph'), which excludes any citizen of Jewish descent, Niemöller decided to oppose such a clause and founded in May 1934, another Lutheran pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) and the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968), the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), whose purpose was to serve " not the German people or history, but to the sovereign word of God, "which rejected the submission of the Church to the State.
At the same time, confessing broke all ties with the German Evangelical Church, which continued faithful to the Nazi regime. The new church was subject to public vilification and persecution, and July 1, 1937 Martin Niemöller was arrested by the Gestapo, which was time he had "pinched" his phone, "charged with" treason against the state and the Party "and sentenced in March 1938 to seven months in prison, which already had served, to deprive him of liberty, was arrested again by the Gestapo and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and in 1941, Dachau, where he remained until he was liberated by U.S. troops on May 5, 1945. When I was in Dachau her young daughter, Jutta, died of diphtheria, his eldest son died fighting in Pomerania and his other son was taken prisoner by the Red Army.
has never been known very well how Martin Niemöller fell out with Hitler, regardless of the affairs of the Church. In fact, he himself confessed in June 1945, during a press conference in Naples, who "had never fought with Hitler on political issues, but only for religious reasons" (sung facts: in 1931 he proclaimed from the pulpit that Germany needed a Führer and spread the views of Hitler on race and nationality, and when Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in October 1933, Niemöller was sent a congratulatory telegram.) At that same press conference said, without blushing, that in 1939, after his arrest, had offered as a fighter for the German Navy.
Niemöller represented among the swastika and the cross on the cover of an issue of Time .
These public statements, of course, made him suspect in the eyes of the victors of the war, and when he tried to visit Britain unleashed a campaign against him, which took even the Archdeacon of Lancaster, who stated that "the visit of the pastor at this time can not be more damaging." Yes, that visited on the other hand, no problems, the Soviet Union (Years later, in 1967, would be honored with the Lenin Prize for his work for peace, in 1971 he was awarded, for the same reason, the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany). Built
after release to the peace movement, presided over the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau (1947-1961) and starred in a world tour to acknowledge the collective guilt for the Nazi persecution and crimes against humanity committed in the name of German Evangelical Church: his book Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis ("Stuttgart Confession of guilt ', written antre 1946 and 1947) contains his reflections on this issue. He also chaired the World Council of Churches.
With his first wife, Else, in 1961, shortly before she died in a traffic accident
and resulting
moderately wounded
on 7 August of that year.
As peace was very active in the struggle for nuclear disarmament, having considered immoral bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1959 some strong statements against the military took him back to court. Later he led the German Movement for Peace, where he openly opposed the Vietnam War in 1965 and en pleno conflicto viajó a Vietnam del Norte y se entrevistó con el presidente comunista Hồ Chí Minh, lo cual levantó una fuerte polémica, sobre todo cuando comentó que “está claro que el presidente de Vietnam del Norte no es un fanático, sino una persona con mucha determinación y un hombre poderoso, pero con capacidad para escuchar a los demás, algo poco frecuente en una persona de su posición”.
Pese a su gran personalidad y sus fuertes convicciones, que lo enfrentaron a políticos de talla, nunca perdió su característico sentido del humor. En 1982, durante la celebración de sus 90 años, dijo que había comenzado su carrera política as an ultraconservative who wanted the return of the Kaiser-monarchist always said, "but had become a revolutionary:" If I live to be 100, he added, may end up being an anarchist. "
In 1946, he wrote the poem reproduced below, based on the sermon on the occasion of Easter that year ("What would Jesus Christ said?") And became very popular, although he hesitated for a long time of his own and some attributed it to Bertolt Brecht, his wife Sybille demonstrations after his death, and investigations that would respect Harold Marcuse [3] -one of the greatest researchers work-Niemöller, however, dispelled the doubts. The following is one of several versions circulating of this poem:
When the Nazis came for the Communists,
kept silent,
because I wasn'ta communist.
jailed
When social democrats, I remained silent
,
because I wasn'ta Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak
, Porque yo no era
sindicalista.
Cuando vinieron a llevarse a los Judíos,
no protests, porque yo no era
Judio.
Cuando vinieron a buscarme, no habia nadie
más que pudiera protestar.
[When the Nazis came for the communists, / I did not speak / I was not a Communist. / / When they came for the Socialists, / I did not speak / I was not a social democrat. / / When they came for the trade unionists, / I did not speak out / I was not a trade unionist. / / When they came for the Jews, / I do not have protestiert; / ich war ja kein Jude. / / Als sie mich Holten, / gab's keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.]
However, there are other versions, as can be heard here .
Niemöller the American Chemistry Nobel Linus Pauling and his second wife, Sibylle, in 1983,
few months before his death.
Martin Niemöller was, therefore, a controversial figure, which moved at any time between their attachment to German nationalism, deeply monarchist, his love-hate relationship with Nazism (Hitler wanted rebuild the lost empire) and his commitment to peace, probably the result of a not very disguised need for catharsis. Characteristics that have defined many biographies, especially of supporting actors on the stage of history.
[1] Jay Winter, Jay and Blaine Baggett: 1914-18: The Gea r t War and the Shaping of the 20th Century. London, BBC Books & New York, Penguin Books, 1996.
[2] See the study by Robert Michael, "Theological Myth, German Antisemitism, and the Holocaust: The Case of Martin Niemoeller" in Holocaust Genocide Studies , Oxford, 1987, 2 (1), pp. 105-122. (This article can be downloaded in full, by subscription, via the link http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/105.full.pdf.)
[3] See http://www .history.ucsb.edu / faculty / Marcus / niem.htm.
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