Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (; 14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a German theologian and
Lutheran
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
pastor.
[ He opposed the ]Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
regime during the late 1930s, and was sent to a concentration camp for his affiliation with the Confessing Church and his opposition to state involvement in Church. After the war, he went on tour around the world to condemn the Nazi cause and educate people about the importance of human rights. In 1946 he published the confessional piece " First they came ...".
Niemöller was a national conservative and initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
and a self-identified antisemite
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
.[Michael, Robert. ''Theological Myth, German Antisemitism, and the Holocaust: The Case of Martin Niemoeller, Holocaust and Genocide Studies''. 1987; 2: 105–122.] He became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches. He opposed the Nazis' Aryan Paragraph.[Martin Stöhr, ]
... habe ich geschwiegen'. Zur Frage eines Antisemitismus bei Martin Niemöller"
' tr. ...I kept quiet'. On the question of anti-Semitism with Martin Niemöller". For his opposition to the Nazis' state control of the churches, Niemöller was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly escaped execution. After his imprisonment, he expressed his deep regret about not having done enough to help victims of the Nazis. He turned away from his earlier nationalistic beliefs and was one of the initiators of the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt. From the 1950s on, he was a vocal pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...
and anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...
activist, and vice-chair of War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International (WRI), headquartered in London, is an international anti-war organisation with members and affiliates in over 40 countries.
History
''War Resisters' International'' was founded in Bilthoven, Netherlands in 1921 un ...
from 1966 to 1972. He met with Ho Chi Minh
(born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...
during the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
and was a committed campaigner for nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term ''denuclearization'' is also used to describe the pro ...
.[Rupp, Hans Karl. "Niemöller, Martin", in ''The World Encyclopedia of Peace''. Edited by ]Linus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling ( ; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist and peace activist. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. ''New Scientist'' called him one of the 20 gre ...
, Ervin László, and Jong Youl Yoo. Oxford: Pergamon, 1986. (vol. 2, pp. 45–46).
Youth and World War I participation
Niemöller was born in Lippstadt, the Prussian Province of Westphalia
The Province of Westphalia () was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. In turn, Prussia was the largest component state of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, of the Weimar ...
(now in North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...
), on 14 January 1892 to the Lutheran
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
pastor Heinrich Niemöller and his wife Pauline (née Müller), and grew up in a very conservative home. In 1900, the family moved to Elberfeld
Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the Germany, German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.
History
The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was ...
where he finished school, taking his ''Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
'' exam in 1908.
He began a career as an officer
An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...
of the Imperial Navy of the German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
, and his first assigment was as cadet on the cruiser SMS Hertha after which he served on the battleship . In 1915, was assigned to the U-boat
U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...
branch. In October of that year, he joined the submarine mother ship , followed by training on the submarine . In February 1916, he became second officer on , which was assigned to the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
in April 1916.[''Current Biography 1943'', pg.555] There the submarine fought on the Saloniki front, patrolled in the Strait of Otranto and from December 1916 onward, planted many mines in front of Port Said
Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...
and was involved in commerce raiding
Commerce raiding is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging its combatants or enforcing a blockade against them. Privateering is a fo ...
. Flying a French flag as a ruse of war, the SM ''U-73'' sailed past British warships and torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...
ed two Allied troopships and a British man-of-war.
In January 1917, Niemöller was the navigator
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's prim ...
of . Later he returned to Kiel
Kiel ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. With a population of around 250,000, it is Germany's largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the Kieler Förde inlet of the Ba ...
, and in August 1917, he became first officer on , which attacked numerous ships at Gibraltar
Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...
, in the Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay ( ) is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Point Penmarc'h to the Spanish border, and along the northern coast of Spain, extending westward ...
, and other places. During this time, the SM ''U-151'' crew set a record by sinking 55,000 tons of Allied ships in 115 days at sea. In June 1918, he became commander of the . Under his command, ''UC-67'' achieved a temporary closing of the French port of Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
by sinking ships in the area, by torpedoes, and by the laying of mines.
For his achievements, Niemöller was awarded the Iron Cross
The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...
First Class. When the war drew to a close, he decided to become a preacher, a story he later recounted in his book ''Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel'' (''From U-boat to Pulpit''). At war's end, Niemöller resigned his commission, as he rejected the new democratic government of the German Empire that formed after the abdication of the German Emperor Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until Abdication of Wilhelm II, his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as th ...
.
Weimar Republic and education as pastor
In 1919, he married Else Bremer (20 July 1890 – 7 August 1961). That same year, he began working at a farm in Wersen near Osnabrück
Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...
but gave up becoming a farmer as he could not afford to buy his own farm. He subsequently pursued his earlier idea of becoming a Lutheran pastor and studied Protestant theology at the Westphalian Wilhelm University in Münster
Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...
from 1919 to 1923. His motivation was his ambition to give a disordered society meaning and order through the Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
and church bodies.
During the Ruhr Uprising
The Ruhr uprising () or March uprising () was an uprising that occurred in the Ruhr region of Germany from 13 March to 6 April 1920. It was a Left-wing politics, left-wing workers' revolt triggered by the call for a Kapp Putsch#General Strike ...
in 1920, he was battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of up to one thousand soldiers. A battalion is commanded by a lieutenant colonel and subdivided into several Company (military unit), companies, each typically commanded by a Major (rank), ...
commander of the "III. Bataillon der Akademischen Wehr Münster" belonging to the paramilitary Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European paramilitary volunteer units that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenaries or private military companies, rega ...
.
Niemöller was ordained on 29 June 1924. Subsequently, the united Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union appointed him curate of Münster's Church of the Redeemer. After serving as the superintendent of the Inner Mission in the old-Prussian ecclesiastical province of Westphalia, Niemöller in 1931 became pastor of the Jesus Christus Kirche (comprising a congregation together with St. Anne's Church) in Dahlem, an affluent suburb of Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
.["Niemöller", 8:698.]
Role in Nazi Germany
Like most Protestant pastors, Niemöller was a national conservative, and openly supported the conservative opponents of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
. He voted for Nazis in 1924, 1928, and 1933. He thus welcomed Hitler's accession to power in 1933, believing that it would bring a national revival. In his autobiography, ''From U-Boat to Pulpit'' published in the spring of 1933, he called the time of "the System" (a pejorative name for the Weimar Republic) the "years of darkness" and hailed Adolf Hitler for beginning a "national revival". Niemöller's autobiography received positive reviews in Nazi newspapers and was a bestseller. However, he decidedly opposed the Nazis' " Aryan Paragraph" to Jewish converts to Lutheranism.
The Nazi regime reacted with mass arrests and charges against almost 800 pastors and ecclesiastical lawyers. In 1933, Niemöller founded the '' Pfarrernotbund'', an organization of pastors to "combat rising discrimination against Christians of Jewish background". By the autumn of 1934, Niemöller joined other Lutheran and Protestant churchmen such as Karl Barth
Karl Barth (; ; – ) was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary '' The Epistle to the Romans'', his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship (except for a single phrase) of the Barmen Decl ...
and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in founding the Confessing Church, a Protestant group that opposed the Nazification of the German Protestant churches. Author and Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
published Niemöller's sermons in the United States and praised his bravery.
However, Niemöller only gradually abandoned his national conservative views. Even as he opposed the Nazis, he made pejorative remarks about Jews of faith while protecting – in his own church – baptised Christians of Jewish descent whom the Nazis persecuted. In one sermon in 1935, he remarked: "What is the reason for heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
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!"
This has led to controversy regarding his attitude toward Jews and to accusations of anti-Judaism
Anti-Judaism denotes a spectrum of historical and contemporary ideologies that are fundamentally or partially rooted in opposition to Judaism. It encompasses the rejection or abrogation of the Mosaic covenant and advocates for the superse ...
. The Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
historian Robert Michael argues that Niemöller's statements were a result of traditional antisemitism
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
, and that Niemöller agreed with the Nazis' position on the "Jewish question" at that time. American sociologist Werner Cohn lived as a Jew in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, and he also reports on antisemitic statements by Niemöller. Niemöller said, "The crucial issue was not whether the USA or the USSR would win the next war. The big question rather was whether there would still be a white race in thirty or forty years." In her book ''Twisted Cross'', Doris L. Bergen says, "Martin Niemöller explained how he, a self-professed antisemite, had come to oppose plans to exclude non-Aryans from the clergy. Even his personal antipathy toward Jews, Niemöller indicated, had not blinded him to the realization that acceptance of an Aryan clause in the church would effectively negate the teaching of baptism."
In 1936, he signed the petition of a group of Protestant churchmen which sharply criticized Nazi policies and declared the Aryan Paragraph incompatible with the Christian virtue of charity
Charity may refer to:
Common meanings
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sha ...
.
Imprisonment and liberation
Niemöller was arrested on 1 July 1937. On 2 March 1938, he was tried by a "Special Court" for activities against the state. He was given Sonder- und Ehrenhaft status ('special or honourable detention'). He received a 2,000 Reichsmark fine and seven months' imprisonment. But as he had been detained pre-trial for longer than the seven-month jail term, he was released by the court after sentencing. However, he was immediately rearrested by Himmler's Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
. He was interned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps for "protective custody" from 1938 to 1945.
While in the concentration camp, he "wrote to a military commander whom he had known in World War I asking to be released from Sachsenhausen so he could serve in the German Wehrmacht." He volunteered in September 1939 to become a U-boat commander; his offer was rejected.
His former cellmate, Leo Stein, was released from Sachsenhausen to go to America, and he wrote an article about Niemöller for ''The National Jewish Monthly'' in 1941. Stein reports having asked Niemöller why he ever supported the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
, to which Niemöller replied:
In late April 1945, Niemöller – together with about 140 high-ranking prisoners – was transported to the Alpenfestung. The group possibly were to be used as hostages in surrender negotiations. The transport's SS guards had orders to kill everyone if liberation by the advancing Western Allies became imminent. However, in the south Tyrol
South Tyrol ( , ; ; ), officially the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, is an autonomous administrative division, autonomous provinces of Italy, province in northern Italy. Together with Trentino, South Tyrol forms the autonomo ...
region, regular German troops took the inmates into protective custody. The entire group was eventually liberated by advanced units of the U.S. Seventh Army.
Later life and death
In 1947, Niemöller was denied Nazi victim status. Niemöller himself acknowledged his guilt. In 1959, he was asked about his former attitude toward Jews by Alfred Wiener, a Jewish researcher into racism and war crimes committed by the Nazi regime. In a letter to Wiener, Niemöller stated that his eight-year imprisonment by the Nazis became the turning point in his life, after which he viewed things differently. He went on tour around the world to condemn the Nazi cause and educate people about why it is important to protect human rights.
Niemöller was president of the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau from 1947 to 1961. He was one of the initiators of the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt, signed by leading figures in the German Protestant churches. The document acknowledged that the churches had not done enough to resist the Nazis.
Under the impact of a meeting with Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the field of radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and discoverer of nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and ...
(referred to as the "father of nuclear chemistry
Nuclear chemistry is the sub-field of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes, and transformations in the nuclei of atoms, such as nuclear transmutation and nuclear properties.
It is the chemistry of radioactive elements such as t ...
") in July 1954, Niemöller became an ardent pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...
and campaigner for nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term ''denuclearization'' is also used to describe the pro ...
. He was soon a leading figure in the post-war German peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pe ...
and was even brought to court in 1959 because he had spoken about the military in a very unflattering way. His visit to North Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; ; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954 Geneva Conference, 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it o ...
's communist ruler Ho Chi Minh
(born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...
at the height of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
caused an uproar. Niemöller also took active part in protests against the Vietnam War and the NATO Double-Track Decision.
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt a Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
In 1961, he became president of the World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodo ...
. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize (, ''mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya premiya mira)'' was a Soviet Union award named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel ...
in December 1966.
He gave a sermon at the 30 April 1967 dedication of a Protestant "Church of Atonement" in the former Dachau concentration camp, which in 1965 had been partially restored as a memorial site.
Niemöller died at Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...
, West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
, on 6 March 1984, at the age of 92.
Selected writings
* ''Gedanken über den Weg der christlichen Kirche'', Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2019 (edited by Alf Christophersen and Benjamin Ziemann).
* ''From U-boat to Pulpit'', including an Appendix From Pulpit to Prison by Henry Smith Leiper (Chicago, New York: Willett, Clark, 1937).
* ''Here Stand I!'' with foreword by James Moffatt, translated by Jane Lymburn (Chicago, New York: Willett, Clark, 1937).
* ''The Gestapo Defied, Being the Last Twenty-eight Sermons by Martin Niemöller'' (London tc. W. Hodge and Company, Limited, 1941).
* ''Of Guilt and Hope'', translated by Renee Spodheim (New York: Philosophical Library, 947
Year 947 (Roman numerals, CMXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – A Principality of Hungary, Hungarian army led by Grand Prince Taksony of Hungary, Taksony campaign ...
.
* "What is the Church?" ''Princeton Seminary Bulletin'', vol. 40, no. 4 (1947): 10–16.
* "The Word of God is Not Bound", ''Princeton Seminary Bulletin'', vol. 41, no. 1 (1947): 18–23.
* ''Exile in the Fatherland: Martin Niemöller's Letters from Moabit Prison'', translated by Ernst Kaemke, Kathy Elias, and Jacklyn Wilfred; edited by Hubert G. Locke (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., c1986).
* "Dachau Sermons", Martin Niemöller, translated by Robert H. Pfeiffer, Harvard Divinity School 1947 (published by Latimer House Limited, 33 Ludgate Hill, London EC4)
See also
* List of peace activists
This list of peace activists includes people who have proactively advocated Diplomacy, diplomatic, philosophical, and non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods. Peace activists usua ...
* Franz Hildebrandt
* Deutsches Historisches Museum
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
* Borchmeyer, Doris (2010
''Die Bekennende Kirche und die Gründung der Evangelischen Kirche in Hessen und Nassau, EKHN.''
Diss. Justus Liebig Universität Gießen.
* Bentley, James (1984) ''Martin Niemoeller'', New York: The Free Press. .
*
*
* Schreiber, Matthias (2008) ''Martin Niemöller.'' 2. Auflage. Reinbek: Rowohlt. .
*
* Wette, Wolfram (2010) ''Seiner Zeit voraus. Martin Niemöllers Friedensinitiativen (1945–1955)''. In: Detlef Bald (Hrsg.): ''Friedensinitiativen in der Frühzeit des Kalten Krieges 1945–1955'' (= Frieden und Krieg, 17). Essen. S. 227–241.
*
* Ziemann, Benjamin (2024), Hitler's Personal Prisoner. The Life of Martin Niemöller, Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
External links
*
"Yellow Triangle"
a song written about him by Irish singer-songwriter Christy Moore
Who Was Martin Niemoller?
Harold Marcuse, UC Santa Barbara (2005)
* ttp://isurvived.org/home.html#Prologue Niemöller's famous quotation as posted by Holocaust Survivors' Network
A biography of Niemöller
* , Sonal Panse
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Niemoller, Martin
1892 births
1984 deaths
People from Lippstadt
People from the Province of Westphalia
20th-century German Lutheran clergy
German Lutheran theologians
20th-century German Protestant theologians
German Peace Society members
Christian Peace Conference members
Anti–Vietnam War activists
German anti-war activists
German Christian pacifists
Lutheran pacifists
German poets
German people of World War II
Dachau concentration camp survivors
U-boat commanders (Imperial German Navy)
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 1st class
Recipients of the Lenin Peace Prize
Imperial German Navy personnel of World War I
Protestants in the German Resistance
20th-century Freikorps personnel
Sachsenhausen concentration camp survivors
Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
German male poets
Military personnel from North Rhine-Westphalia
World Constitutional Convention call signatories