Martin Niemöller, the anti-Nazi Lutheran minister who warned how Christians should speak out when people are persecuted. But how valid was his advice?

By Julio Severo

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a German Lutheran theologian and minister who criticized Nazism and was imprisoned by Nazis in 1937. He is more known for his famous declaration:

“First 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 for me.”

By “they,” he meant Nazis, who came after socialists, trade unionists and Jews. All these groups were basically socialists in Germany. Trade unionists are mostly socialists, and one example is former Brazilian socialist president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, who has a history as a trade unionist. And the Jewish preference for socialism has been a historical fact.

So what Niemöller meant was: Nazis were persecuting socialists.

What he meant is that many Germans did not care if Nazis were persecuting, imprisoning and killing socialists, trade unionists and Jews. But such indifference, as he pointed, would eventually bring persecution to Christians.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says about Niemöller:

“As founder and a leading member of the Bekennende Kirche [Confessing Church] within the larger Evangelical Church (Lutheran and Reformed) of Germany, Niemöller was influential in building opposition to Adolf Hitler's efforts to bring the German churches under control of the Nazis and the so-called German Christians. The resistance of the Confessing Church was openly declared and solidified at its Synod of Barmen in 1934. Niemöller continued to preach throughout Germany and in 1937 was arrested by Hitler’s secret police, the Gestapo. Eventually sent to the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen and then Dachau, he was moved in 1945 to the Tirol in Austria, where Allied forces freed him at the end of World War II. He helped rebuild the Evangelical Church in Germany.”

From his experience seeing Nazis persecuting, imprisoning and killing socialists, trade unionists and Jews, Niemöller understood that Christians could not be indifferent when such groups are persecuted.

Visitors stand in front of the quotation from Martin Niemöller that is on display in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

He is seen as a good Christian example. His name and especially his famous declaration “First they came…” stand permanently in the Holocaust Museum in the United States. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, his declaration was also said in stronger terms than socialists:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a communist…”

So it is no wonder that Niemöller received in 1967the Lenin Peace Prize, the Soviet Union’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize. And from 1961 to 1968, he was president of the World Council of Churches, a socialist Protestant organization.

He was courageous for speaking out against Nazism, but because he saw the extremism of an anti-socialist and anti-communist political system, he fell into the polarization trap, and he chose the other extremism. Even so, his famous declaration “First they came…” is used today by left-wingers and right-wingers.

His declaration dispels confusion today among those who did not live in that time and try to see Nazism as a socialist movement. In fact, both Nazism and Italian fascism, which are identified by Jews as right-wing movements, received inspiration from a famous right-wing writer, Julius Evola, who was the guru of Benito Mussolini.

Francisco Franco, the dictator in Spain and one of the most prominent right-wing leaders in Europe in that time, received military assistance from Nazism in Germany. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the main influence in his life was that he was “close to his mother, a pious and conservative upper middle-class Roman Catholic.”

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Franco, who followed the military career, was so intelligent that “In 1915 he became the youngest captain in the Spanish army” and “In May 1935 he was appointed chief of the Spanish army's general staff.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica also says Franco’s support was “derived mainly from the antileftist middle classes” and that he was “one of the world’s leading anticommunist statesmen.”

Modern right-wing readers just do not understand how Nazis militarily helped Franco and his anticommunism.

The problem with Nazism is that it was inspired by occultism, and Evola was also an occultist. And occultism always brings confusion.

One of these confusions was a very brief treaty between the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. Even though this treaty lasted less than six months, often it is used as an “evidence” that both were two kinds of socialism. Yet, if such short-lived union to the Soviet Union is an evidence that Nazi Germany was socialist, what would the same critics say about the U.S.-Soviet alliance, which lasted from 1941 to 1945 during the World War 2, for much more time than the short Soviet-Nazi alliance did?

And because the Soviet Union fought against Nazism, the U.S. put the Soviet Union in the foundation of the United Nations. This is the polarization trap.

You fall into the polarization trap only when you do not understand that there were higher forces operating in Germany. These forces were occultist, with its many pitfalls of confusion.

Martin Niemöller was unable to understand the political and spiritual tensions of this trap and these pitfalls.

And today people do not care if Niemöller had embraced socialism. For them what matters is that he embraced anti-Nazism, which was an anti-socialist and anti-communist system, as Niemöller saw with his own eyes.

What did Niemöller miss that he did not understand that socialism was so destructive as Nazism? He lacked the anointing of the Holy Spirit and his supernatural gifts, which could have helped him see realities he was unable to see with his human eyes.

He embraced socialism because he saw the horror that socialists in Germany suffered from Nazis. But he never saw that socialists in the Soviet Union committed the same and bigger horrors.

So Niemöller’s famous declaration is spiritually wrong. Christians have no calling to defend communists and socialists. And they should be careful with groups using extreme anti-communism as a flag. Such flag was used in the past by groups, including Nazis and fascists, which got inspiration from Evola. The same flag is used today by groups with the same occult inspiration.

The calling of Christians is to preach the Gospel to communists, socialists, Nazis, right-wingers and left-wingers. Every sinner needs to hear the Gospel.

While you are busy with the preaching of the Gospel and are open to the Holy Spirit and his gifts, you will never fall into the polarization trap and occult pitfalls in this polarization.

Portuguese version of this article: Martin Niemöller, o pastor luterano anti-nazista que alertou como os cristãos precisam abrir a boca quando as pessoas são perseguidas. Mas até que ponto o conselho dele é válido?

Source: Last Days Watchman

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