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
“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.
“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. |
“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?
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