Part One: Martin Niemöller, the author of 'First They Came', was a murderous fascist
Behind the Bastards
This episode deconstructs the historical legacy of Martin Niemöller, the author of the famous 'First they came' poem. The hosts challenge th
Key takeaways
- Martin Niemöller's 'First they came' poem is often misinterpreted as a plea for solidarity, whereas his early actions showed enthusiasm for the removal of certain groups.
- Niemöller's family background was rooted in militant Lutheranism and the veneration of Martin Luther.
Main topics
- Martin Niemöller
- First They Came poem
Notable quotes
First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Conclusion
The episode provides a nuanced, historical re-examination of a widely
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:03) Welcome, friends, back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And I've got a controversial pick for y'all this week. But before I introduce him, I want to introduce my guest, somebody you know and love, the great Margaret Kiljoy. Margaret, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for coming. Thank Speaker 2 (0:25) you. Always glad to hear about terrible people. It's a nice reprieve from hearing about good people. Speaker 3 (0:30) Yeah, this is. I made some statements online a couple of weeks ago about a guy that everybody knows, right, that I don't like and a lot of people think came around to become a good person and a laudable person. And part of what we're going to be doing this week is I'm going to try to present you what I think is like a fairly fair look at his life. And we'll see if you come to the same conclusion about this Speaker 8 (0:55) son of a bitch that I do. Maybe you don't think he's a son of a bitch. Are we doing Lovecraft? No, no, but we will one day. Don't worry. Yeah, we're definitely. Speaker 3 (1:02) Although I don't think Lovecraft was a bastard at the end of his life, right? At the end of his life, he wrote like in right at the end, but he wrote about like, I regret horribly being a fascist all those Speaker 8 (1:11) years. I was a terrible person. Yeah, Speaker 3 (1:13) I Speaker 8 (1:13) know he was that way Speaker 2 (1:14) about the Nazi stuff specifically. Anyway, he came around. Speaker 3 (1:18) He was starting to on some. Anyway, he got cancer before we could have seen. And he also never really hurt anybody other than being like a voluminous racist in his personal life. But he didn't have power. Right. Anyway, whatever. Right. All right. Important. We will do Lovecraft because you could argue he was a terrible person. There's plenty of evidence for that, too. But no, we're talking about a different guy today. We're talking about a poet, Martin Niemöller. Right. And, you know, you probably know him as the guy who wrote. the first they came poem, right? First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist, right? That guy. Speaker 2 (1:53) I like that poem. Everyone does. I know that he was conservative. Oh, this is going to be interesting. Yeah. Conservatives one way to put it. Speaker 8 (2:05) Oh, okay. Okay. Speaker 2 (2:06) Yeah. Speaker 8 (2:07) Yeah. Because that's, Speaker 3 (2:09) I think what most people think when they read it is that like, this is a poem from somebody who was like a conservative or a centrist. right, and didn't take action during the rise of the Nazis, right? That's what the poem seems to be about. Somebody who was either somewhat conservative or like more of a centrist by nature and just didn't do anything to stop the Nazis and regretted it. Right. Speaker 2 (2:31) OK. OK. I can see where you're going with this. That's Speaker 8 (2:33) not really accurate to who Martin was. His life. He he may have been a little bit more enthusiastic about the rise of the Third Reich than Speaker 2 (2:44) the the poem would suggest. Right. OK. OK. First, they came for the socialists and I was really excited because I was it was pretty Speaker 8 (2:51) cool, actually. I thought that was lit. Speaker 2 (2:54) I was outside with my balcony with a pennant. Kill the trade unionists. Yeah, Speaker 8 (3:00) I was shooting at trade unionists, which we'll talk about that. So Speaker 3 (3:03) there are numerous versions of the poem, but I think we should start by just reading how the original version of the poem went, as far as I can tell, right? This is sort of the original version of the poem. First they took the communists, but I was not a communist, so I did nothing. Then they took the social democrats, but I was not a social democrat, so I did nothing. Then it was the trade unionists' turn, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they took the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came and took me, there was no one left who could have stood up for me. Now, that's a great poem about someone who did Speaker 8 (3:39) not act enough during the rise of the Nazis. That is not accurate. Okay. For example, Martin didn't do little when they took the juice. Martin kind of was enthusiastic about them taking the juice. Speaker 2 (3:52) Big foam hand that says I'm Speaker 8 (3:54) an anti-Semite. Yeah, like number one racist. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:00) The most common variant of the poem, right? Because you said first they came for the socialists at one point, and that is generally the version you'll hear. A lot of school textbooks switched communist for socialist at some point because it made it a little bit easier, I guess. Speaker 2 (4:15) It's allowed in the Cold War America. Yeah, Speaker 3 (4:17) exactly. Speaker 8 (4:20) And you've seen Speaker 2 (4:21) like Speaker 8 (4:21) in the first, sorry. Speaker 2 (4:23) So I recently wrote an essay. I don't know anything about this man's life, but I recently wrote an essay about. this poem and the fact that it is referenced constantly. And I looked up the speech that it comes from, and there's no, in the German, there's no first. It's like, it's not first they did this, then they did this, then they did this. It's when they did this, when they did this, when they did this. And so I don't know why that. matters to me, but it's so interesting to me. Speaker 8 (4:52) That is actually a really good point. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:54) And I should have said that the one I read is the is close to the original translation. But I think you're probably right that he was saying, like, when they took the communists, I was not a communist and did nothing. And it's. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:06) I only think it matters for the American context when people are like, well, who's the first in the poem? As if we're like doing Impression Olympics on our way to the camps. And I'm like, I'm not rushing to be first in line, but trans people are in there. Definitely. Speaker 8 (5:21) And that's, you know, there's Speaker 3 (5:22) a you've seen some versions of the poem, some new ones that people have made for the Trump era. I think they write about 2016. Right. I think the first article I saw was in 2016 in an article for Quartz. Gideon Litchfield provided a rewrite for Trump's America that I wouldn't say is super accurate. Speaker 8 (5:40) But it's first Trump came for the women and I did not speak out because I was not a woman. Then Trump came for the people with disabilities and I did not speak out because I did not have it. I don't know. I don't know if that's like the order. put these things in, but yeah. Speaker 3 (5:53) I don't need to go on. You get the idea, right? In the wake of Trump's reelection, the poem has spread further and wider than ever before. And again, from the text of it, you would assume the author was something different than I think he was, right? There are hints, however, about Martin's real politics, or at least what they were during the Nazi era in what he leaves out of the poem, right? For example, the modern variant, the Trump era one, mentioned the disabled. Martin's original poem does not mention them coming for the disabled, even though by the time he wrote it, he knew that thousands had been sterilized and even gassed under the T4 euthanasia program. The original poem also leaves out queer people, Speaker 8 (6:32) Slavs, the Roma, and these omissions are not coincidental. These are omissions because Martin was kind of fine, actually, even after the war with them having done that, really. Speaker 2 (6:44) Yeah, I know that the queers were still, you know, they did a lot of the gay men didn't get out of the camps at the end of the war. To be fair Speaker 8 (6:52) to Martin, the United States government did not Speaker 3 (6:55) care about queer people being part of the Holocaust, right? We were fine to continue punishing them afterwards. So most people sharing Martin's work, though, don't notice that because, again, on a casual reading, the poem does like describe a large number of people's reactions to fascism, both then and today. But Martin was not a neutral observer, nor was he what anyone would have called apolitical. You do run into some people who know this, and I will say it seems more common now to describe the motivation behind him writing the poem as like a leopard's eating faces type of thing. And those people tend to describe Martin as a reformed fascist sympathizer, right? Somebody who saw the error of his ways after Hitler rose to power and then fought tirelessly but fruitlessly against him. This is the most common historical depiction of Martin because prior to World War II, he did protest openly against Hitler and he was imprisoned in several concentration camps for it. And as a result, he became an international symbol of anti-fascism. I think the common view of Martin is summarized very well by his obituary in the New York Times, which was titled Martin Niemöller, Resolute Foe of Hitler. And I'm going to provide you with a somewhat different depiction of Martin. I think more historically accurate. But I'll admit how we ultimately feel about Martin and whether or not he became a good person is somewhat of a matter of opinion. I don't think he did. I certainly don't think he was a resolute foe of Hitler. But maybe you'll feel different. This is an iHeart podcast. Speaker 5 (8:24) Guaranteed human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (8:57) I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of the What Happened to Her podcast. We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police wrote off as a suicide in a snowstorm. Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge. You Speaker 1 (9:13) never know who that devil is because he's wearing a disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. 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Speaker 1 (10:04) You've never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Speaker 5 (10:09) Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (10:17) I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Speaker 1 (10:28) Ooh, I scammed him. What? I could talk to you for an hour. Speaker 6 (10:32) You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (10:47) Self-care September is your reminder to slow down, check in with yourself, get off your phone, and maybe ask, why am I like this? I'm Gemma Spegg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and this month we're helping you make sense of the person that you are becoming, from setting boundaries and navigating friendships, to understanding anxiety, confidence, relationships, and attachment. Sometimes our biggest decisions, without us even realizing it, aren't driven by what we truly want, but by what will prevent us from feeling lonely or being alone. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So like by age 11 or so, at least 70 % have a phone. Speaker 4 (11:33) I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spent our surviving middle school run getting into what's happening inside your kid's brain, their group chats, and their friendships, and what you can do about it. Speaker 1 (11:43) Your child is not doing this on purpose. Speaker 4 (11:46) That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who study this for a living. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Speaker 6 (11:58) 1986, a man named Scott Macklem was killed in broad daylight. Police quickly found their suspect. Prosecutors convicted him. But now, almost 40 years later, I'm reexamining this case. Speaker 1 (12:15) Has the Speaker 6 (12:20) wrong man been in prison this whole time? Listen to Examined, The Backfire Effect, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (12:40) So let's talk about where this guy comes from. Martin's ancestors, stretching back to the medieval era at least, had made their livings traveling around as farm laborers or as small independent farmers in what's now like Westphalia, Germany. Their last name comes from a relative probably in the 1600s who moved to a village near Wersen in Westphalia and worked as a miller. Niemuller just means new miller, right? Oh, okay. It gives me hope that one day, Margaret, our descendants or relatives or whatever will have the same last name, like Podcaster, if Speaker 8 (13:12) we go back to that naming scheme. Speaker 2 (13:14) Oh, yeah, yeah. New Podcaster. New Podcaster. Margaret Podcaster. Yeah, yeah. Maybe one day. Well, it's like the way that people end up with names in a phone is very different from, I think the way we name people on our phone, like John Barista. is more accurate. Speaker 3 (13:31) Drug dealer Speaker 2 (13:31) three. Yeah. Historically. Yeah, exactly. John Good Coke, you know? It's extra funny coming from you. Yeah, I don't do coke. Fuck that. No, Speaker 4 (13:44) no, Speaker 2 (13:44) no. No, Speaker 3 (13:46) it's just a bit. So sometime around the late 17 to early 1800s, the patriarch of the family seems to have decided to make education a priority for at least some of his sons. Martin's grandfather, Gerhardt, became a school teacher teacher in the mid-1800s, and his son, Heinrich, became a pastor in the town of Lippstadt. Like nearly everyone in that part of Germany at that time, and roughly like half of Leip-Guebe-Gann today, the Niemöllers were Lutherans. As most people sort of know, Martin Luther was a Catholic priest who came to have some opinions that the Pope did not appreciate. He was excommunicated. Yeah, a bunch of them. He wrote them down. Speaker 8 (14:20) Yeah, a lot of them. He wrote a list. He would have been a poster. One thing you can say about Martin Luther, he would have been a poster. He had the poster spirit. He did literally Speaker 2 (14:29) post. He was a literal poster. Yeah. He had to use nails back then. I think if you still had to use nails, the internet would be a better place. Speaker 8 (14:37) I agree. And if you did it on Speaker 3 (14:39) churches still, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. He was excommunicated in 1521 and yada, yada. Shit happens and you get Protestants, right? I'm leaving out a lot. But that's basically how it happens. And by the time, you know, our story starts in the late 18, early 1900s, Westphalians are like militantly Lutheran. And Lipshtat was the most Lutheran of all of the Lutheran towns in the area. Their claim to fame was that they were the first town in the region to accept Martin Luther's teachings, right? That like we are the earliest of the Lutherans in this region. So these people took everything Martin Luther. said very seriously. It's probably relevant then for me to point out that in addition to the 95 theses that Martin Luther wrote that ended up splitting a Catholic church, he wrote another book and published it in 1543, On the Jews and Their Lies. Speaker 3 (15:33) Thanks, Martin. The book does not get better after the title. Luther very much thought that the Jewish people deserve to suffer for what had been done to Jesus. Only if I'm remembering right, God slash Jesus wanted that to happen. So I don't really get the blame. It was necessary, right? Speaker 8 (15:50) It Speaker 2 (15:50) all Speaker 8 (15:50) worked out in the end Speaker 2 (15:50) from a Catholic Christian point of view. Speaker 8 (15:52) It Speaker 2 (15:52) was kind of his Speaker 8 (15:53) plan. Speaker 2 (15:54) Also, it just never made sense to blame the Jews. That includes Jesus. What do you want? Yeah. Speaker 3 (16:01) It's there's a lot of incoherencies here, but Luther chased his condemnation of the Jews with an exhortation to burn synagogues and a statement that Christians, quote, are at fault in not slaying them. Right. If you don't kill the Jews in your midst, you're fucking up. Right. Martin Luther was a fucking monster Speaker 8 (16:17) when it came to Speaker 3 (16:19) that sort of Speaker 8 (16:19) thing. Speaker 3 (16:21) Luther's book would become very popular among the Nazis. And a lot of scholars will argue that Luther's book is the formative moment behind like modern anti-Semitism. Martin Luther kind of invents modern anti-Semitism, right? And takes it from like, well, those people are just kind of like different and they live here. And so like, we're sort of shitty to them to like, now there's lore behind that Speaker 2 (16:42) hatred, right? The Middle Ages is so funny because you have all of these people fighting against power structures where you're like, there's no way they can mess this up. And then instead you have them like doing all of these revolutions that are completely counter revolutions just constantly. And you're like, yeah, how can you fuck up being critical of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages? How can you mess that up? You somehow made Speaker 3 (17:05) it worse. Speaker 2 (17:06) I Speaker 3 (17:06) think the unfortunate problem is that when you carry out a successful revolution against even like a very bad power structure, it creates this awareness of possibility. And then everybody starts thinking, well, I've got some shit I want to change. And a lot of that's going to be bad. Yeah, that's just a complication. Anybody who wants to change things has to deal with. Heinrich Niemöller, Martin's father, grew up venerating Luther and became a pastor with a deliberate goal of copying Martin Luther as directly as possible. His parish was famous mainly because Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III had visited and made some proclamation there. Heinrich venerated the Hohenzollern family almost as much as he venerated Luther, right? Martin Luther and the royal family of Germany are like this, right? Like they are the protectors of the faith and he almost worships the Kaiser. Right. In 1889, he marries Paula Mueller, the daughter of a local businessman. And the two have their first child, Gerhard, in 1890. Which is a good name. I Speaker 2 (18:09) don't know anything about that. Great name. Gerhard is a good name. Speaker 3 (18:11) Gerhard's a solid name. Not enough Gerhards. No. Two years later, they had Martin. Too many Martins. And Speaker 2 (18:17) on January. There's some Speaker 3 (18:19) good ones, but. Speaker 2 (18:20) Some. Sure. But. Yeah. You know. That one famous one. That's the one I. There's even a good Martin Luther. There's one good Martin Speaker 8 (18:27) Luther, you know. There was, there was. Although he had King, I assume he was junior, so there must have been two. Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't know anything about his dad yet. One day I'm going to learn Speaker 2 (18:35) about him. Speaker 8 (18:35) I Speaker 2 (18:35) don't Speaker 8 (18:35) know enough about his dad. Speaker 3 (18:36) Yeah. Martin Niemöller is born on January 14th of 1892. His life as the second son might have been somewhat different than it wound up being. We'll never know, though, because in 1894, Gerhard dies of being a little kid in 1894. So Martin's Speaker 2 (18:53) the oldest. Even Speaker 3 (18:53) the name couldn't protect him. Yeah, no, sorry. Martin's going to be the oldest from this point forward. His younger brother, William, recalled him playing a leading role among the kids. For his part, Martin says that his older brother's death was the source of some of his earliest memories, particularly his very first thoughts about Jesus Christ in heaven. Since Heinrich died on Martin's second birthday, this may be a lie. He told a lot of lies. I don't know that he actually has any memories around this, but he'll claim this later. And it's a good story for a pastor, right? Speaker 2 (19:25) Yeah, and he might have like fabric as a kid. He might have like decided that about his younger time, you know, but he doesn't remember being two, but like I doubt it. Yeah, but he might remember having thoughts about being two, you know? Yeah. Speaker 3 (19:38) And his parents explaining, you know, the putting out a place for him during a Christmas dinner or something. Yeah, I don't know. So he died, Martin Luther. Martin Luther had died centuries before any of the Niemöllers were born, but Martin Luther was still a constant, almost invisible family member for generations in their home. Heinrich, the father, wrote a booklet for his sons, Martin and Wilhelm, about how to be a man, which was later published in 1927, I think by Martin. It's like, my dad was such a good, like this, you know, this is his guide to being a man. It's Speaker 8 (20:08) kind Speaker 3 (20:09) of neat that he Speaker 2 (20:09) wrote it just for his kids. It kind of ruins the magic to publish it wide, yeah. Speaker 8 (20:14) Yeah, I would say so. Also, it's probably a Speaker 2 (20:17) terrible book considering how this guy turns out. Speaker 3 (20:19) Yeah, exactly. One of Martin's biographers, Benjamin Simon, describes this booklet in a passage from one of my prime sources for these episodes, the book Hitler's Personal Prisoner. Quote, Heinrich explained how he imagined the role of a Protestant pastor. The idea of the pastor is that paterfamilias harken back to the emphatically idealized example of Martin Luther and his household in Wittenberg. Gloring Luther as a model of national Protestantism, Heinrich postulated that the thought of the cloister house in Wittenberg would provide refreshment and edification as long as there is a German history. Referring to the relationship between Luther and Katharina von Bora, Heinrich claimed that the husband is the head of the wife. Right. So it is this is the most patriarchal kind of relationship that you can have is the one that Heinrich is encouraging for his his children to have with their