![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/40\/2018\/10\/Screen-Shot-2018-10-21-at-9.42.16-AM.png\")
<\/a>Martin Niem\u00f6ller has been covered up by the heroic story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer even though for more than a decade after WW2 Americans saw Niem\u00f6ller as the hero. His story has been told by Matthew Hockenos in\u00a0Then They Came For Me<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nThis is unswervingly honest story about a man who was far from perfect but who grew to have his heart in the right place. This is not a hagiography but a straight shooting story by a noble historian. Some have laundered\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s story; not so Hockenos.<\/p>\n
While I have known of Niem\u00f6ller for years, even decades, I\u2019ve not read anything about him this extensively and this book brings out the stories of his wife, Else, and the children and the suffering the family went through in WW2 and after. What I perhaps most liked about this book was opening up the realities of German pastors and the German church situation after the war. What most seemed to be doing was covering up their own complicity, and this may be where Niem\u00f6ller was most heroic: he admitted complicity and called German pastors, German churches, and Germans to confess their guilt.<\/p>\n
Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s story is not pure: he was drawn into pastoring after a military career in WW1 (a proud U boat officer); he was a German nationalist; he was bitter about the Versailles Treaty\u2019s treatment of Germans; as a pastor he supported the National Socialists though never officially joined the Nazi Party; he voted for Hitler two times; he originally did not defend Jews as Jews but only Jewish Christians; he eventually exaggerated dimensions of his and the church\u2019s opposition to Hitler; he only slowly saw his own anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n
Yet, following his military service he became a pastor with unusual passion; he defied Hitler\u2019s crossing the line between church and state; he defied the \u201cGerman Christian\u201d movement with its blending of church and state in blasphemous ways; he was arrested by Hitler for opposing Hitler\u2019s imposition in the church; he was released from prison only to become Hitler\u2019s personal prisoner \u2014 in Sachsenhausen and then Dachau; he was imprisoned most of a decade.<\/p>\n
Throughout his struggle in Germany he was mostly aligned with Karl Barth, and this snippet from many years later illustrates the activist, passionate approach of Niem\u00f6ller over against the sophisticated, activist, intellectual approach of Barth:<\/p>\n
The two enjoyed kidding each other, especially over their respective approaches to theology. Barth once told a mutual friend that Niem\u00f6ller should put his theology on a boat, sail it out to sea, and sink it. Niem\u00f6ller gave as good as he got, telling a biographer, \u201cI have never cherished theologians. Take Karl Barth, my dearest friend. All his volumes are standing there. I have never read any of them. I never heard a lecture by him. Theologians are here only to make incomprehensible what a child can understand.\u201d At Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s sixtieth birthday celebration, after decades of friendship despite periods of great strife between them, Barth joked:<\/p>\n
Not so long ago, a conversation between Martin\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller and myself went like this. \u201cMartin, I\u2019m surprised that you almost always get the point despite the little systematic theology that you\u2019ve done!\u201d \u201cKarl, I\u2019m surprised that you almost always get the point despite the great deal of systematic theology that you\u2019ve done!\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Confessing Church was run by\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller but its theology was Barth\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The tension between Hitler\u2019s German Christians and the Confessing Church (and not all here were alike, as some were much more amenable to Hitler than others), and this story expresses that tension:<\/p>\n
The parish of Sch\u00f6neberg in central Berlin was the site of one such duel. One Sunday a conflict arose between opposing pastors and their flocks over which group had the right to use the church. Both sides claimed possession by occupying strategic areas of the building. The German Christian pastor, Gerhard Peters, stood in front of the altar as his supporters arrayed themselves in the front pews. The opposition pastor, Eitel-Friedrich von Rabenau, held the pulpit while his followers piled into the rear pews. From the loft, a trombone choir accompanied opposition parishioners singing Advent hymns; from the same location, with gusto, the organist accompanied the German Christians singing \u201cA Mighty Fortress Is Our God.\u201d When the musical confrontation died down, Rabenau tried to preach from the pulpit, while Peters recited the liturgy from the altar. Cries of \u201cWe want to hear Rabenau\u2019s sermon!\u201d and \u2018Peters is abusing the word of God!\u201d were heard. The row lasted two long hours, with parishioners nearly coming to blows. Eventually Rabenau conceded the church to the German Christians and left the building with his following (91).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While in prison he became an American Christian pet project and America\u2019s saw him as a personal agenda \u2014 get him released and he will become the heroic model of the Christian persecuted under Hitler.<\/p>\n
But upon release from prison at the end of WW2 it was obvious Niem\u00f6ller remained a German nationalist, and the stories of the heroic Niem\u00f6ller were dealt a deep blow.<\/p>\n
Insisting that most Germans were ignorant of the scale of Nazi atrocities and shocked by what they saw when the Allies liberated the concentration and extermination camps, he asserted, \u201cYou are mistaken if you think any honest person in Germany will feel personally responsible for things like Dachau, Belsen, and Buchenwald. He will feel only misled into believing in a regime that was led by criminals and murderers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He came to America under opposition as the first German to be given a visa \u2014 he spent the time defending himself, defending the suffering of the German people who were being oppressed by American denazification policies, and he raised lots of money for suffering Germans. But he never convinced many of his integrity; he was always a big question mark for many.<\/p>\n
But Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s story is the story of a man who changed his mind and nothing is clearer in Hockenos\u2019 wonderful book: over and over he took a passionate view, experienced opposition, and slowly changed his mind. His first instincts to major situations were too nationalistic, too German, too undemocratic, and too unChristian. Yet, the man changed his mind over and over.<\/p>\n
He was the first to speak publicly from the German pastoral community in terms and tones of confession; that the German people bore guilt; that the pastors did not speak against Hitler enough or clearly enough or often enough.<\/p>\n
While fighting denazification he started to open his mind on demilitarization of Germany (which cut against the grain of Germany\u2019s renewed fears of Stalinist Russia); he saw good in the churches of Russia; he began to fight for peace in Gandhian terms; he gradually became a pacifist; and he eventually became a thorough-going progressive for peace in all categories. Yet, he was blind to dimensions of racism, like white privilege, and yet grew and worked against his prejudices.<\/p>\n
Some people, not that many and Bonhoeffer was one, have clarity of mind into deep socio-political and theologically-informed issues \u2014 like Nazis, like war, like racism, like militarization \u2014 early and stay the course. Far more are like Niem\u00f6ller who have to learn and grow and change their mind. Speaking of Bonhoeffer, how about this little-known fact?<\/p>\n
When\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller wasn\u2019t writing letters, worrying about church business, or preparing his defense for the upcoming trial, he took advantage of solitary confinement to read books, many in English, including Thomas Macaulay\u2019s multivolume History of England<\/em>. He twice waded through the New Testament in Greek, perhaps reviving fond memories of his gymnasium days and reading Greek poetry for fun. He received a copy of Bonhoeffer s now-famous text Discipleship<\/em> with an inscription from his colleague: \u201cTo Pastor Martin\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller at Advent 1937 in brotherly thanks. A book that he himself could have written better than the author.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s life is a paradigm of socio-ethical sanctification. Any reading of this book will help pastors especially to become more patient with themselves and with others, and perhaps encourage them to tell their own stories honestly \u2014 stories of growth and changing course.<\/p>\n
Though Niem\u00f6ller may never have composed these lines himself he used most of them if not all of them. Hence, they are both his and attributed to him \u2014 and the evidence is not clear. They are, however, brilliant:<\/p>\n
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out \u2014 because I was not a Communist.<\/em><\/p>\n
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out \u2014 because I was not a Trade Unionist.<\/em><\/p>\n
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out \u2014 because I was not a Jew.<\/em><\/p>\n
Then they came for me \u2014 and there was no one left to speak for me.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When most think of Germany and WW2 and the church and the pastors, they think of Bonhoeffer. But for a decade or more after WW2,\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller was the story. It is time for his story to be more known to day.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martin Niem\u00f6ller has been covered up by the heroic story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer even though for more than a decade after WW2 Americans saw Niem\u00f6ller as the hero. His story has been told by Matthew Hockenos in\u00a0Then They Came For Me. This is unswervingly honest story about a man who was far from perfect but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17133],"class_list":["post-79287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-channel-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\n
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