First They Came...

The Reverend Martin Niemöller

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.

This poem isn’t metaphor. It isn’t hyperbole. It’s autobiography. Martin Niemöller was a Lutheran pastor who initially supported the Nazi regime. He stood by as others were targeted, silent until the state threatened the church. Then—just as his poem warns—they came for him. He was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau, and by 1945, he was under an SS kill order. He and over a hundred other high-ranking prisoners were being moved to the Alps—intended either as bargaining chips or to be executed before the Allies arrived. Only the intervention of regular German soldiers and the arrival of the U.S. Seventh Army saved his life. This poem is not a warning drawn from theory. It is a confession from a man who survived the cost of waiting too long.

I couldn’t do justice to Niemöller’s full story here—but the Wikipedia article does. It’s a well-researched and thorough account of how a man who once stood with power spent the rest of his life in protest, helping others, and warning future generations about the dangers of complicity and silence.