Zitate von Martin Niemöller
Martin Niemöller
Geburtstag: 14. Januar 1892
Todesdatum: 6. März 1984
Emil Gustav Friedrich Martin Niemöller war ein deutscher evangelischer Theologe und führender Vertreter der Bekennenden Kirche sowie Präsident im Ökumenischen Rat der Kirchen. Während er anfänglich dem Nationalsozialismus positiv gegenüberstand, entwickelte er sich während des Kirchenkampfes und seit 1937 als Häftling im Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen allmählich zum Widerstandskämpfer gegen den Nationalsozialismus. Nach 1945 engagierte er sich für eine Neuordnung der Evangelischen Kirche und trat in der Friedensbewegung in Erscheinung.
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„Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist. Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat. Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich geschwiegen, ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter. Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.“
— Martin Niemöller
martin-niemoeller-stiftung.de http://martin-niemoeller-stiftung.de/martin-niemoeller/als-die-nazis-die-kommunisten-holten mit Erläuterungen hier http://martin-niemoeller-stiftung.de/martin-niemoeller/was-sagte-niemoeller-wirklich sowie in: "Was würde Jesus dazu sagen?" Pahl-Rugenstein Frankfurt/Main 1986 history.ucsb.edu pdf http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/niem/WhatWouldJesusSay1986OCRcomments.pdf S. 9/13
„Die gegenwärtige Kalorienzahl von 700 ist geringer als die niedrigsten Rationen im Kz. - Seit der bedingungslosen Kapitulation des deutschen Volkes sind mindestens 6 Millionen Deutsche umgekommen.“
— Martin Niemöller
Man kann nicht umhin, sich vorzustellen, daß die Gesamtentwicklung nichts anderes bedeutet, als den Versuch, eine ganze Nation bis auf ihre Wurzeln auszurotten." Pastor Niemöller in einem Brief an Friedrich J. Forell, Sekretär des "Emergency Comittee for German Protestantism". http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41122644.html (DER SPIEGEL 22/1947)
„Wir haben nicht zu fragen, wieviel wir uns zutrauen; sondern wir werden gefragt, ob wir Gottes Wort zutrauen, daß es Gottes Wort ist und tut, was es sagt!“
— Martin Niemöller
Dahlemer Predigten (2011), S. 349 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=MY9KAQAAIAAJ&q=zutrauen. Nach der Verhaftung Niemöllers am 1. Juli 1937 auf Postkarten mit seinem Bild verbreitet, http://www.niemoeller-haus-ausstellung.de/tafel20.html.
„Our people are trying to break the bond set by God. That is human conceit rising against God.“
— Martin Niemöller
Context: Our people are trying to break the bond set by God. That is human conceit rising against God. In this connection we must warn the Führer, that the adoration frequently bestowed on him is only due to God. Some years ago the Führer objected to having his picture placed on Protestant altars. Today his thoughts are used as a basis not only for political decisions but also for morality and law. He himself is surrounded with the dignity of a priest and even of an intermediary between God and man... We ask that liberty be given to our people to go their way in the future under the sign of the Cross of Christ, in order that our grandsons may not curse their elders on the ground that their elders left them a state on earth that closed to them the Kingdom of God.
Statement on behalf of the Confessional Church, signed by nine other pastors, as quoted in TIME magazine (27 July 1936) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,847755,00.html
„In Erlangen, for instance, in January 1946 he spoke of meeting a German Jew who had lost everything — parents, brothers, and sisters too. 'I could not help myself', said Niemöller, 'I had to tell him, "Dear brother, fellow man, Jew, before you say anything, I say to you: I acknowledge my guilt and beg you to forgive me and my people for this sin."' Niemöller's stance was by no means entirely welcome to the 1,200 students to whom he was preaching. They shouted and jeered as he preached that Germany must accept responsibility for the five or six million murdered Jews. Students in Marburg and Göttingen similarly heckled him. But Niemöller insisted that "We must openly declare that we are not innocent of the Nazi murders, of the murder of German communists, Poles, Jews, and the people in German-occupied countries. No doubt others made mistakes too, but the wave of crime started here and here it reached its highest peak. The guilt exists, there is no doubt about that — even if there were no other guilt than that of the six million clay urns containing the ashes of incinerated Jews from all over Europe. And this guilt lies heavily upon the German people and the German name, even upon Christendom. For in our world and in our name have these things been done."“
— Martin Niemöller
Sermons in Erlangen, Marburg, Göttingen and Frankfurt (January 1946), as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 177
„I have never concealed the fact and said it before the court in 1938 that I came from an anti-Semitic past and tradition… I ask only that you look at my life historically and take it as history. I believe that from 1933 I truly represented the Lutheran-Christian outlook on the Jewish question — as I revealed before the court — but that I returned home after eight years' imprisonment as a completely different person.“
— Martin Niemöller
Letter to a Dr. Weiner (1956), as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 334
„No honest man or woman in Germany feels responsible for these things. Good Germans took Nazism as a new religion. These people are shocked by the revelations which have shown that Nazism was not idealism, but a means to the performance of criminal acts…
In war a German feels bound to join the ranks without question. Three of my sons were called up. I could not hold back. I wrote from the concentration camp to Admiral Raeder, C. in C. of the Navy, asking to be allowed to return to the submarine service or to do any other service in the Navy. I heard nothing for several months, and then a reply came, not from Raeder but from Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht. He thanked me, but regretted I could not be employed on active service.“
— Martin Niemöller
Replying to questions on the atrocities of the concentration camps, at a press conference in Naples, Italy, and confirming that he actually had written a widely publicized letter from such a camp, early in the war, to be permitted to serve in the military (5 June 1945)
„We had been frightened of atomic weapons since 1945. In those days I became convinced — and remain convinced now — that, after Hitler, Truman was the greatest murderer in the world.“
— Martin Niemöller
On his movement toward pacifism and becoming an activist against nuclear weaponry, as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 213
„I began my political responsibility as an ultra-conservative. I wanted the Kaiser to come back; and now I am a revolutionary. I really mean that. If I live to be a hundred I shall maybe be an anarchist, for an anarchist wants to do without all government.“
— Martin Niemöller
As quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 223
„One thing is clear, the president of North Vietnam is not a fanatic. He is a very strong and determined man, but capable of listening, something that is very rare in a person of his position.“
— Martin Niemöller
On Ho Chi Minh. as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 225
„The renunciation of war as expressed in the Japanese Constitution has given a first ray of hope to a world in darkness and despair, and men today cling to this hope passionately. Can we really do something about it or are we to stand aside as idle onlookers, unable to contribute for better or for worse?“
— Martin Niemöller
Statement for a Japanese publication (February 1954), as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 214
„I am now convinced that the Reformation of the church will come from the east. In the west there is no spiritual life. (I'm speaking of the Protestant church and not the Roman Catholic church.) We have civilisation and we try to keep up culture, but we have no spiritual life. The east has a spiritual life. They know that colour influences the spirit more than black lines. In Russia there is still the notion that art is nearer religion than thinking in lines and logic. All abstract rationalising needs to be filled out with sensual thinking and feelings. In Russia there is still a strong impression of colour.“
— Martin Niemöller
Statement on his admiration of the Eastern Orthodox traditions (1982), as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 207
„The oppression is growing, and anyone who has had to submit to the Tempter's machine-gun fire during this last week thinks differently from what he did even three weeks ago.“
— Martin Niemöller
Last sermon before being imprisoned by the Nazi regime of Germany (27 June 1937), as quoted in Religion in the Reich (1939) by Michael Power, p. 142
„We have no more thought of using our own powers to escape the arm of authorities than had the Apostles of old. No more are we ready to keep silent at man's behest when God commands us to speak. For it is, and must remain, the case that we must obey God rather than man.“
— Martin Niemöller
Last sermon before being imprisoned by the Nazi regime of Germany (27 June 1937), as quoted in Religion in the Reich (1939) by Michael Power, p. 142
