This week in Christian history: Criswell dies, Presbyterian Church founds life insurance company, anti-Nazi pastor born
Martin Niemöller born — January 14, 1892
This week marks the anniversary of when Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor famed for his writing the “First they came for …” poem on Nazi cruelty, was born in Lippstadt, Germany.
The son of a pastor, Niemöller served in the German Navy during the First World War and was originally sympathetic to Nazism, until it began to interfere in church affairs.
Niemöller is most remembered for his famous "first they came" confession about oppression under the Third Reich, whose wording, while varied at times, goes as follows:
First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
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.
Finally, they came for me and there was no one left to speak out.
