To begin, let me introduce you to Martin Niemoller.
As a Lutheran clergyman in Germany during the 1930s, Niemoller emerged as an outspoken critic of Adolph Hitler and was thus detained in a concentration camp in 1937. He was confined at various sites until liberated by Allied troops at the end of World War II in 1945.
However, he had not always protested the rise of the Nazi regime. In the early 1930s, he held right-wing nationalistic and, at times, anti-Semitic views. In a private audience with Hitler in 1932 the latter assured Niemoller that he would not interfere with affairs of the church, a promise which was soon broken.
As his views moderated during that decade, he was caught in the mass arrest of Christian leaders, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and confined for over seven years.
During his imprisonment, his views continued to change and he concluded that Protestant church leaders had been complicit — through their silence — in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution and murder of millions of people. After the end of the war, Niemoller and other church leaders issued the Stuttgart “Declaration of Guilt,” confessing that the church had not done enough to protect the victims of Hitler.
With that as background, consider this most celebrated early post-war statement, which he included in many lectures:
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.
I suggest that we substitute some of the following terms. Instead of “Socialists,” substitute “Muslims.” For “Trade Unionists” enter “Mexicans.” For “Jews,” substitute “Women” or “Journalists.”
Is it an exaggeration to compare the rise of Nazi rule in the 1930s with the installation of our present administration in Washington? After all, we are a democracy, containing the checks and balances needed to avoid repressive regimes! Americans are basically decent and generous people, not given to totalitarianism!
Not so fast. How does one explain that the same society that gave us Bach, Beethoven and Brahms also gave us Adolph Hitler? A review of author Peter Hayes’ new book Why? Explaining the Holocaust asks, “Why did a modern and cultured society that existed at the time embark on a course that led to genocide?”
Is it possible that the German people needed Hitler to “make Germany great again” after WW I, and that he needed an ethnic scapegoat to blame for the German defeat in that war and for subsequent severe economic crises?
Could it happen here? Perhaps it is unlikely that our administration or future administrations would resort to the final solutions similar to those implemented in Germany 75 years ago. Yet we see current executive orders and proposed public policies which, cumulatively, can marginalize, threaten, and endanger entire groupings of people based on their heritage, color or religion, particularly in this modern technological age.
To quote the final three words of Hayes’ book cited above: “Beware the beginnings!”
What is to be done? The remarkable, unprecedented marches of Jan. 21 promise the embryo of a strong nationwide, multicultural, multigender, multiracial resistance movement. If so, we and our children will be spared the need to be latter-day Martin Niemollers, apologizing for our silence.
To quote my favorite chant of the marchers in Chicago on that sunny Saturday:
“No hate, no fear. Everyone is welcome here!”
