Talk:Martin Niemöller

message: Niemöller's initial support for Hitler, Confessinal Church: William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years: 1930-1940, pp. 151-155
There is a disconnect between the term national conservative and being a supporter of Hitler's national socialists.  There needs to be better philosophical justification of terms being used.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.39.172.53 (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: The article is chronological; therefore, I’m moving the 1935 entry back to its original position following the 1934 entry.  Removing misstating of argument.  The argument is that people who made “these kinds of statements” were “collaborators in the Holocaust.”  Removing editorializing, “Despite his anti-Nazi credentials,” and returning to original language of the cited material.Doright 20:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article makes a great song and dance about Niemoeller's anti-Semitism but also says that Israel honoured him by naming him one of Righteous Among the Nations. Even Bonhoeffer was not accorded this honour. The article is confused and below the standard one expects of Wikipedia; and for users who know little about Niemoeller, the article must be utterly bewildering.  
Norvo 23:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What Niemöller was opposed to was applying the so-called "Aryan paragraph" to those German Jews who converted to Lutheranism. He did not object to the persecution of German Jews per se. The German historian Hans Mommsen what once about "resistance as a process", describing how various people came to object to the Nazi regime more and more in process. In other words, it was all black and white with heroic anti-Nazis to everything Hitler believed in all at once. More shades of grey. This article would benefit from this approach.--A.S. Brown (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Martin Niemöller and antisemitism

message: I've tried to tidy up a little. If H-antisemitism is a discussion group, could that be replaced please by a proper citation? See WP:V and WP:RS. Also, the rest of the page needs citations too. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice job on the rewrite. H-antisemitism is one of the oldest listservs, a discussion conducted via email. This one goes back to the 1990s. It is managed by H-Net. It would be better to find a different cite. --CTSWyneken 21:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: CTSWyneken, please consider using SlimVirgin's contribution as an example of how to contribute to Wikipedia in a positive manner.  Entirely deleting references and then tagging the material for lack of references is not helpful and could be considered vandalism as has been explained to you before on other articles.  SlimV, I agree the rest of the page needs citations too.  If I'm not mistaken, I may be the one that asked for some of those citations.Doright 21:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: As Slim observes, we need to cite in the article more thoroughly and carefully. We need a replacement for the Michael quote, which, as she notes, is from a source Wikipedia does not consider reliable. Every quotation needs to be documented. If an opinion is rendered, it should also be sourced. For example, the first time we call him antisemitic, which I do not doubt he was early in life, we need to document it. I have marked the places where I believe such citations are needed. --CTSWyneken 13:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

text: As far as I'm aware, Niemoeller wrote one letter in September 1939 offering to serve in navy. It's unclear what the motivation was. It could have been an attempt to get out of the concentration camp. Without more detail, which may not be available, it seems one needs to be very careful. Niemoeller was a very enigmatic man, and the article needs a thorough revision from someone with real insight into his personality. There needs, too, to be some discussion of his postwar pacifism and his deep skepticism about the Cold War. He may well have been uncritically glorified in America, but there needs to be a determined attempt to understand him.  Norvo, 21:08, 03 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: I've moved the following here from the first paragraph of the article.
writing that fails to reflect the paradoxes of his own political positions,
If we are to use this, it has to be from a published source. Our OR policy requires we not render an opinion ourselves, simply reflect the literature. --CTSWyneken 15:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editorial Comment 

message: CTSWyneken, please do not delete citations from reliable and reputable sources.Doright 05:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: CTSWyneken, do not delete citations from reliable and reputable sources

message: I have removed the following from the page, since it is from a listserv archive:
"beliefs such as those held by Niemöller made even Nazi victims into Holocaust collaborators: "Martin Niemoeller in his radically antisemitic August 1935 sermon noted that the Jews would not be released from their suffering until they converted, Jewish suffering being "proof" that Jesus was God. The essential reason the Jews were cursed was because they "brought the Christ of God to the Cross ... These kinds of statements are a result of traditional antisemitism, and beliefs such as these corrupted average people as well as the elite and made them all not just victims of Nazis but active or passive collaborators in the Holocaust." Robert Michael, "Christian Theological Antisemitism", H-Antisemitism, May 6, 1997."
See policies: Burden of evidence, Bulletin boards, wikis and posts to Usenet
See also discussion at: #Sources, Talk:Martin Luther and the Jews#CTSWyneken --CTSWyneken 12:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed quote from Listserv archives per policy 

message: ===CTSWyneken, please do not delete citations from reliable and reputable sources===
*Please do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point (WP:Point).   SlimV may not have been familiar with H-Antisemitism, but you know it’s not part of Usenet.  The citation meets the [Burden of evidence criteria] of being from “reputable, reliable, third-party sources.”   The author has published more than 50 articles and eleven books on the Holocaust and the History of Antisemitism.. Doright 18:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes 

message: *Please do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point (WP:Point).   SlimV may not have been familiar with H-Antisemitism, but you know it’s not part of Usenet.  The citation meets the [Burden of evidence criteria] of being from “reputable, reliable, third-party sources.”   The author has published more than 50 articles and eleven books on the Holocaust and the History of Antisemitism.. Doright 18:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: CTSWyneken, please do not delete citations from reliable and reputable sources

message: Could someone please rationalize the quotes and blockquotes in this section? The indentation is totally scrood up, but I can't tell for sure what the intent is -- what's a quote and what's a quote containing a quote, and so on. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Alleged whitewashing" section 

message: Since I'm being quoted extensively I'd like to have a link to my paper which is available as pdf file added to the reference. However, I'm having difficulties with editing the references. Could a kind soul please add the following link to the reference "Raimund Lammersdorf, The Question of Guilt, 1945-47: German and American Answers, Conference at the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., March 25-27, 1999."
http://www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/lammersdorf.pdf  
It's a 65k pdf file.
Thanks!
Raimund Lammersdorf
:Raimund, I've added some per per your request, but have to go now.  FYI, references can be found "inline" with the text body.  To edit references, edit the section that contains the text that is cited and you'll note  xxxxxxxxx. Also, you should sign your talk page posts with four tildes Best regards, Doright 17:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: Since much material flagged  for some time now have not been documented, I have removed these comments as OR. --CTSWyneken(talk) 20:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing OR 

message: Immediately under the "First they arrested" poem there seems to be a blurb which seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the poem.  The whole article also paints a very negative view of the man and is definately NPOV and focuses entirely on one aspect of him, the fact that he was an anti semite.  The article doesn't even mention the fact that during the thirties anti-semitism was common throughout the world, and it seems to go to great lengths to make the man seem as sinister as possible.  I don't know what to do about this though. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Norvo (talk • contribs) .
:: Welcome to Wikipedia! You are welcome to add information based on published sources that bring out other aspects of Niemoller. Drop by WP:V and WP:CITE for suggestions on what our community values in its sources. Thanks! --CTSWyneken(talk) 21:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV? 

message: I've added the template because this article is really in need of an expert on this subject whose intention is not to misuse this article for inflicting his personal views on it. Before I approached the article it didn't even mention Niemöller's post-war pacifism with one word although this is one of the things he is best known for. His resistance to Nazism was always a subject of controversial debate. He had a very bad image in Great Britain shortly after the war and he himself openly admitted that he had not done enough to fight Nazism - as the famous poem explicitly says. So it would not do justice to him to exclusively focus on his pre-war political views although it is certainly important to point out the darker sides of his biography. The article should also cite more works of modern scholars instead of focusing on those who all favor a particular view on Niemöller.--84.167.165.245 11:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Help by an expert needed

message: An unsigned post (previously at the top of this page) read:
The version of First they came... in the Wikipedia entry on it has a slightly different text; shouldn't the two be the same? I do not know what the original was, so I cannot make the correction.
I'd go a step further.  Why have two copies at all?  How about we get rid of the one here?  The article on the poem itself mentions many variations, including references to Jews, so we're not losing information by doing that.  If no objections in a few days, I'll do that.
Matchups 05:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Delete the poem?

message: The "Allegations of Anti-Semitism" section of the main article is tagedd with the following two two templates:
They are obviously contradicting each other. The same section cannot, reasonably, "seems to contain too many quotations for an encyclopedia entry", and, at the same time, "read like an unsourced personal reflection or essay". 
Therefore, unless some other editor gives me a good reason to the contrary, I am going to remove both templates from the section.Miguel de Servet 03:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allegations of Anti-Semitism 

message: Generally, Niemoller enjoys a glowing historical reputation, mainly on account of the famous poem attributed to him.  This article's content concerning his anti-semetism is probably the most important content any article on this man could contain since it informs the reader of critical but not widely publicized information.  That being said, it is also controlling in this article.  Perhaps more attention should be given to Niemoller's popular legacy, even if it is uninformed by his anti-semetic past? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.102.179 (talk • contribs) 
:In a lot of ways, even First they came for... is informed by Niemoller's anti-Semitism, at least in the sense of the old platitude the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. There maybe a slight WP:UNDUE problem, e.g. at least one of the quotes isn't from a WP:RS (to be picky). I'm myself unaware of his popular legacy per se, but the article could bear expansion in that direction. -- 23:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Balance of Content? 

message: The article says that Niemöller hated jews because he stated that the reason for the jews suffering is because they cruzified Jesus. But how is believing that equivalent to hating jews, and being in agreeance with a genozide as the article indicates?  Actually a firend of mine also believes that the reason for the Jews suffering is their cuzification of Christ - yet she is almost 80 and is a jewish holocaust survivor herself. 
Besides, if Niemöller hated jews why would he found the "Pfarrernotbund, an organization of pastors to 'combat rising discrimination against Christians of Jewish background.'" as early as 1933 ?  Doesn't that fact in itself discredit that "Niemoeller agreed with the Nazi's position on the Jewish question."? How could he want to go all out to "combat rising discrimination against Christians of Jewish background", well knowing that his engagement may cost him his life, and yet at the same time be an "active or passive collaborator in the Holocaust" and "go all out to preach hatred against the Jews?"
Is having articles full of statements that contradict themselves, Wikipedia's ideas of neutrality?
The article refers to the man as a "national conservative" and by extension the Fascists as well. Where that term originated is anyone's guess, however in most cases it is derived from denials among it's socialist leaning authors. They were in fact "National Socialists" who gained followers as centrists party. Promising all that the polls told them would be popular not unlike the most popular political parties today. Historically there is little dispute, the party referred to itself as "National Socialists" and historical precision should be maintained.
THEFXR (talk) 05:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-Semit?

message: As I think this article here is not in a good state I started including/correcting information from the de.wikipedia article into this here beginning with the time up to the end of Weimar Republic: . E.g. the former chapter heading " U-boat Commander" simply didn't reflect his nonetheless impressive military career during WWI and made him look like a German ÜbermenschTM that is born as commander (also silly nick names aren't exactly useful in order to describe his role accurately). I hope that now as well his contradictory life during the Weimar Republic is now more clear and gives some hint for his later spiry way from open admiration to opposition of Nazi Germany. At the moment the article sounds more like a strange mix out of black-white payoff of the lucky afterbornes and some naive white-washing and not like an objective description of his non-linear and impressive life. By the way Niemöller is not a singular case. Many prominent German people from that time had a similar struggle with themselves: E.g. Gottfried Benn, Max Planck, Otto Hahn and many more. These people weren't hypocritics like quite some parts of the German society during the Adenauer era but managed to overcome their own dazzlement and risked their life doing that. Arnomane (talk) 01:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added the Clean-up template. And Arnomane, if you want to do some clean-up, just do it instead of waiting for answers on the talk page that will never come. There has not been a serious discussion here except when edit wars were going on.--84.167.153.72 (talk) 13:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Start of cleanup 

message: Could someone put in an IPA pronunciation of his name? I wasn't sure how to pronounce the ö (Alt-148 on Windows, for your convenience) in his name and had to look this up separately. 170.63.96.108 (talk) 14:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation? 

message: "During the Ruhr Uprising in 1920 he was battalion commander of the "III. Bataillon der Akademischen Wehr Münster" belonging to the paramilitary, with commandant was Tristan Bouan, a man of great courage and open-minded. Freikorps.[7]"
I don't know what's being said there.  If Tristan Bouan is notable, should he not have his own article instead of this glop being interpolated here?  I don't know much about Freikorps (paramilitary units) but "open-minded" doesn't sound like a likely or important descriptor.  Besides, it is ungrammatical.  The citation does not seem to support the text (and the cited document looks fishy to me anyway).
I'm going to trim a bit.  Somebody with more knowledge might revive this in a better form.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DHR (talk • contribs) 17:18, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freikorps and Tristan Bouan 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080314090141/http://www.georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de:80/texts/niederdorf.htm to http://www.georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de/texts/niederdorf.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "In late April 1945, Niemöller - together with about 140 high-ranking prisoners - was transported to the Alpenfestung." 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_Fortress
In particular, was he sent to Castle Itter? This was known to have housed about that many very high-ranking prisoners, although it's not clear is Niemoller was there or elsewhere. Kortoso (talk) 20:28, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alpenfestung  

message: Ausrottung. "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. - Man kann nicht umhin, sich vorzustellen, daß die Gesamtentwicklung nichts anderes bedeutet, als den Versuch, eine ganze Nation bis auf ihre Wurzeln auszurotten."
translation:
Extermination. "The current caloric number of 700 is less than the lowest rations in the Kz. -Since the unconditional surrender of the German people, at least six million Germans have perished. - One can not help imagining that the overall development is nothing more than the attempt, to exterminate a whole nation to its roots."
Pastor Niemöller in a letter to Friedrich J. Forell, Secretary of the  "Emergency Comittee for German Protestantism". (DER SPIEGEL 22/1947) --77.182.114.154 (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Niemöller quotation 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: http://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/niem/NiemollersAntisemitism.htm Xx236 (talk) 09:57, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Niemöller made pejorative remarks about Jews, while at the same time protecting baptised Jewish Christians in his own church, persecuted as Jews by the Nazis. In one sermon in 1935, he remarked: “What is the reason for [their] obvious punishment, which has lasted for thousands of years? Dear brethren, the reason is easily given: the Jews brought the Christ of God to the cross!” Azerty82 (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right, Azerty82. I already explained twice before about where to place Niemöller's antisemitism. Niemöller was opposed to völkisch antisemitism, but he did ascribe to the Christian antisemitism which saw the Jews as practicing the wrong religion, which required their punishment until they saw the errors of their ways and converted to Christianity. It is true that he criticized the persecution of Jewish converts to Christianity, but in the same statements he also made very clear that supported the persecution of Jews. I think Niemöller perfectly illustrates the ambitious position of the Lutheran Church in Germany under the Third Reich, both supporting and to a certain extent opposing the government's racial policies. --A.S. Brown (talk) 00:37, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  He was an anti-Semite