ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author talks about the religious implications of literary and philosophical texts of Martin Niemöller. He was born at Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892, the son of a clergyman. He joined the navy in 1910, and served as a U-boat commander during World War I. After the War he studied theology, and was ordained in 1924. He took over a church in Berlin-Dahiem in 1931. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Niemöller helped to organize the Pfarrer-Notbund, an emergency association of Protestant ministers that soon developed into the so-called Confessing Church. Niemöller's heroic stance during these years finds perfect expression in the book, Dennoch getrost: Die letzten 28 Predigten des Pfarrers Martin Niemöller, vor seiner Verhaftung gahalten in den Jahren 1936 und 1937 in Berlin-Dahlem, published in Switzerland in 1939. It has been translated under the tide. As the German title indicates, the final two sermons were the last he delivered before the Gestapo arrested him.