Rev. Martin Niemöller ( January 14 is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 351 days remaining (352 in leap years). Celebrated as New Years Day by those still following the Julian calendar. Events 1301 - Andrew III of Hungary dies, ending the Arpad dynasty in Hungary. 1501 - Martin... January 14, 1892 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). Events January-June January 1 - Ellis Island begins accepting immigrants to the United States. January 14 - Death of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain... 1892 - March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). There are 300 days remaining. It is 啓蟄 (Keichitsu) in the Japanese calendar. Events 1447 - Nicholas V becomes Pope. 1460 - Treaty of Alcacovas - Portugal gives Castile the Canary Islands in exchange for... March 6, 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events January January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state January 1 - AT&T is broken up into 22 independent units January 5 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU. January 7 - Brunei becomes the sixth member of the... 1984) was a The Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is one of the worlds leading industrialised countries, located in the heart of Europe. Due to its central location, Germany has more neighbours than any other European country: these are Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the... German The Lutheran movement is a group of denominations of Protestant Christianity by the original definition. See Protestantism for further discussion. History of Lutheranism Early history Lutheranism as a movement traces its origin to the work of Martin Luther, a German religious scholar who sought to reform the practices of the... Lutheran pastor who was an opponent of For other people with the surname Hitler, see Hitler (disambiguation). Adolf Hitler ( 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary – 30 April 1945 in Berlin, Germany) was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (more widely known as the Nazi Party) and Führer und Reichskanzler... Adolf Hitler.

He was born in Lippstadt is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It has an estimated population of over 70,000. The historic city center is placed between an artificial canal of the river Lippe and the river itself. Nearby cities include: Paderborn, Soest, Erwitte, Geseke. Geographic position: 51° 40 north 8° 21... Lippstadt and was a submarine commander in Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. Battle aftermath. Remains of the Chateau Wood World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, the War of the Nations, and the War to End All Wars, was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to... World War I. After the war, he spent some time in the The designation of Freikorps (German for Free Corps) was originally applied to voluntary armies. The first freikorps were recruited by Frederick II of Prussia during the Seven Years War. Other known freikorps appeared during the Napoleonic Wars and were led for example by Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow... Freikorps. He studied theology and was ordained in 1931 is a common year starting on Thursday. Events January-March January 4 - Female aviator Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa January 6 - Thomas Edison submits his last patent application. January 22 - Sir Isaac Isaacs sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia January 25 - Mohandas... 1931, becoming pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ at Dahlem, an affluent suburb of For other uses, see Berlin (disambiguation). Berlin [ bɛrˈliːn ] is the national capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,387,404 inhabitants (as of September 2004); down from 4.5 million before World War II. Berlin is located on the rivers Spree and... Berlin.

A German nationalist, Niemöller initially welcomed Hitler's rise to power. In his 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 3 - Japanese troops occupy Shanghai January 5 - Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay. January 15 - Political violence has caused almost 100 deaths in Spain January 17 - US Congress... 1933 autobiography From U-Boat to Pulpit, Niemöller called the years of the The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (Pronounced Vye-Mar, and in German it is known as the Weimarer Republik). It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after the German monarchy... Weimar Republic "years of darkness" and in an afterword to the book expressed hope that Hitler would bring about a "National Revival". The Nazis' praise for his autobiography helped make it a best-seller in Germany.

By the autumn of 1934 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). Events January-April January 1 - Alcatraz becomes a federal prison. January 7 - First Flash Gordon comic strip is published. January 10 - Execution of Marinus van der Lubbe January 24 - Einstein visits White House January 26 - The... 1934, Niemöller's faith in Hitler has collapsed, and he formed the " Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) was a Christian movement in Nazi Germanysupported by the Nazi Party. In 1933 the Gleichschaltung forced protestant churches to merge into the Protestant Reich Church and support Nazi ideology. Other opposition movements were forced to go underground to meet, while the Confessional Church would become the... Confessing Church", a Protestant group that opposed the Nazification of the German Protestant churches, the anti-Christian ideas of certain Nazi leaders, and Nazi racial doctrines.

The Confessing Church explicitly opposed the German Christians was formed in 1932 and led by Ludwig Mueller. The group were supportive of the Nazi ideas about race and adopted Martin Luthers anti-Semitism, as well as his respect for state authority. The group wanted to form a Reich Church which would bring together all Protestants... German Christians, proponents of the single all-embracing State-established " Protestant Reich Church was founded by Adolf Hitler in 1933. The church was formed by merging 29 regional churches into one church. The forming of the church was the result of work by the German Christians. Ludwig Müller was elected Reich Bishop. Categories: Stub | Christian denominations | Nazi Germany ... Protestant Reich Church," headed by Hitler-appointed Reichsbischoff Ludwig Müller.

On 8 November 1934, the Confessing Church held a rally of 20,000 at Dahlem, at which one of its leaders, a Reverend Dr. Koch, proclaimed:

We are fighting against the defamation of Christ and true Christianity. There are false prophets abroad in this land preaching the doctrine of blood and soil and racial mysticism, which we reject

—clear allusion to the Nazi Party. Niemöller, at the end of the rally, declared that

it is a question of which master the German Protestants are going to serve, Christ or another.

On Sunday, 27 June 1937 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 1 - Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua January 11 - The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States. January 19 - Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying... 1937, Niemöller's sermon to an overflowing church concluded with

We have no more thought of using our own powers to escape the arm of the authorities than had the Alternate meanings: See Apostle (Mormonism), The Apostle (1997 movie) The Apostles were Jewish men chosen from among the disciples, who were sent forth (as indicated by the Greek word απόστολος apostolos= messenger), by Jesus to preach the Gospel to both Jews and... 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.

Three days later Niemöller was arrested and after eight months in Berlin's Moabit prison was tried by a Sondergericht, one of Hitler's "special courts" for crimes against the State. Acquitted on the charge of "underhanded attacks against the State", he was convicted of "abuse of the pulpit" and for taking collections. Sentenced to seven months imprisonment, he was released for having already served that time awaiting trial.

As he left the courtroom, Niemöller was placed in "protective custody" by the Gestapo is a portmanteau contraction of the name of the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, Geheime Staatspolizei, (German for secret state police). During the reign of Nazi Germany, the Gestapo was the central intelligence agency of Germany, under the overall administration of the SS. It was administrated by... Gestapo and interned in Sachsenhausen may refer to a quarter of Oranienburg in Germany, see Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg), and a detention facility here a quarter of Frankfurt am Main in Germany, see Sachsenhausen (Frankfurt am Main) a municipality of Weimarer Land, see Sachsenhausen (Thüringen) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which... Sachsenhausen and Categories: Germany-related stubs | Cities in Germany ... Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945. In a letter in 1941 he volunteered to serve again in the German navy (this letter may have been a forgery), but the offer was refused.

After his release in 1945 he was instrumental in the issuance of the Declaration of Guilt by German churches in which they declared their culpability in not opposing Hitler more strenuously. He was president of the Evangelical church in Hess and Nassau from 1947 to 1961, and became president of the The World Council of Churches (or WCC) is the principal international Christian ecumenical organization. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, it has a membership of 342 churches. After the initial successes of the Ecumenical Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, church leaders (in 1937) agreed to establish a World... World Council of Churches in 1961.

He is most known for a single quotation - " First They Came... is a poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) about Nazi genocide in Germany, and German complicity in the face of Nazi eugenics. Niemöller himself was never quiet about Nazi crimes, in fact it was only his high connections to influential and wealthy investors that... First they came..." - which has many variants, but are based on his original:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then 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 out.

External link

• Who Was Martin Niemoller? (http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml)