Thursday, March 6, 2025

It is the 6th of March 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Regular listeners of this show will know of my affinity for 20th century German history- not always a sunny topic, but one that can reveal the strength of an individuals faith and a community dedicated to national repentance in the face of evil.

One of the more popular episodes of this show is the Weekend Edition featuring Diedrich Bonhoeffer (or Bon-Hawfer… anglicizing is fine!) which is linked in the show transcript (https://www.1517.org/podcast-overview/2023-04-22). But there is another giant name in the field of anti-Nazi Christian work opposing Hitler, but one that would be MUCH more surprising to those who knew him as a young man. He was Martin Niemöller, born in 1892, he would escape martyrdom and live a long life, dying on this, the 6th of March in 1984 at the age of 92.  

Bonhoeffer was cosmopolitan, generally democratic and opposed to reactionary politics. By the time he took up his fight, few would be surprised that his life and theology might take him there. Niemöller on the other hand was perhaps the least likely to take up the same cause, opposed to Hitler and for Christ’s sake.

He was the son of a pastor but took much. More pride in being a German of the “Second Reich”- that of the Hohenzollerns and the Kaiser. He joined the German Imperial Army in 1910 and served on German U-Boat throughout the First World War, even earning the Iron Cross, First Class.

But upon the conclusion of the war and the defeat of the Germans he became disillusioned with what he called “the system” which was the Weimar Republic- a democratic and relatively free society- with freedoms of worship and the press. He believed that this was the downfall of a proud German society and supported the rise of the National Socialists under Hitler. In the last free election before the rise of Hitler he voted for the Führer.

He had left civil service during the Republic to become ordained as his father was, he believed the church to be a bulwark for the older values. But despite promises from Hitler to protect the church, he soon realized that Hitler would use the church as long as they were useful. When he implemented the “Aryan Paragraph,” refusing the ordination of pastors with Jewish heritage or Jewish spouses. He was arrested in 1937 but released in 1938. Hitler, infuriated that one of the pastors who helped elevate him had now opposed him, had him personally rearrested and taken to the concentration camp first at Sachsenhausen in Berlin and then in Dachau. Unlike Bonhoeffer, Niemoller would survive the liberation of the camps. It was after the war, visiting his concentration camp with his wife, that he read a plague dedicated to the number who died between 1933 and 1945. He had been a member of the opposition from 1937 but could not find an alibi or forgiveness for his fealty to Hitler before then. This would be the occasion that would lead to the poem attributed to him:

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists…

The Trade unionists…

The Jews…

And I did not speak out…

Etc…

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To Speak out for me.

 

While a famous poem for social and political reasons, Niemöller would cite his inspiration as Matthew 25:40 “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”.

He would go on to become an outspoken Christian leader against war and political extremism on both the right and the left. He would work with the World Council of Churches in the 1960s and remained a popular figure, one who saw first hand (and voted for) the rise of Hitler and both religious persecution of some and the eroding of religious freedoms for others. Martin Niemöller, a convert and prophet against Totalitarianism and Fascism in the name of Christ, died in Wiesbaden, West Germany, on this, the 6th of March, in 1984. Born in 1892, he was 92 years old.

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Psalm 91- from a modern Psalter- Seedbed at psalms.seedbed.com:

The Most High—if He’s your dwelling—if the Lord’s your confidence,
Then no harm will come upon you, nor disaster near your tents.


For His angels will surround you, guard you in your ways alone.

They will lift you in their hands so that your foot won’t strike a stone.

You will tread upon the lion, and the cobra without fear;

You will trample the great lion, and the serpent who comes near.


The Lord says, “Because he loves Me, I will rescue him from shame;

I’ll protect him from all danger—he acknowledges My name.

“He will call to Me—I’ll answer; when he cries out, I will hear.

I’ll deliver him with honor; in his trouble I’ll be near.


With long life, I’ll satisfy him, till the time his days will cease;

I will show him My salvation—he will dwell within My peace.”

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 6th of March 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man not surprised that a former U Boat captain could think so deeply… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who knows puns might be the last refuge of the scoundrel…I’ll do better next time- I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.