Book Review
Then They Will Come for Us
Then They Came For Me: Martin Niemöller, The Pastor Who Defied the Nazis
by Matthew D. Hockenos
reviewed by J. Daryl Charles
Then They Came for Me is a simultaneously difficult and utterly fascinating book to review. A biography of one of the most captivating figures of the twentieth century, it poses difficulties for the reviewer because its subject was an exceedingly complex individual—one who went through seismic transformations in the way he viewed his native culture, political authority, religious belief, and the use of coercive force. But fascinating as well, for all of the same reasons.
What makes this volume significant is that the author brings us the first English-language biography of Niemöller in a generation. In addition, the two previous English-language biographies, along with their two German-language counterparts, tended to be far more sparing of their subject. This volume, in contrast, captures the nuances of Niemöller’s complicated life in a way that, while not denying his courage and resistance to Hitler from 1934 onward, still mirrors his commitment to German nationalism and support for Nazi political ideology. In the end, Niemöller is a conflicted hero—as, in fact, most are.
Hockenos argues that past biographies have tended to depict Niemöller as a man of principle who was led astray by National Socialism’s promises. Hockenos, however, is careful to demonstrate that, to the contrary, Niemöller knew what Hitler wished to accomplish and, in fact, supported it. Only in time did Niemöller confront his own political and cultural blindness. Even after the war he was slow to confess his own and wider German attitudes of anti-Semitism—attitudes that were pervasive throughout much of Europe yet found particularly fertile soil in the post-World War I German context.
This biography seeks neither to idolize nor to vilify Niemöller. Rather, it represents an attempt to understand him and to chronicle the journey that took him from being a Nazi sympathizer to being a transformed and committed pacifist—one who in his increasingly visible role after World War II traveled the world both to protest the Cold War, with its supposed roots in Western imperialism, and to promote “non-violence.”
Bonhoeffer & Niebuhr, With & Against
Though less well known to us than his contemporaries Dietrich Bonhoeffer—with whom Niemöller collaborated briefly in 1933 and 1934 as the seeds of the “Confessing Church” were being sown—and Reinhold Niebuhr—who generally struggled to understand Niemöller’s motives—Niemöller would achieve iconic status as a result of his imprisonment from 1937 to 1945 and his surprising release at war’s end. As it happened, Niemöller was unwilling to take up Bonhoeffer’s radical call to action in the 1930s to support German Jews and, in fact, would only gradually in 1945 and 1946 come to acknowledge German guilt and the need for repentance of anti-Semitism. Bonhoeffer himself would confide to a friend that Niemöller struck him as one of the many “naïve and starry-eyed idealists” whose dual devotion to German nationalism and Protestantism was simply unacceptable.
In very short order events in Germany would prove Bonhoeffer right. Unlike Niemöller, the young Bonhoeffer insisted that Christian faith and National Socialism were inimical to one another. For his part, Niebuhr would increasingly come to view—and later denounce—Niemöller as an appeaser. The break between the two would become complete by the early 1950s, with the increasing tensions of the Cold War. Niebuhr, of course, was quite critical of the Church’s failure to defy Communism, and to do so with the same resistance by which Christians supposedly had defied Hitler. While Niemöller after WWII concerned himself with the question, “What can the Church do for peace?” Niebuhr was asking, “What can the Church contribute to the health and the survival of a free society?”
A Problematic Evolution
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a
Communist.
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.
J. Daryl Charles is the Acton Institute Affiliated Scholar in Theology & Ethics. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including Retrieving the Natural Law (2008), Natural Law and Religious Freedom (2018), and, most recently, Just War and Christian Traditions (forthcoming). He is also co-editor of Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace: God's Gifts for a Fallen World, Volume 3 (2020). He is a contributing editor to Touchstone.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on history from the online archives
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
15.6—July/August 2002
Things Hidden Since the Beginning of the World
The Shape of Divine Providence & Human History by James Hitchcock
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
on the Wisdom of the Good Doctor Edmund Pellegrino by Allen H. Roberts II
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
on Benedict XVI on the Fairest of the Sons of Men by Michael Martin De Sapio
28.3—May/June 2015
Of Bicycles, Sex, & Natural Law
Describing Human Ends & Our Limitations Is Neither Futile Nor Unloving by R. V. Young
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
