Abstract
In 1946–47, Martin Niemöller and his wife Else visited the USA. They visited 52 cities in 22 US states. He gave over 200 talks in front of huge audiences in churches, universities and civic auditoria. The talks were often broadcast. Niemöller reckoned he spoke to half a million in person, millions more on the airwaves. In Los Angeles they met Bing Crosby. How did Niemöller get to be so famous?
Benjamin Ziemann’s fine biography traces Niemöller’s life from his birth into a Protestant pastor’s family in 1892, through his entry into the German Imperial Navy in 1910 and his career as a naval officer, concluding as a U-boat commander in 1918. After trying farming and considering emigration to Argentina, Niemöller decided to enter the ministry. He worked first for the Inner Mission – a roving role that made the best of his organizational skills – before becoming a pastor in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem in 1931. It was here that he became arguably the most prominent representative of the Confessing Church, making the most of his journey from U-boat to pulpit to sustain his self-presentation as a critical friend of German nationalism. The Gestapo tapped his telephone, and at an (in)famous showdown of Protestant church leaders with Hitler in 1934, Göring produced a transcript of unguarded comments Niemöller had made suggesting that he could outwit the Führer, ending the meeting in chaos.
From that point on, it was only a matter of time before Niemöller was arrested. When the judges at his trial in 1937 released him with a sentence of time already served, he was re-arrested and held as a ‘personal prisoner’ of the Führer in Sachsenhausen and Dachau until the war ended. It made him perhaps the most famous victim of Hitler. Christians around the world prayed regularly for him. After the war, Niemöller capitalized on his reputation, becoming arguably the best known representative of German Protestantism, and indeed of Germany. He died in 1984, a poster boy for world peace.
But, as Ziemann argues with careful attention to evidence and an admirable determination not to be bamboozled by Niemöller’s saintly reputation, there are several problems with this narrative. These are developed throughout and lucidly spelled out in the book’s final pages. Niemöller could be charming and unstuffy, but also infuriatingly uncompromising. His fierce German nationalism remained intact throughout his imprisonment and long after. In 1939, for example, he offered unsuccessfully to join Hitler’s army, not to get out of jail but because he thought it his national duty. It wasn’t until the 1950s that he came to suspect nationalism. Most troubling of all is ‘Niemöller’s own persistent antisemitism’ (p. 339). Before the war his views were indistinguishable from most Germans; his comments – even after the war – about individual Jews, American Jews and the state of Israel make uncomfortable reading.
It is Ziemann’s achievement in drawing out both Niemöller’s strengths and weaknesses with acuity and balance that makes this the best biography of Niemöller available. Alas, the translation is intermittently odd (e.g. ‘disposed’ when ‘deposed’ is meant (p. 155); or ‘rejected to be drawn’ instead of ‘rejected being drawn’ (p. 288)) in ways that suggest that an English-speaking editor should have read it through before publishing.