Behind the Bastards - Part Two: Martin Niemöller, the author of 'First They Came', was a murderous fascist

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Robert discusses Martin's activities after the war, which included executing unarmed socialists. Then he became a pro-Nazi pastor and was shocked when the Nazis took power and did Nazi stuff.Sources: https://www.1517.org/articles/martin-niem%C3%B6ller-controversial-confessor https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/martin-niemoller https://archive.org/details/godsmanthestory0000clar/page/28/mode/2up https://www.nytimes.com/1939/09/25/archives/niemoeller-volunteers-for-uboat-service-nazis-reject-imprisoned.html https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/08/obituaries/martin-niemoller-resolute-foe-of-hitler.html https://considerthesourceny.org/teaching-holocaust-and-genocide/overview-human-behavior/case-studies/martin-niemoller https://archive.org/details/fromuboattoconce0000mart/page/260/mode/2up?q=jew https://worldbeyondwar.org/kapp-putsch-modern-memory/ https://spartacus-educational.com/GERniemoller.htm https://nwlocalpaper.com/first-they-came-explained https://historymadeeasier.com/the-reverend-martin-niemollers-opposition/ https://blog.oup.com/2023/11/the-man-behind-the-legend-martin-niemoller-hitlers-personal-prisoner/ https://www.christiancentury.org/critical-essay/martin-niem-ller-nazis-finally-came-him https://archive.is/ww7hM https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/first-they-came-martin-niemoller/ https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/niem/NiemollersAntisemitism.htm https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/niem/njm415/NatJewMonthly415.htm God's Man: The Story of Pastor Niemoeller: Mckay, David: 9780313210655: Amazon.com: Books Hitler's Personal Prisoner - Benjamin Ziemann - Oxford University Press Then They Came for Me by Matthew D Hockenos | Hachette Book GroupSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

World Zone Media. Welcome back, dear friends and dearest enemies. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history, with one of the very best people in all of history as my guest this week, Margaret Kiljoy. Margaret, welcome back to the program. How are you feeling about Martin Neumler? I am, uh, I knew he was going to start off bad, but I had him as like, you know, he's a pastor. He's kind of conservative.

Because, like, I did some episodes about, I should remember this guy's name, the saint who sacrificed himself in a concentration camp so that someone else could live. I literally can't remember. Oh, geez. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. I think it's Colby. And he started off more on the fascist side of things than the anti-fascist side of things. But I don't think he started off like this. And so I was thinking at the beginning, I was like, I basically run an episode on sort of. of this guy.

Yeah. No. No. Not with the murdering drowning sailors in the ocean. Yeah. Sinking hospital ships left and right stuff. Yeah.

Bad enough that your biographer has to put obviously fake words in your mouth. Yeah. And that that 1959 book by Clarissa God's Man is so fawning. And it was written when he was alive. So she's talking to him. I think he didn't want to admit to this nice young journalist lady that he had just been murdering drowning boys. Yeah.

It wasn't me. I got lucky. I'm on this side of it. Yeah. Yeah. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of the What Happened to Her podcast.

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He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Lisa, tell them about our new show.

We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Youanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Martin Nemeler ended World War I is one of the most decorated sailors in the German fleet. His prestige enhanced by the fact that the German Navy had little enough to brag about at the wars end, besides its subcrues.

He'd gotten engaged to be married in 1917, and one might have thought even the sting of losing the war would be mitigated by the chance to start a family and lead a normal life again. But Martin's not that kind of nationalist. He is a fanatic. Yeah, he is a fanatic. One part of the armist's deal was that the great German high seas fleet, which had so helped precipitate the conflict, would be interned at Scapa Flow under the watchful guns of the British Navy. No one could agree quite on what should be done with it. The British wanted some of those boats, you know, but that was not something they came to an accord on. But the submarine fleet was ordered to be handed over post-haste because they were really angry at the U-boats and they wanted them, right?

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, Martin was ordered to take two U-boats to England. He refused, and his reply became famous as a symbol of German post-war resistance or defiance. And this is how it's described in God's man. First they came for the submarines. First they came for the submarines. And I said, absolutely not. I'll defend those more than any person.

I have sailed in submarines for three years Fighting against England, sir, he told his Commodore I have neither sought nor concluded this armistice And as far as I am concerned, The people who promised our submarines to England Can take them over. I will not do it. Okay, man.

Mr. Hospital Killer here Getting real, getting busy about handing over his stupid boat. It's good thing they didn't have the nuclear submarine Or he just would have been like, goodbye. Bye. I'm hanging out underwater. I'm going, Nemo. I'll just live under.

water forever. Yeah. He resigned his commission. The matter would be wound up being moot anyway. The German fleet scuttled itself rather than fall into English hands. But nonetheless, Martin became a minor celebrity, particularly on the German right for his actions. In 1919, he gets married and begins working as a farmer, and he briefly entertains

dreams of starting a farm of his own, but rapidly rising inflation makes that a possibility an impossibility. One Sunday, while at church pondering, my people and my home, he decided to become a pastor. In his Nazi-era autobiography, from U-boat to pulpit, Martin would claim that working the soil had drawn him closer to his volk. It's hard to say what actually happened here. The war had ended in Germany with a socialist revolution that actually starts as a naval mutiny. And this leads by hook and crook to the establishment of a democratic republic, the Kaiser's abdication in the end of the war. Martin blames the socialist, particularly Friedrich Ebert, for German defeat. And in doing so, he adopted the stabbed in the back myth with gusto.

He never questions this for a moment. He sympathizes, because right after this happens, you've got this wing of left-wing revolutions that leads to the Weimar government, but then the revolutions keep coming. And so you also get these Freikor units, these right-wing militias of German veterans that rise up and kind of wind up in this period of time in an awkward alliance with the Weimar government because the government needs them to crush this leftist uprising called the Spartacists, right? Yeah. You know all of the basics of this, right? And Martin is super on board with the Frye Corps.

He considers joining at this point to crush the Spartacists, but he doesn't right now, right? He doesn't now. This is like AOC joining the Trump administration to crush the PSL. Yeah, yeah. Well, if she'd had like a military background, I guess. Yeah. It's really messy. German post-war history is very messy and complicated, right? In the book, Then They Came for Me, Hawkenos seems to attribute Martin's failure to join the Frye Corps at this point to his belief that serving as a pastor would better allow him to participate in the revival of the German nation.

Quote, he joined the ranks of the Lutheran Church for the same reason he had joined the Imperial German Navy to advance the cause of the fatherland. But history had other plans for him. Neemolar starts school to get his theology degree in January of 1920. His wife, Elsie, is pregnant and near delivery at this point in time. But right as he's about as he's expecting his first child, General Walter von Lutwitz, the so-called father of the Freikor, leads another coup against the government. This one, a right-wing coup against the Weimar government. And, you know, the government had just used Lutwitz and his Freikor to suppress the Spartacists.

But then afterwards, they're like, okay, so you're going to disband your right-wing militia now, right? And he's like, how about I do a putch? And so he launches this putch and he, you know, they forced the government out of Berlin. And he makes a right-wing politician named Wolfgang Cap, the head of state. This is the cap putch. And it doesn't work in the long run, right? But the social democrats. I don't know about the pre-Hitler putches.

There's a lot of them. There's putches left and right from the left and right in the immediate post-war period. The social Democrats have to flee Berlin and they call a general strike. the whole left rises up and it locks the country down entirely so entirely that almost no state functions are possible. The government cannot act. Is this the early 20s? This is 1919 still. Oh, we haven't even injured in 1920. It's 1919 to 1920, I think. Okay. No, this is, sorry, this is January of 20. Yeah. Yeah. So the social democracy. This is, I still want to learn so much more about late teens, early 20s. It's fascinating. Germany. So like, I'm excited to hear about this.

It's the mess. And this is not, I'm not trying to give a detailed history here, but Martin's very involved in all this, right? So there's a general strike. The government completely shuts down. And as a result, this both will prove doom for the cap push because there's just not a functioning state for them to govern. So they have to kind of give up. That's not exactly that happens. So the general strike actually stops. Oh, yeah. It stops the cap push, right? The general strike helps to stop the cap push, right? And it also provides opportunity for a communist uprising in the rur. And it. And it also provides opportunity for a communist uprising in the rur. And this group called the Red Rur Army, I think, is what they're called, as symbols an army of like 50,000 people to create like a communist state in the industrial heartland of Germany. So the very same day, the cap putch began. Niemler and a bunch of student veterans at their university formed what they called the academic defense corps. And this is a fricor militia for their school. But they don't mobilize to defend the cap government. That said, once the putch attempt was called off and the cap thing, like, once they're like, okay, we lost, we're giving up, Weimar. Like, you're the legitimate government.

We got to do something about this red rur army because they're actual communists as opposed to. This isn't the Bavarian commune. These, no, I think that's a separate one. The rur is a different area. That one gives us B. Traven and the treasure this year are Madres. Mm-hmm. Yes, it does. And someone else who will talk about in these episodes, Margaret.

Oh, okay. But this is the red rur army and uprising. And basically, so the right like the right always does, like when they feel like they're winning, just says anyone left of us as a commune. But as soon as there's a communist army and the rur, they're like, oh, Weimar, no, we can work with you guys. You're different from the communists, obviously. What were we saying earlier? No.

So at this point, the Academic Defense Corps is like risen up and the government, the Vimar government, calls the Frye Corps into action again to crush this Red Rur army. Niemler takes command of one of the three battalions of the Academic Defense Corps. They enter combat on April 1st. And the red, yeah, he's a Fricor veteran, right? Oh, my God. The guy who wrote first they came is a fricor veteran. He's like, first I came for the communists. First I came for the communist with a gun.

And I didn't say anything because I was shooting them in the head while they were unarmed. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. They entered combat on April 1st, and the Red Rur Army had mostly dissolved by the 5th. They do not hold up for very long. Hawkenos's book gives a description of the kind of service, Martin and his comrade would have been engaged in. The right had a policy of taking no prisoners. A student volunteer, Max Zeller, wrote his parents,

We shoot even the wounded. Anyone who falls into our hands first gets the rifle butt and then is finished off with a bullet. Estimates vary, but approximately 1,000 communists were killed along with 200 to 300 rightists. We were greeted as liberators from the hell of Bolshevism. Nemoler maintained, although few industrial workers in the rur saw it that way. They probably threw them into the water to pretend they're drowning soldiers.

They threw them in the water. Yeah, yeah, he loves that. And Martin never, I read his autobiography, he talks about this, but he doesn't talk directly about what they did. He never admits to executing any prisoners or unarmed people. He never admits to engaging in any specific violence. But if you want to know, did Martin Niemeler execute wounded and unarmed people during the rur uprising?

Think of how he behaved to those drowning French soldiers. And I think you might have your answer. I think Martin Niemler probably shot some unarmed people to death, right? from this point on Martin only grew more and more involved in right-wing politics as a monarchist to his bones he felt that ideally

politics would not be necessary because it would not be allowed he was unable to see that the monarchy had brought Germany all of its problems and instead blamed the left which is an insane read of World War I but it is the read all these guys have of it right like we did everything

we were in complete power and control it was a disaster the fault of these Jewish communists who had to who had to write in when we starved the country to death to try to rescue our few survivors from nightmare right they're the ones who fucked it up right yeah yeah famously uh huh yeah in his book hitler's personal prisoner benjamin zeman describes most of the early 20s as a time of intense right wing radicalization for martin he joined the german volkish protection and defiance federation arguably the first german fascist populist party right this is the first like mass fascist party in Germany, debatable.

The DNVP was intensely anti-Semitic and considered Judaism and Bolshevism to be synonyms. Martin also joined other right-wing parties and organizations over the next years while he worked as a plate layer for the railroad company to make money as he finished school. He made a point of bragging to his wife, Elsa, whenever he encountered his co-workers because he's very proud to briefly be a blue-collar man that I worked on the railroad, like a real-volk. It's like, Martin, you're a nerd. pastor's son, fuck off. I mean, being in the U-boat should be good enough for your blue-collar credentials.

You don't need to work at a railroad and brag about it. Right. But that's the hip thing in his subculture. In 1923, after graduating, he opted not to take on his own parish due to the disastrous economic conditions and instead manages to get a job as manager for a much larger church, the intermission of Westphalia. In this position, he managed all church social welfare programs for the entire province. Martin was delighted that this job paid enough to, Simon writes, secure a bourgeoisie lifestyle for him and his family.

So by 1923, 24, they're like middle class again, you know? By running charities. Yeah, by running charities. Yeah, that's how he's making his money. By 1924, he's pushing 30 and a father of three. His latest had been born just that January. He voted first for the Nazis probably in this year. I don't 100% know.

Zeman, one of his biographers, the author of Hitler's personal prisoners, says that he did not vote for the Nazis at this point. But Hockenosa's book reports that he voted for the Nazis at least once before 1930, and several sources I found say that he did so in 1924. I don't know if that would have been the year, because in his own autobiography, Martin writes almost nothing about the Munich putsch that had been carried out by the Nazis around then. So he doesn't seem to be super involved in the Nazis at that point by 24, but certainly at some point before 1930, he starts voting for the Nazis and does so at least once. I can't exactly know when. This is really relatable to me, not voting for the Nazis,

but you trying to figure out exactly which year and which sources are true and not, because this is, there's not a lot of people have the same job as me. Yeah. You're like getting really annoyed that these sources. don't agree with each other and needing to figure out which seem more accurate so that you can give the most. Anyway, it's a very charming thing. It's frustrating, but yeah, I don't know exactly, but certainly he does seem to have voted for the Nazis before 1930 at least once, right? Yeah.

Which just makes complete sense with everything you're describing. It's totally in line with him, right? There's just the lesser evil, he probably said. Well, no, actually, Margaret. We'll talk about what he said. He's going to say a lot about what he thinks about the Nazis. Okay. He was finally ordained as a pastor this year, and his first act was to baptize his new son,

who he named for one of his dead comrades. However, one could not call Martin a diligent father in this period, as Zeman writes. Martin's immense workload and frequent periods of absence were the reason for many marital conflicts with Elsa. And in 1926, letter to him, she describes herself as a grass widow, which I think means that, like, you know, a regular widow is a dirt widow because her husband's underground, right? he's buried. My husband's still walking, but I'm a widow, right? Because he's never fucking here, you know? I actually think that's a pretty clever term. You don't get a lot about Elsa,

but she could turn a phrase, I think. Maybe that was a common one. I don't know. She probably wrote the speech. Yeah, she probably wrote it. As he spent years engaged in making welfare programs operate for the church, he began to think more and more about who exactly was included in the people's community. Which Germans are really German? And thus, deserving of help. Hmm. While he mold these issues, the national socialists recovered from their failed push attempt and slowly built themselves into a major electoral force.

Well, not really all that slowly. Next per an article by George Bloom, quote, By 1931, Niemler was eager to accept a church of his own. He was appointed third pastor to a church in Berlin, Dahelm, one of the richest and most fashionable parishes in Germany. Within months, he became senior pastor upon the death of the incumbent, and two years later, he found himself a national figure in Germany. The two sides of his personality continued to show he was a committed Christian caring for the souls of his parishioners and a man of deep political convictions.

So he is now, it's not really a mega church, but this is as close as you get in this period to something occupying that position because it's like a, it's a rich church. It is a parish for people with money, you know? Yeah. Where you can sit around and think about who's really German. Right. And his his parishioners included a lot of very influential conservatives, including a lot of early Nazis. And as one of the most affluent parishes in Germany, it was not seen as inappropriate that Martin repeatedly spoke up to advocate for far-right politics and political parties.

The 1929 Depression seems to have hardened him to the necessity of something like the Nazis and someone like Hitler, for clearly Germany needed a single strong man to embody the national spirit and whip things back into shape. In their teaching the Holocaust section, Consider the Source writes this about Niemmler's Nazi sympathies at this time. Like many Germans, he believed Hitler would provide strong leadership and help Germany recover. Niemler even viewed Hitler as an instrument sent by God and supported the Nazis despite their open anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews and other groups. An instrument sent by God.

First they came for the communists, and I thought that was great because God declared it and made Hitler in his own image. A little different of a poem if you read it that way. Yeah, uh-huh. I would say so. probably wouldn't be spread so much on social media. That same source notes that Martin, quote, himself held anti-Semitic beliefs, referring to Jews in the 1920s and 30s as a despised people and Christ killers. He would later insist that his support for the Nazis never included support for genocide. He simply hoped Nazi racial policies and laws would force the Jews out of politics and public life.

This is like one of his excuses. I just thought you were going to make him not be allowed to talk. Yeah. Like, I just don't want them here. I didn't say I wanted them dead. I just want them not where the food is and the shelter and the health care. That may be true, but I don't care. Yeah, totally.

I still think you should have been shot at the end of the war, to be honest, Martin. I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe you'll think that's unfair by the end. In my mind, he's still, in my mind, he's still as a redemption arc ahead of him. He could. He could. That's true. There's room. All right.

Because there are some guys who were legitimate Nazi. And if you're a legitimate Nazi, for me, redemption means you either gave or risked your life to save people from the Nazis, right? Yeah, totally. That's kind of the only redemption for you if you're a committed Nazi in the pre-war period, right? Yeah. However, it must be said that Martin was not like a racial anti-Semite, right? Or at least, I don't see a lot of evidence for that. This is not, I'm not saying this to, like, mitigate what he's doing.

That doesn't make it better. It's just different, right? What I mean by that is Martin was not. driven so far as I can tell by a belief that the Jews are destined to only be Jews. His issue is with their faith and culture. And so when Jews converted to Christianity, he was generally happy to recognize them as his fellow citizens and Christians, right? And that does separate him from the Nazis. Right? Yeah, totally. And this is a sticking point that he's unwilling to, well, not unwilling, but less willing to compromise on, right? 1931 and 32 would be the happiest

years of Niemuller's life. His career was going great. He had a large and healthy family. He was influential, and his political sides seemed to be winning, but had not yet come to power and thus been able to like fuck up all the things that they were saying were good, right? And then in July of 1932, after a month that saw dozens killed and hundreds injured in street fights between left and right wing groups in Berlin, the Nazis came out on top in a parliamentary election. This did not lead immediately to Hitler's chancellorship, but it did not lead immediately to Hitler's chancellorship, but it did lead quite directly to it. Hitler's going to demand to be Chancellor from Hindenburg.

Hindenberg is the president, and for months there's backroom deals and skullduggery. We've covered this on another episode, so I'm not going to get into it. But it's during this chaotic period when Hitler is destined for, but not yet in total power, that Pastor Niemmuller gave one of his most famous speeches on New Year's Day, 1933, in his church. Per an article in Christian Century by Matthew Hockenos, What God's intentions may be with regard to our nation or to ourselves in the new year, we do not and shall not know, he intoned. But he warned that in these dark times, God's grace is not just a source of relief or comfort.

That is, easy Christianity and artificial grace. Rather, God offers us his grace so that we will put our whole trust in him and his son. We are not God's generals, but his soldiers. Ours is not to make the plans, but to carry out the orders. Neimler's message was clear. It was not the responsibility of the individual or the church to meddle in the secular affairs of state and its law. Now, Hockenos notes that Hitler published his own New Year's Day appeal the same time that

Martin gives this speech, and in it Hitler urged his followers to reject conservative power sharing and give all power and trust to him. Any compromise, he warned, would destroy them and their party. Per that article, Neemuller's parishioners, at least the more conservative and nationalistic ones, must have suffered a conflict of conscience after reading this propaganda, wondering whether it was possible to trust both their God and the Nazi leader. If the parishioners looked to Pastor Niemuller for direction on this question, the answer was clear. Neumler made no secret of his support for the Nazis, although he never campaigned from the

pulpit for Hitler. Neemolar initially saw no contradiction in calling on his flock to follow a merciful God, while at the same time backing the Nazi leader who demanded absolute political loyalty to his racist worldview. German Protestants, Neemler believed, could and should do both. So he's not saying vote for Hitler, but he's making an ethical case where the only response is vote for Hitler to his parishioners, right? Yeah, no, he's making a theological case for shut the fuck up and let bad stuff that's clearly anti-Christian happen. Yep, yep, yep, shut up and let it happen. Shut up and let it happen.

That's what he said, right? Yeah, so the first they came for the trade unionists and I didn't say anything because I believe that the state should make its own decisions about what to do at the trade unionists is not my place to say. My place to say, I did vote for them to kill those guys, but it's not my place to say what happens to them. But that's unrelated to my personal beliefs. Yeah. I can't be blamed for that. Yeah. Martin's support certainly was not crucial to Hitler taking power later that month, but it had the effect of helping calm any conservative parishioners who weren't fully convinced of this Hitler chap.

In another speech on March 5, 1933, before the first in. Because the monarchist didn't totally love Hitler, right? No, no. And in fact, I talked to a man who fought, he was 14 when the war ended, but he fought. in the Hitler youth when they were drafting the teenagers, right? His grandfather was a Prussian military officer who died in a concentration camp because he his resistance to the Hitler regime. And his resistance to the Hitler regime wasn't Hitler's a racist or Hitler's a bigot.

It was he's an idiot and he's going to get us all killed. I know more about war than this dipshit and he's fucking up, right? Yeah, he's probably right. Yeah, he was certainly right. He was absolutely correct. Probably wouldn't have invaded the USSR. are probably would have left him alone. Might have been a bad call.

Might have been a bad call. Probably the whole battle of Britain. Bad call, you know? Yeah. North Africa, I don't know. That could have worked. I don't want to get into war gaming, though. So in another speech in March 5th, in another speech on March 5th, 1933, before the first and last

elections of the Nazi era, Martin gave a different kind of talk. Accepting that, quote, it is simply impossible for us today to accept the comfortable formula that politics have no place. in the church. And so he urged his parish to take a conscientious stand this very day. Given that Niemler voted for Hitler, I'm not sure what to call this, but an endorsement. And Hitler wins, obviously. Once Hitler gets what he wanted, though, Martin slowly began to get cold feet. And one thing that upsets him is once the new Nazi era is like fully underway, this new Protestant movement starts up. And they call themselves the German Christians. And the German Christians have an issue.

Right? Germany is a Christian country, mostly like Protestant, but a lot of Catholics. And Jesus was Jewish? Or was he? The Or was he is where the German Christians come in. And their argument is Jesus wasn't a Jew. He had no Jewish ancestry. And their whole goal was to purify Christianity of Jewish influence. And as a result, one of the things they advocated is we got to toss out the Old Testament. We got to throw that shit in the trash. All these Jews wandering around the desert.

Absolutely not. Can't have that in our Nazi Christianity. I love it because like, yeah. The Old Testament is like more conservative than the New Testament. It's super conservative. Yeah. And they're like, but it's too Jewish. Got to go.

It's really, it is very Jewish. I mean, yeah. I got bad news for you about Christianity. My guys. Yeah. Got really bad news. It comes from that. Yeah.

They do not believe this. And this is where Martin starts to realize, oh, this is his like arrested development. I've made a terrible mistake moment. when Martin the theologian starts hearing his parishioner say, you know, Jesus wasn't a Jew. And he's like, well, okay, wait a second. So Martin does not like this. And he doesn't like that the German Christians also think Jews should not be allowed to be baptized as Christians.

One of their slogans was literally baptism can't straighten a crooked nose. And this, yeah, yeah. This is the line for Mark. This is where he is like, I have to do something, right? Yeah, okay. This is the fucking lie. Because he actually is religious at the end of the day. He is religious.

He believes in something. He's not just looking for power from religion. He believes in religion. He does believe in something even when it's inconvenient to him. That is true, right? Okay. He's not completely without a moral backbone, right? He does have things that he believes in.

And it's Martin's rejection of this nonsense theology that would sow the seeds of his resistance to Hitler, if we can really call it that. I say this because while the first concentration camps are being set up, while the police agencies of the German states are being Nazified, while Jews and socialists are being murdered and tortured and locked up, Martin chose to become an activist against the German Christians by helping to form a group called the Young Reformers. And the Young Reformers say the German Christians are wrong, but we joyfully affirm Hitler in the new state, while also demanding children. church independence and condemning the so-called Aryan paragraphs, a paragraph of the 1933 law

for the restoration of civil service, right? So they're not, their whole thing is like, well, if Jews are going to be Christian, we shouldn't be shitty to them. And if someone just has like a little bit of Jewish ancestry, that shouldn't be a problem as long as they're Christians. They do believe that, but that's kind of their only issue. And they're still emphatically, we love Hitler. Wow.

Don't get us wrong. Huge Hitler fans, right? Yeah, no, I love it's the reformist approach to Nazism. They're like, we still want Nazism a little bit. But what if it was like 95% Nazism? Yeah, what if we dial it down just at Scosh? You know who else wants to reform Nazi? Dials it down a scosh.

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We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police rode off as a suicide in a snowstorm. Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing a disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an Iheart True Crime Plus subscription exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to IHeart True Crime Plus subscribers.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for IHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my God, Lexi. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano.

We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s,

I've lived it all. I'm not going to get any of your fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. And I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser.

We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Liar. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I don't really care. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhain. Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast.

The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore.

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So I don't want to be, the young reformers are more complicated than just like a bunch of assholes who believe Hitler's basically fine. There are some really good people in them who just see this as a way to fight the regime. The best of them is probably Dietrich Bonhofer. Dietrich Bonhofer is like Martin, a pastor, a Protestant pastor. Dietrich is ultimately going to die, helping to rescue 14 Jews late in the war. he would be executed by the Nazis in 1945. As Hockenos writes, Dietrich does not buy,

he and Martin work together because they're both pastors fighting against the German Christians, but Dietrich does not buy Martin as a dissident. Quote, although they agreed about the need to fight the German Christian threat, they did not see eye to eye on much else.

In a letter to a friend, Bonhofer referred to Niemuller and his type as naive, stare-eyed idealists, who thought they were the real national socialists because of their dual devotion to national socialism and national Protestantism.

This was nothing less than delusional as far as Bonhofer was concerned. Nazism and Protestantism were inimical because the Nazis openly derided Christ's message of love and mercy. Simply put, a good Christian, Bonhofer believed, could not be a good Nazi.

And I've thought a lot doing these episodes about my own Protestant upbringing. And I had both Catholic because my dad had been raised Catholic and I went to mass some as a littler kid, but we wound up being more Protestant than anything. And I feel,

like if I met more Bonhofer Christians as a kid, I might not have given up Christianity, but unfortunately I met only Nemelers. Yeah. Oops, all Neemolers. And my old church is a kid that split away from the Episcopalian Church and led that breakaway to the African Anglican Church because they didn't want gay people to be bishops. That was my pastor as a kid. Wow.

He was the charge, like the head of that whole movement. Yeah. I got on TV for that. Like coming out of Sunday school, there was a, anyway, a bunch of fucking. knee molars, right? Yeah. That's my attitude about these people. I remember being like really confused

and going to my nun aunt and being like why are all the sudden people saying that Christians believe the earth is like 10,000 years old or whatever? And my like nun aunt is like don't worry about that bullshit kid. Yeah, like. My dad was always great as a fucking former altar boy.

When I was like, what is with these creations? He's like, they're idiots. Yeah. Yeah, totally. They're idiots and the Pope says so. Yeah. Like my aunt was literally married to God. God's wife says it's fine. Fuck off. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, I think a lot about the two different ways you can interpret Christianity, right? Like my pastor did where he's like, well, you couldn't let gay people preach the word of God. And that's, that's a big enough cause that I'm going to fight for it. Of all of the evils in the world, my pastor picked that as the one to like stake his

name defiting. Whereas Dietrich Bonhofer is like, oh, people are being oppressed. Guess I'll die like Christ would saving them. That's the Christian thing to do is die saving them. Yeah. And it's, you know, the connections to American, what's this word,

Christian fascism in America? Yeah. Like, Christian nationalism, that's the word. They're so direct, like, what you're saying about, like, we need to basically reinvent Christianity and, like, leave out all of the per jep, like, this nice shit. Yeah, there's a whole lot about being nice to random people.

Yeah. Like, especially strangers and foreigners. You know? Get rid of that. Got to get rid of that. And I'm not saying, like, the Bible is inherently consistent or moral. No, there's a bunch of shit in there. That's when it hits on a lot.

And they're just like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Got to get rid of that. Got to get rid of that. Yeah. Yeah. And so even to the extent that Martin sort of breaks good after this point and becomes an enemy of the regime, he never, ever, at any point in his life, shows even a tenth of the moral courage that someone like Bonhofer existed.

In fact, even as he organized with Dietrich, he worked to profit off of nationalism and ingratiate himself to Nazi leadership, as this quote from an article by Berri Jorgrow in The Nation makes clear. That very summer, Niemler was once again reaffirming his nationalist bona fides, writing and quickly publishing from U-boat to pulpit,

a memoir of his submarine exploits and his struggles against the Weimar Republic. By the end of 1934, it had sold 60,000 copies. Hockenos observes that the author sent it to Joseph Goebbels with a note saying it was written in the spirit of the Third Reich. At the Dallem Church, remarked Simon, the pastor would receive the Sig Heil salute from parishioners and acknowledge it. So would we call him a relentless foe of Hitler at this point?

No. I'd say someone who has like a mild structural disagreement with Hitler. Yeah. There's like kind of a level where if there's Nazis and you have any kind of public voice and you're not basically dead or dying in your fight, you're not doing it right you're not doing it right and fucking martin sure is not at this point but over the next few years he did work to thwart a narrow plank of hitler's system organizing to try and beat the german christians in church leadership elections and generally failing this

finally made it clear to neemler that he had made a grave error and he dedicated the next three years like 34 35 to 37 38 trying to staunch the bleeding and stop hitler from taking over the church in Germany entirely. It was for this that Hitler had him arrested for the first time in July of 1937 for misusing the pulpit to a political end. Now, he'd been detained several times prior to this, but 37 is when it sticks, and he's taken to prison and he's not going to get out until the war's end. He is in jail for the next like almost a decade, right? This prompts international outrage for reasons that are somewhat frustrating. While American newspapers lauded Martin as a heroic figure of anti-Nazi resistance and published op eds making him out to be a martyr to

Hitler's cruelty, Neemoler defended himself in court by arguing, wait no, I love Hitler, bro. Don't even get me wrong. Like, I'm such a fan of this dude. Like, I don't know even why I'm here, right? It's just all a mistake. If Hitler knew how I felt, he'd let you go. Yeah. Quote, and this is from Zeman's book, the court allowed the defendant to talk about his life in detail. Neemler seized the opportunity and gave a speech that contained many elements of the narrative and from U-boat to pulpit. He presented himself as a Navy officer and U-boat commander who had risked his life for the fatherland and wanted to serve the uprooted German people as a free core fighter in

1920, as a student of theology, and as a pastor. He claimed to have always voted for the NSDAP from 1924 onwards. And Zeman notes that this is untrue, although as I've said other sources insist he voted at least once for the Nazis in the 20s. That said, if Martin had been, if Martin had been. saying this in court. I mean, like, I love Hitler. I voted for you guys. While actively sneaking Jews and other endangered people out of the country and the lie was just to cover, I'd be like, totally forgivable. Totally forgetable. Awesome thing to do. Bro. Yeah.

He's not, right? And we, part of why we, I mean, we know it's got because he didn't do that. And also in court, he insisted Jews were alien and that he disliked them. So again, he's still calling him Christ killers. I wonder if already like, I hate the Jews, I want them out of the country, but I want them safely out of the country. Yeah, that's what he would say was his attitude, right? Yeah. Not an okay attitude, to be clear. I'm not defending this position.

Yeah, not meaningfully different. Now, it is true that he's existed in pissing off Joseph Goebbels because the judges really liked him and he was cleared of all but one charge. And the last one was shouldn't have been that big a charge, but this does not get him out of prison, right? Hitler personally orders Martin Niemler to be sent to Saxonhausen, a concentration camp outside of Berlin, mainly for political prisoners. If you're ever in Berlin and get a chance to see it, I really recommend going.

Okay. He would spend the next two-thirds of a decade behind bars as the personal prisoner of Hitler. This was not like a great situation, obviously, but as Hitler's personal prisoner, his own treatment was vastly better than that of the Jews, homosexuals, and socialists that he had no problem voting to put in camps. He is much more comfortable than they are. Right. Right.

This is not a death camp situation. He's not being tortured, right? But across the pond in the United States, his legend only grew. Barry your growl writes that in numerous tricks. God, Americans are so stupid. It's unbelievable. We're so fucking dumb. Oh, man.

Not you, Truman. My dog thought I was telling, I was calling her name. No, no. No, Truman, you're great. You're great, girlfriend. No, no. Just the rest of the country. Not American dogs.

You're innocent. It's not your fault that us human Americans are so stupid. So stupid. I have one immediately at my feet right now. I'm very happy. I got one at my feet and one run right next to me. That's how I'd like to be forever, double dogging. I got no dog, but I do have a bunch of shit to read about this asshole.

So, yeah. Barry Yorker writes that in the United States, numerous church pastors ask their congregations to pray for the man they called the fighting pastor. That's what the American nickname of Martin Niemler is. Although I'm not really sure what fighting he'd done other than in the Frye Corps at this point. I hate this. More famous than the other guy you said just because he's like the personal prison? At this point in time, for sure.

Yeah, for sure. Probably still today more famous than Dietrich Bonhofer, right? Yeah. Yeah. Dietrich doesn't write a poem. He just dies saving people, but he doesn't write a poem, you know? That's what he should have thought about that. Should have thought about that, Dietrich.

Yeah, he didn't believe in trying to be immoral by writing poetry. No. But instead through good deeds. One Brooklyn clergyman restaged Niemuller's arrest on his pulpit, then delivered his sermon from behind. mock Saxonhausen cell bars. The New York Times and Time Magazine issued regular updates on his fate.

Time, as noted, put him on its cover as the martyr of 1940. The martyr of 1940. Nothing else bad happened in 1940. Nothing else bad happened that year that the Nazis did. That's so fucking stupid. In 1939, a German-Jewish exile named Ernst Toller, who'd previously been a major

part of the Bavarian Soviet Republic that had been crushed by the Fry Corps, wrote a barely fictional... wrote a fictionalized play about Nymler's life called Pastor Hall. I would say it's a barely accurate play about Nymler's life titled Pastor Hall. The play was made into a movie in 1940, and James Roosevelt, son of Eleanor Roosevelt, brought it to the United States for release. The poster gives you an idea of the contents of the film. At the top, it says, it can happen here.

No. And there's like a whip in front of above his head. And the pastor is like cradling a young girl. You know, there's Nazis beating guys in the streets. Yeah. This is where you all got your podcast name from. Yeah, that's, that is. That's where we stole it from.

Actually, Robert, do you recall that you were going to call the show it can happen here and then I just changed it to could? And then that was the title. Yeah. Yeah, well, because I was copying it from a book that they were also referencing in this movie. Anyway, you can find the whole movie on YouTube today. The opening card reads, the story of the individual in Europe during the past decade has shown us how much more potent is truth when compared to fiction. Pastor Hall is based on authentic verified facts. I just love that like, you prove that contention wrong by the fact that you made a movie about this guy. No, fiction is way more powerful

than truth. You're making a movie about a guy who's a committed Nazi and saying he's a foe of Hitler. And everyone in America pretty much buys it at this point. Here's how Yor Grau reviewed the flick for his article. The film shows Pastor Hall being brutally flogged in wretched concentration camp conditions. This was pure invention. Neemler was never physically abused or punished with forced labor in all his eight years of imprisonment. The Nazis didn't want to enhance his martyr status, right? Just a complete fabrication. But the fact that there's movies and shit about him is why they didn't beat him,

according to this. Probably. Like, right, that did help. That's part of why he does not suffer as much. Martin's fame was not diminished by the facts. Like that in 1938, a year into his incarceration, he wrote a letter to the Nazi authorities and volunteered to serve in the armed forces again. In 1941...

Okay, that's actually... The fighting pastor! I've now hit a fuck this guy completely. I was fucked this guy completely in, like, World War I. I was wondering when it would hit in the 1920s. But, like, once he's, like, in prison, I'm like... In prison. He, like, clearly disagreed enough that he's in prison.

But when he's, like, let me out so I can go further your war in Nazis. Yeah, for the Third Reich. That's why they call him the Fighting Pastor. I'll tell you. we wanted to fight for. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, fight everyone else, fight the allies. That's very true. He's like, why are we in fighting? I'm on your side. I'm on your side. Let me help. In 1941, he was transferred to Docow. And once the war was well and truly underway, he volunteered again, begging to be allowed to crew or captain a U-boat for Hitler. Wow. No, it was the long game.

He was like, I'm going to rescue people with my U-boat. I don't believe this. But yeah, incredible. Around this time, a man claimed to be a Jewish refugee from Germany, Leo Stein, published a book in the United States called I Was in Hell with Nemoler, in which he claimed to have sat with Martin and Saxonhausen. And it talks about like, oh, he talked about how, you know, the Jews are being so horribly abused and Hitler's a monster and we have to stop this. It's complete lies. It's a fiction. He was not, he would have never seen. Stein never met Martin. Martin was too high value of prisoner to have been in a cell with any Jews.

Hell yeah. This is a complete fabrication. and it still gets referenced today. Which means that this guy both was grifting and making anti-fascist propaganda. And honestly, at the same time, kind of not mad. Fawks over historians. I'm not mad at him. At Leo, no.

I'm just kind of mad at what it does to his reputation, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But I can't blame Leo, you know? Yeah. trying to join the military again. He confessed to Elsa, sometimes I am tormented by the thought that the whole bloody fighting might end for us in Bolshevism. And I do, in terms of determining the character of Martin, one thing I find interesting,

he's willing to fight for the Nazis in 38. He's willing to fight for the Nazis in 41. He considers it in 43, but he says, nah, because at that point, you know they're not going to win. And I really think, more than any ethical concern, Martin was a guy who liked being on the winning side. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. I think that's a big part of his psyche. He likes power. If you're a big bootlicker, if you like. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. He was the subject of another movie in 1944.

The Hitler Gang, which was a fictionalized account of the Nazi rise to power in which Hitler at all were depicted as actual gangsters, right? Which is actually a pretty good way to look at the way the Nazi party functioned. Niemuller gets a scene in the movie where he yells directly into Hitler's face, do you think we're really so contemptible that we would surrender the sacred faith given to us by God and accept a political program? in its place. This never happened. Nothing like this ever happened. Do you think he was, like, mad about the fact that everyone kept calling him a leftist,

basically? No. He's got to make hay out of that, Margaret. At least try to. Yeah, especially after the war. Everyone's like, no, I was on the other side. I swear. Yeah.

I don't know how much he knows about that at this point, right? There are not a lot of movies he can watch in Dachau. Yeah, they're not showing that movie in Dachau. Martin's entire reputation today, though, is built. on these fictions. Writing for the nation, Barry Yorgrow describes Martin's actual wartime conditions and how World War II finally ended for him. In Dachau, he was housed there with three German Catholic priests in a separate facility for special and honorable prisoners, along with foreign inmates with whom he could mingle and share meals. On Christmas Eve, 1944, he conducted a profoundly poignant service

in a makeshift cell for six fellow Protestants whose country's Germany was besieging or occupying. In the war's chaotic final days, shortly after Bonhofer was stripped naked and gruesome, hanged at Floszenberg camp for his connection to the plot to kill Hitler, Niemler was rushed away with select others into northern Italy by SS troops, according to Zaymen, and to be either murdered or held as a bargaining chip. Hockenos argues for the latter. Niemler was at last liberated on May 4, 1945, to an international jubilation, right? So he's sitting comfortable in a shell where they'll fucking killing Bonhofer in the worst way possible.

He's kind of tangentially connected to this attempt to take out Hitler. And, yeah, the war ends, and he's a celebrity for a little while. It comes out not long after he gets freed that Martin had volunteered twice to fight for Hitler. And that really messes with his reputation. Oh, my God, is this why he gives the speech and writes the poem, is to try and, like, get himself to be seen as a good anti-F? Oh, my God. You are breaking my heart. I know that your job is to pick a guest.

who's going to be heartbroken by the topic. Yep. Yeah. We'll see how you feel at the very end. Okay. Yeah. Speaking of the very end, don't think about that.

Think about these products. Yay. This record is on. Miley is having a moment. New name. New Alps exclusive shows. So IHard radio is sending you to experience it all. Life at the Hollywood flights,

hotel, tickets, and a thousand dollars cash. Listen to IHard new music. for 10 minutes a day on the IHart Radio app and click enter. Every day you listen is another chance to win. Stream Miley's new album, Bass Persuades, today. I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of the What Happened to Her podcast. We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story,

a case the police rode off as a suicide in a snowstorm. Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge. You never know who that devil is, he's wearing in disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an I-Heart True Crime Plus subscription exclusively on Apple Podcasts,

available only to I-Heart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for I-Heart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my God, Lexi. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not going to get anyone fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business,

and I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, There would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Liar. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcasts, the True Crime Comedy Podcasts,

all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Deppery, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Byer. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I can talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job.

And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 18. all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you.

And I'm also here to laugh with you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. guess. And we're back. At a press conference with Allied occupation forces that was given after it had come out that he'd volunteered to fight for the Nazis, Martin tried to explain. This is where he gives that quote, if there is a war, a German doesn't ask if it's just or unjust, but he feels bound to join the ranks. But he was forced to admit during this press conference that he had, quote, never quarreled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds. And for a time,

Martin's reputation was justly deflated. A writer for the New York Times assessed that he had been a singularly ineffectual figure of anti-Nazi resistance, and this is true. Even after the war, Martin refused to admit supporting Hitler had been a total mistake. He insisted Germans could not live in a democratic society. I kind of like that he doesn't lie about what he believes in. He doesn't at this point. He's saying, like, no, I'm a piece of shit. Yeah.

Thanks for telling us. This is coming to the thing that's a little grayer, right? Because he does have what seems to be, I think, is someone. of a genuine flip, right? And to the extent that this is a genuine flip, it comes with the growing awareness of the Holocaust and what had really happened. Martin claimed to be stunned when he learned about it, and the specific moment that caused this, is he and his wife go on a visit and they see the crematoria at Daqau, where there's a plaque put up commemorating the people murdered there, and he saw that the deaths dated from 1933 to 1945. And that made it undeniable

that the killing had started while he was still free in supporting the Nazis. From this point on, if you believe this story, Martin became a belated anti-Nazi, one who would dedicate the next portion of his life to loudly preaching German guilt for the atrocities of the war years. However, even if you read his apologies after becoming aware of the Holocaust, they're mostly shit, right? And this is one of the things he says in one of these press conferences. I really believed, given the widespread anti-Semitism in Germany at that time, that Jews should avoid aspiring to government positions or seats in the Reichstag. There were many Jews, especially among the Zionists, who took a similar stand. Hitler's assurance satisfied me at the time. I am paying for that mistake now and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.

Right? Hitler lied to me, and I didn't know it would be that bad. I'm paying for it now. I'm paying for it now. As you? But it's a shit apology, but I'm glad it's a shit apology because he's still so far presenting to me someone who is not trying to lie. I don't think he is. Like he's, he seems to be about what he's about, and what he's about is kind of, largely bad.

Yeah, yeah. But he's pretty open about it. Yeah. Like, even his anti-Nazism being kind of about his own guilt, like, one, that's the most German way to handle it as possible. But, like, you know, honestly, him being a shitty politician about it, not a mark against him. What he says is a mark against him because it's what he believes, and it's a bad thing to believe. He is like saying in front of these cameras, oh, no, those rumors about me are not true. I was, like, pretty cool with Hitler for the most part.

I don't know where you guys got this movie script from, but that's not me. Yeah. Like, he would be a worst guy if he'd come out and been like, it was all true. I was anti-fascist. He wrote a pastor. Yeah. So what he finally decides to do as a result of his, he says he's convinced that, like, Germany is guilty of an historical crime. and we need to make clear our personal role in that, right?

And he makes something called, or he helps make something called the Stuttgart Declaration, in which he and a bunch of other Protestant church leaders declared their personal guilt and the German Protestant Church's guilt for the slaughter of European Jewry. Per an article in 1517.org. Many Germans rejected this document because they objected to the idea that they were complicit in the murder of their neighbors. Others thought it too little and too late as a rejection of nationalism and racism from Niemler. During the Cold War years, Niemler raised the ire of fellow Protestants in Germany by refusing to articulate the strong anti-communist and pro-American views of the new West German government.

Condeming both sides, Niemler met with leaders of both NATO-oriented and communist states. Citing the horrors of the Second World War and the apocalyptic possibility of a nuclear war, Niemler became a champion for peace and disarmament and dreamed of a united Germany. And that all sounds good, right? It does. That doesn't present the whole story. Because while Martin did become a dogged and vocal advocate of German war crimes guilt and anti-war activist, he also used his notoriety to kind of troll people, as Jorgaard writes.

He railed about the treatment of the German people by the occupation forces. He fiercely opposed denazification as far too blunt and punitive an instrument, insisting it would only further victimize suffering Germans. There is a new anti-Semitism in Germany, he contended in the statement quoted by Zayman. It is caused by the Americans letting Jews carry out the denazification. There were other such ugly outbursts. So he's not better. Yeah, yeah, he's not better.

And when I came across that passage, I couldn't help but think of a different passage that I read in the book God's Man back at the start of my research that goes, he is happiest when a storm is raging about his ears is a phrase often used about Martin Niemler. And some have interpreted this to mean that he enjoys a tempest so much that he provokes a controversy if none exists. And I think this has done more than. any other data point to solve one of the mysteries of Martin Niemler for me, which is that, above all else, he's kind of a troll, right? Yeah, he was a little edge lord kid and he's still a little edge lord guy. He's kind of an edge lord.

Yeah. Yeah, even when he's like largely right about stuff in the post-war period, he's still kind of a troll. Huh. And this last chapter in Martin's life is the one that people prefer to remember because it was at points pretty good. He travels regularly to the Soviet Union. He kind of gets pilled on communism, actually, because he sees what capital.

capitalism is doing, and he thinks the Christians in the USSR live a more wholesome and less materialist existence. And he's like, well, this seems better, actually, to me. Perhaps I was incorrect. It is closer to Catholic social doctrine. I don't know as much about Protestant social. But he was running the social charities. Yeah, exactly.

It's not surprising he would feel that way to me. It's during this period that he writes his famous poem, although there's some debate about exactly when and whatnot it's finished, this post-war period. period, though, is kind of when that comes out, probably. It's not famous in 1959 or 1984, or at least not famous. Both of, he has biographies published in both of those years, and neither of them mention the poem, which is interesting to me. It was out by them, but it wasn't evidently. Yeah, exactly, exactly. His second wife would later claim the poem's origins dated to a meeting he had with German students in 1946, who asked him, how did it happen?

But this may not be true. We don't really know. I think that's what I had heard. Yeah, that's just the comment story. I just, that's what I know, no, you know, yeah. That's like the Wikipedia level of it. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because of his second wife who was not there for it, right? Martin Nemeler did not fully and unequivocally disavow anti-Semitism until a radio interview conducted in 1963. But during the 60s, he appeared on stage next to Martin Luther King Jr. And went to Vietnam to meet with Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War where he endorsed the Vietnamese cause.

is this correct. Right? So he's not wrong about everything, you know? All right. He wound up taking what I have to call, he's not like wrongness. I'm going to call it an uncomfortable stance on Palestine as your grouse article. That's hard. His, a complicated stance on the morality of his stance on Palestine is really messy.

Right. Here's from your grouse article in the nation. While Hawkenauce salutes the extraordinary transformation of this German ultra-conservative with his repellent early views into someone with the courage to change deeply held beliefs, Zayman is not so forgiving. He traces unsettling continuities with particularly acute sensitivity to Niemmeler's behavior regarding Jews. And all his globe-trotting, for instance, the ambassador of God somehow never set foot in Israel. And I think that's a silly thing to judge someone as an anti-Semite for.

I don't agree with Zeman that that matters. However, Martin's specific comments defending the Palestinian cause are not ideal, right? A classic problem. Yeah, semen indicts Niemler for remarks such as saying in 1963 that he couldn't hold it against Arabs if they felt threatened and under attack by the Jewish state or in 1967 privately expressing that if he were an Arab, he'd be anti-Semitic about an alien people founding a state on his soil. And like, you don't have to be anti-Semitic to see why people don't like an army kicking them out of their home. And the fact that he's like, oh, I get why they'd be anti- because he can't, he has to think of things in that way. Right. Totally.

That's not necessary at all. Right. it's damning that he is that's the way he presents it yeah yeah just like couldn't you just be pissed that they're kicking you out of your home and like shooting your guys do you have to be a racist about it yeah i don't know that i think i don't think that's necessary martin totally um but it is it is very telling that that's how he talks about it right um you know you can only go so far from what you start where you start i guess yeah yeah there is evidence that he never left his bigotry completely behind he does seem to have become

at least a committed anti-authoritarian by the end of his life. At age 90 in 1982, Niemöller stated, an ultra-conservative who wanted the Kaiser to come back, and now I am a revolutionary. I really mean that. If I live to be 100, I shall maybe be an anarchist.

He never made it that far, dying two years later in 1984. But, yeah, that's the Martin Niemler story. Shit. This is fascinating to me. Really interesting. I like his turn,

not because late, he's right. I mean, it's the right turn for him to have made. But I do get the sense that he thinks about his positions and tries to make them morally consistent and is just, like, wrong, a lot. Yeah, a lot. But he, like, but because he's coming from a, like, like, his moral positions do get him in trouble.

I haven't spent that long in prison, you know? Like, yeah. And my beliefs are... That said he tried to get out of prison by fighting for the Nazis. Yeah, no, totally. No, totally. No, like... Yeah.

Like, I'm not... I don't want to say, like, is good man, right? No. But, like, I... But I... Like, I prefer when my enemies are morally consistent, because I can respect it. I can respect it and fight it, you know?

But most of the time, most people... They don't believe in shit, but power. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he does... He thought he believes... in power as a moral imperative, a theological imperative. And then he was like, oh, I've seen why I'm wrong.

So to defend the poem, like, the thing that is really interesting to me about the poem is I think, and I could be wrong, I think that that poem has saved uncountable lives. I think we look at that poem. We don't think about the man at all anymore, right? I don't know that there's two movies about this man. You know, I couldn't remember his name if you asked me, like, right now. I mean, I could tell you, Martin, Nie Miller, Mueller. But, like, there's so many people who are like, nah, man, we read the poem.

We're not falling for this shit again, right? Like, going to Minneapolis and talking to people, it's the sense of like, nah, man, we've read this. We know what this is about. First they come for, then they come for it. You have to speak up. So, and I don't know. if I believe total separate art from artist kind of thing.

I literally don't know how I feel about that and I hate when people try and make me have an opinion about it. But like, that poem does matter. You can, yeah, go ahead. That's why I don't know, I don't know that I think it matter. Like, I don't know that I think it, I don't know that it stopped much. I think it might be a poem that affects and is valued by people who are all. already going to react the right way to the threat of fascism?

Maybe. Like, I don't know if I think it's caused any of that. Yeah. And I think the further point, maybe it has in his post-war life, the activism, the anti-nuclear stuff, the anti-war stuff, that's good. Can it, does it make up for the fact that he did not realize he was wrong until he had been beaten and had the piles of corpses shoved literally in front of his face? Yeah.

Right. And for me, I guess we should forgive him or not. Yeah. I guess it from a moral condemnation standpoint, I think before 2024, I probably would have been more open-minded about coming to a better opinion of Martin. And now I'm kind of like, I just sort of wish, I kind of just wish you'd gotten hit by a bomb, you know? I wish I wish they'd fucking a B-52 had rolled over your ass or something. right at the end of the war. Like I don't, I, I do not, I don't have a lot of charity in my heart for the people like this anymore. And perhaps I should that may just be a sign that I have gotten too angry and bitter in my dotage. I'm willing to admit that. I mean, it's, it's real easy and possibly useful to be really angry right now. I'm not, like, but I also like, I want.

to leave the Nazi side right now. Absolutely. And so in order to do that, we have to let them leave. Yeah. You know? But we are not at 1945, right? Totally. So that is where I come from.

It's like, I am still willing to take on people who are willing to get off the fascism train. But that is a limited time offer, folks. Yeah. No, the fact that he like did the rate, like, it's. just being like enough that you're like, no, you helped Hitler come to power. You helped, not a major instrument of it, but you did what you could. You, you pulled with the team in order to try and get, you know, one of the worst things that's ever happened in human society to happen. Like, being able, I have no problem with just being like, now you're done. Like, I'm not,

I fully understand where people would be coming from about it. But I just like, I'm interested in his how a morally consistent but wrong person. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, and that is the fascinating thing about him is you do get, and one of the things I like about Hawkenos' book and Zeman's book is you get a look at how this guy keeps trying to make, keep a consistent worldview in his head as the evidence around him builds that he's completely wrong about everything he believes.

Yeah. And he does eventually seem to be like, I was so fucking. wrong. But also, you know, in 1959, he's still covering up that he's killing, that he murdered, you know, drowning sailors. No, you're right. You know? No, that's true. Because he was because he, okay, he is inconsistent on this,

right? Because sometimes he's not perfectly consistent. He's like, no, no, I did help Hitler. It wasn't so great. But then he lies, yeah. He's like, oh, no, I was great on that, you boat. Like, they're glad I was there. That was fine. I saved seven of them. It was a good thing. It was a good, yeah, it was, it was, I stopped

the killing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I'm not trying to come out pro this guy. No, no, I know. I'm fascinated by- I brought you on because I wanted this conversation at the end about like, where do we land on Martin Niemler? Because I'm very, I'm pretty frustrated with the fella. But I do find it fascinating, his admission that like, even if he couldn't quite make himself into an anarchist, that like, I could, he's, I can see at 90 that that's probably close to the right thing than I've ever gotten in my life. Yeah. Maybe I'll get there in another tin.

He's just like, oh, I am moving away from authoritarianism, and that is the actual direction I should be taking my entire life. Every power structure I've endorsed has proven wrong. Yeah, totally. Totally. Maybe that's the problem. But if like a centrist or especially like a leftist had written that poem, it would be meaningless. Yeah. It is meaningful. Now, I was expecting. expecting him to be what I first thought, which was the standing around, like the good German who just went along. That's what I had thought.

Maybe he voted for Hitler holding his nose once, but didn't ever really get, like, supported in the streets, certainly. Yeah, yeah, totally. You're like, no, this guy fucking shot unarmed people. Put down a revolution. Like, yeah, like. Not boat boy shouting, I fucking love Hitler from jail, that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Like, he's, I swear he'd let me out.

if he just knew what a great guy I was. If he knew how much I liked him. Yeah. Fuck. That is, this is not a boring man. No, no. He does live quite a life.

He does live quite a life. Even if I, it would have been better if he either made it to 100 or died when he was like 15. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

World War I death would have been great for him. What if his brother had survived instead of him? The guy with a good name. Gerhard would have done us a solid. Yeah. Gerhard would have been saving people left and right. He would have stopped this Hitler's stuff. Yeah. Like Mark Wahlberg if he'd been at 9-11, you know, if only Gerhard had been there. We got a, Margaret, plug-a-bless on that note. Christ, Robert. If you want to hear me talk about complicated people where I try and talk about the good they did, I have a podcast called cool people who did cool stuff where I always starts with people who people think are heroes. And then I'm like, well, they're like 70% heroes.

And it's on this very network, I also have a podcast where I read fiction to you called Cool Zone Media Book Club. And I write books. And one of my books is about a trans witch. And the book is called The Sapling Cage. And it's legally distinct from YA. It's a crossover book because of the way that I write characters somehow disqualifying it from YA, even though it's a coming-of-age story about a young trans witch. I have some frustrations with how people define Y.A. Yeah.

So to a lot of my readers. A lot of my readers are like, oh, thank God, a fucking protagonist I don't want to strangle. So, yeah, you can check me out, Margaret Kiljoy. I'm on the internet. I wish I wasn't. Check out the sapling cage. Great book. Check out whatever episode we do next, which won't be on Martin Niemler, because we already did him, you know?

Hell yeah. Maybe we'll finally do the Jim Henson episodes. No. Jim was nice. Jim was nice. That's just a bit. That's just a bit. Good Lord.

No, I was terrified that you know something I don't. No, no, no, no. Other than he probably should have gone to the doctor faster, unfortunately. Yeah. All right, we're done. Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com,

or check us out on the IHurt Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Full video episodes of Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit Remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash at Behind the Bastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking. I'm Melissa Jeltson,

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