Wenn Gott tot ist: Memoiren (German Edition)

Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers.

Germany’s Moral Responsibility to Support a Treaty on Business and Human Rights

Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper? Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]?

Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. The persecution of the Jews , the way we treated the occupied countries , or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out. We preferred to keep silent. I can imagine that perhaps 30, to 40, Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued , million [sic] people, because that is what it is costing us now.

In that same book, on. You can take his explanation or leave it - it sounds apologetic to me! If that last possibility came true, he didn't want to be in prison, but wanted to contribute to the future of his country in freedom. The relevant passage begins with his description of his November visit to Dachau with his wife see my book excerpt.

His wife fainted at the sight of a sign proclaiming that , people were killed in Dachau between and [note: While his wife fainted at the huge number, the dates were what shocked him:. Und ich habe diesen Dienst verweigert. The famous quotation is not to be found there, either, although one can see that the thought processes that led to it were already present in ! I have scanned and made available the entire text of the May National Jewish Monthly article on Niemoeller.

Gott fragte mich ja nicht, wo ich von bis gewesen war, sondern wo ich von bis war. Von bis hatte ich keine Antwort. Haette ich vielleicht sagen sollen: Ich war ein tapferer Bekenntnispfarrer in jenen Jahren, ich habe ein Wort riskiert und schliesslich Freiheit und Leben riskiert? Aber danach fragte mich Gott nicht.

Wo warst du von bis , als hier Menschen verbrannt wurden? Das waren nicht meine christlichen Brueder, die dort verbrannt wurden, das waren Kommunisten , ernste Bibelforscher usw. Darum hatte ich mich nicht gekuemmert. God didn't ask me where I was from to , he asked me where I was from to From to I didn't have an answer. Maybe I should have said: I was a brave pastor of the Confessing Church in those years, I risked speaking critically and thus risked freedom and my life?

Erinnerungen an einen Freund

But God didn't ask me about all that. Where were you from to , when human beings were being burned here? Those weren't my Christian brothers, who were burned there, those were Communists , Jehovah's Witnesses , etc. That's why I didn't do anything. Wir haben den Herrn Christus nicht erkannt, als er in Gestalt des leidenden Bruders in unser Leben trat.

Ich habe ihn weder erkannt, als er als Kommunist ins Lager gesteckt wurde, ich habe ihn nicht erkannt, als er als unheilbar Kranker gemordet wurde, noch habe ich ihn erkannt, als er in den armen Opfern seines eigenen Volkes [eine Anspielung, dass Christus Jude war] vergast und verbrannt wurde. Hier bin ich schuldig geworden an meiner ganz persoenlichen Verantwortung und kann mich nicht entschuldigen, weder vor Gott, noch vor den Menschen.

Here is the basis of our Christian recognition of guilt in consideration of what happened. We did not recognize the Lord Christ when he came into our lives in the form of a suffering brother. I didn't recognize him when he was put in the camp as a Communist , nor did I recognize him, when he was murdered as an incurably ill person , nor did I recognize him, when he was gassed and burned as the poor victims of his own people [probably an allusion to the fact that Christ was Jewish ].

Here I became guilty in my very personal responsibility and I cannot excuse myself, neither before God, nor before humanity.

Niemöller, origin of famous quotation "First they came for the Communists"

Marvin Perry and Frederick Schweitzer eds. Peter Lang, , This is a sophisticated discussion of the origin of the quotation, but it appears that Ms. Zerner doesn't know German, and did not attempt to trace the quotation in older published sources. Godenschweger was trying to confirm the origin of the quotation after Martin's death. Zerner also conducted phone conversations with Franklin Littell in , and with "Brigitte Johannesson, the only surviving daughter of Martin and Else Niemoeller," in In any case, the well-known version appeared before and was also known in Germany by that time, as the use by Milton Mayer's interloqutor indicates.

Christian Ethics Today , vol. I agree with Littell's dating, and think that the historical ordering culminating with the Jews makes sense, although I cannot confirm it at this time. The on-line Jewish Virtual Library page at us-israel. The remark was made in reply to a student's question, 'How could it happen?

Crowns, Crosses, and Stars: This is worth looking at. When did she meet Martin? Does she mention the quotation? At that time he may not have remembered having used the quotation decades earlier, much less which groups he had included back then. It indicates the groups he included in the s, not those that he included when he originally formulated the quotation in the mid to late s.

Other versions of the quotation on the web back to top Snapshot taken at a peace march in San Francisco image at right Before early Jerry Gordon created a site " Europe: A 20th Century Journey " at Liverpool College, with a page discussing various versions: The quotation with a Life of Its Own , [ Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, Jews, me.

Gordon also offers several other common versions: Jews, trade unionists, Catholics, me Al Gore: Social Democrats, trade unionists, Jews, me [note: Gordon quotes an Apr. This is at best misleading. Certainly in Belsen, and probably in Dachau, a large proportion, probably even a majority of the inmates were indeed Jews. This probably goes for Buchenwald as well.

One must include the Nov. Communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholics, me Time magazine, 28 August Communists, Jews, Catholics, me reported on a page of fireblade coffeehouse after a query on alt. New England Holocaust Memorial, Boston. Other Quotations by Niemoeller back to top On 25 Jan. Christian Kaiser, [Univ. Written by MN's brother as a kind of birthday present, this page book summarizes MN's work during the Nazi period, with special focus on his July trial. Mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten available from amazon.

The quotation article says that N. However, since the USHMM includes them in their version of the quotation, they are wont to claim that. Wolfgang Gerlach, And the Witnesses were Silent: University of Nebraska Press, Vortrag, gehalten am September in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Als Ms. Das Bekenntnis der Vaeter und die bekennende Gemeinde: Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel: Alles und in allen Christus!

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Funfzehn Dahlemer Predigten Berlin: Dienst der Kirche am Volk Berlin: Ein Wort zur kirchlichen Lage Wuppertal-Barmen: Unter dem Wort, From U-boat to Concentration Camp: The Autobiography of M. Die Staatskirche ist da! Ein Briefwechsel statt einer Antwort Berlin-Steglitz: From U-boat to Pulpit Chicago: Pastor Niemoller and his creed. Martin Niemoller und sein Bekenntnis , 6th ed. Verlag der Evangelischen Buchhandlung, Dachau Sermons New York: Wort Martin Niemollers am 6. Juli in d. Johannis-Kirche zu Saarbrucken Saarbrucken: Der Weg ins Freie Stuttgart: Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein: Die politische Verantwortung des Christen im akademischen Stand.

Vortrag gehalten auf Einladung der evang. Studentengemeinde vor Studierenden der Philipps-Univ. Chapel address, , Jan. Eroffnungsansprache auf der Tagung des Federal Council of Churches, am 4. Quell-Verlag der Evangelischen Ges. Visit of Martin Niemoeller. Januar in Darmstadt Darmstadt: Other excerpted works New York Times index: N's second wife describes N's visit to Dachau with his first wife Else in Fall , very much according to Niemoeller's famous sermon about it.

She then launches into a tirade against Nestbeschmutzung soiling the nest and Bitburg. From there she goes on to write about the family's suffering on some baron's rural property. She doesn't mention anything about Martin's troubles in the US in She uses the first name Sara[h]. Dr Mollenhof related to me ca. See also this 4-page biographical interview of Theresienstadt survivor Guthmann Opfermann on about.

According to a page at spartakus. MN married Sibylle von Sell in Hans Speier, From the Ashes of Disgrace: A Journal from Germany, Amherst: UMass, , p. In his entry on Nov. They have no military bearing. They could never fight the Russians,' and so on. I have not verified that any of Speier's claims are more than his personal opinion. Last week, however, the Third Reich tried a Confessional leader in a way that would have brought credit to any Government. Up before an emergency court in Berlin was Rev.

Martin Niembller, who during the War served Kaiser Wilhelm II as one of the most indomitable, hellraising U-boat commanders ever to spread high-powered "frightfulness" for the Fatherland. In , young Lieutenant Niemoller set off on the ramshackle U told to do Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, mighty producing subsidiary of Loew's Inc. Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Martin Niemoller, onetime U-boat commander, took him to Moabit prison.

Pastor Niemoller was no Marxist, no pacifist, no libertarian. He had, indeed, been an early supporter of Naziism, and the. By any reasonable definition, it is alive. The Living Legacy of Helsinki. The issue of North-South relations is spectacularly alive in the Mediterranean. Citizens are believed to have been burnt alive in air-raid shelters. Zivilisten sollen in Schutzkellern lebendig verbrannt worden sein. From a psychological point of view, the past has left its mark on many people.

In psychologischer Hinsicht ist diese Vergangenheit in vielen Menschen noch lebendig. Four months later, Majid was captured alive; the bombs had missed their intended target. Do you need to be alive?

I mean, that's a spooky thought, right? Das ist doch ein gruseliger Gedanke, oder? For some reason I feel more alive at night. But maybe this image is just a bit too vivid in our imaginations. Aber vielleicht ist dieses Bild etwas zu lebendig in unserer Fantasie. As such, a multi-national corporation is in fact a network of different entities all formed in terms of the laws of different countries.

The likelihood of successful prosecutions or claims for compensation is very limited in these jurisdictions. A treaty would seek to address these problems. First, it could require all states to adopt laws permitting them to hold corporations that have an office there to account for violations of fundamental rights they commit beyond their borders. Such an approach would help address the difficulty that no-one state alone wishes to be seen as the sole enforcer of human rights norms, and so become unattractive to businesses.

It also stops corporations from exploiting weaknesses in legal systems of states in which violations take place to create a situation of impunity. Secondly, the treaty could place binding legal obligations on corporations to address their impact on human rights across their operations, including when they are structured through subsidiaries and long supply chains. Thirdly, the treaty could also address technical questions surrounding in which jurisdictions such cases can be brought, how evidence can be gathered, and how remedies enforced.

Finally, it can also develop international structures to set reasonable minimum standards that businesses must adopt in relation to human rights that can be applied across the world.

The statute in a nutshell

Sadly, in Germany, a lot of opposition comes from businesses who are concerned perhaps about the increased costs to ensure they are not in breach thereof. If the treaty is adopted widely, however, any such costs will have to be borne by competitors too. Indeed, business should not automatically been seen as against rights and it has many opportunities and responsibilities actively to contribute towards the realisation of rights in our society.

Another equally unacceptable source of opposition comes from rigid lawyers schooled in the idea that international human rights only apply to the activities of states. Lawyers need to learn from the mistakes of Nazi Germany too: In light of its history, Germany has a deep moral responsibility to stand up and lead the world in ensuring respect for the dignity and fundamental rights of individuals particularly where business is concerned. In a few months, the first draft of a treaty on business and human rights will be debated in Geneva.

This offers a major opportunity for the government and business to change course and exercise leadership in meeting its historic and contemporary obligations to ensure a more humane world. Prof Bilchitz will argue the case for a business and human rights treaty followed by a panel discussion on 19 July at 17h00 at Humboldt University, Berlin. This will be followed by a one-day conference on the topic on 20 July by leading German academics. To put it bluntly — this is attempted blackmail using Germanys undoubtedly horrible crimes between and Bilchitz, for this highly informative and actually convincing article!

In fact, any legal interpretation should be based on historical facts as this represents the classical method of historical interpretation. Auslegung der Gesetze; p. Further, the conclusions drawn by Prof.

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Bilchitz are perfectly in line with the view of the Bun-desverfassungsgericht. It ruled that our constitution, the Grundgesetz, is the counter-concept to the Nazi Dictatorship. This very counter-concept is regarded as identity building to all of us cf. Laid down in our constitution, the German government has to comply with the principle of anti-national socialism. That leads not only the duty to refrain from certain acts but is reflected by various positive obligations, not only affecting inner affairs but the foreign politics alike e.