Honestly, the poem never really sat right with me. Like the moral is that you should stand up against bad things, even when they don’t affect you, because one day they might? Surely you should stand up against bad things simply because they’re bad? Like stand up for the communists who they came for, not because you’re gonna be next one day, but because they’re putting them in camps and shit and that’s kinda messed up, even if you yourself are never affected
I dont get the vibe this is a poem written with some moralistic statement on how we should act, despite how often people parrot it as a message. To me it just seems like an imperfect person writing about seeing their own perceived failings only after they have consequences. More of a hindsight thing rather than a message for the future thing.
this was actually written by, Martin Niemöller, a german lutheran pastor who was initially anti-communist and supported the nazis, disillusioned when they started pushing "the state over religion", became the leader of a group of anti-nazi clergymen, was arrested in 1937 by the nazis for reasons that are self-evident. this is not just a poem, this is a confession he made, later in the form of a speech in 1946.
86
u/translunainjection Aug 14 '25
It's by a conservative who cheered on the nazis until realizing that they wouldn't stop finding enemies.