Part One: Martin Niemöller, the author of 'First They Came', was a murderous fascist

Margaret Kiljoy (0:01)

Cool Zone Media.

Robert Evans (0:05)

Welcome, friends, back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And I've got a controversial pick for y'all this week, but before I introduce him, I want to introduce my guest, somebody you know and love, the great Margaret Kiljoy. Margaret, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for coming.

Margaret Kiljoy (0:25)

Thank you. Always glad to hear about terrible people. That's a nice reprieve from hearing about good people.

Robert Evans (0:31)

Yeah, this is, I made some statements online a couple of weeks ago about a guy that everybody knows, right, that I don't like, and a lot of people think is, came around to become a good person and a laudable person.

And part of what we're going to be doing this week is I'm going to try to present you what I think is like a fairly fair look at his life. And we'll see if you come to the same conclusion about this son of a bitch that I do. Maybe you don't think he's a son of a bitch.

Margaret Kiljoy (0:57)

Are we doing Lovecraft?

Robert Evans (0:59)

No, no, but we will one day. Don't worry. Yeah, we're definitely. Although I don't think Lovecraft was a bastard at the end of his life, right? At the end of his life, he wrote, like, and right at the end, but he wrote about, like, I regret horribly being a fascist all those years. I was a terrible person.

Margaret Kiljoy (1:13)

Yeah, I know he was that way about the Nazi stuff specifically. Anyway.

Robert Evans (1:17)

He came around. He was starting to on some anyway. He got cancer before we could have seen, but he and he also never really hurt anybody other than him being like a voluminous racist in his personal life. But he didn't have power, right? Anyway, whatever. That's not important. We will do Lovecraft because you could argue he was a terrible person. There's plenty of evidence for that too.

But no, we're talking about a different guy today. We're talking about a poet, Martin Niemöller, right?

And you probably know him as the guy who wrote the First They Came poem, right? First They Came for the Communists. And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist, right? That guy.

Margaret Kiljoy (1:54)

I like that poem.

Robert Evans (1:56)

Everyone does.

Margaret Kiljoy (1:59)

I know that he was conservative. Oh, this is going to be interesting. Yeah, conservative is one way to put it.

Robert Evans (2:05)

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Because that's, I think, what most people think when they read it is that, like, this is a poem from somebody who was, like, a conservative or a centrist, right? And didn't take action during the rise of the Nazis, right? That's what the poem seems to be about. Somebody who was either somewhat conservative or, like, more of a centrist by nature and just didn't do anything to stop the Nazis and regretted it, right?

Margaret Kiljoy (2:31)

Okay. Okay. I can see where you're going with this.

Robert Evans (2:33)

That's not really accurate to who Martin was. His, like, he may have been a little bit more enthusiastic about the rise of the Third Reich than the poem would suggest, right?

Margaret Kiljoy (2:47)

Okay.

Robert Evans (2:47)

Okay.

Margaret Kiljoy (2:48)

First They Came for the Socialists and I was really excited because I hate this too. It was pretty cool, actually.

Robert Evans (2:52)

I thought that was lit.

Margaret Kiljoy (2:55)

I was outside with my balcony with a pennant, killed the trade unionists. Yeah.

Robert Evans (3:00)

I was shooting at trade unionists, which we'll talk about that. Okay. There are numerous versions of the poem, but I think we should start by just reading how the original version of the poem went. As far as I can tell, right? This is sort of the original version of the poem.

First, they took the communists, but I was not a communist, so I did nothing. Then they took the social democrats, but I was not a social democrat, so I did nothing. Then it was the trade unionists turn, but I was not a trained unionist. Then they took the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came and took me, there was no one left who could have stood up for me.

Now, that's a great poem about someone who did not act enough during the rise of the Nazis.

Margaret Kiljoy (3:42)

That is not accurate.

Robert Evans (3:44)

For example, Martin didn't do little when they took the Jews. Martin kind of was enthusiastic about them taking the Jews.