biography
| name: |
Niemöller, (Friedrich Gustav Emil) Martin
|
pronunciation:
[neemoeler]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1892–1984)
|
| biography:
| Lutheran pastor and outspoken opponent of Hitler, born in Lippstadt, WC Germany. He was a leading submarine commander in World War 1, then studied theology, and was ordained in 1924, becoming pastor at Berlin-Dahlem in 1931. Summoned with other Protestant Church leaders before Hitler, he publicly opposed the Nazi regime, and was arrested and placed in various concentration camps (1937–45). Released by Allied forces in 1945, he was responsible for the ‘Declaration of Guilt’ by the German Churches for not opposing Hitler more strenuously, but he also condemned the abuses of the de-Nazification courts. A controversial pacifist, he later became president of the Evangelical Chuch in Hesse and Nassau (1947), and president of the World Council of Churches (1961). |
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