First They Came

First They Came

!Engraving of the confession in poetic form presented at the [New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts, US](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/PoembyMartinNiemoelleratthetheHolocaustmemorialinBostonMA.jpg/330px-PoembyMartinNiemoelleratthetheHolocaustmemorialinBostonMA.jpg)

First They Came

"First They Came" (German: Als sie kamen lit. 'When they came', or Habe ich geschwiegen lit. 'I did not speak out') is the poetic form of a 1946 postwar confessional prose piece by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It indirectly condemns complicity of German intellectuals and clergy following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets. Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in the English language.

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The best-known versions of the confession in English are the edited versions in poetic form that had begun circulating by the 1950s.

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