Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

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Niemöller, Martin (Lippstadt, 1892-1984, Wiesbaden), a naval officer in the battleship Thüringen in the first year of the 1914-18 War, transferred to the submarine service, in which he had a distinguished career, becoming a U-Boat captain and receiving the order Pour le mérite. Disoriented for a time after the war, he became convinced of his vocation to preach the Christian message. After studying theology at Münster he was ordained in 1924. He described this period of his career in Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel (1934).

Niemöller was director of the Innere Mission (see Protestantismus) until 1930, and in 1933 founded the Pfarrernotbund, which in 1934 grew into the Bekennende Kirche. Though pensioned in 1934, he continued to oppose the regime and was arrested in 1937 and detained in concentration camps until 1945. After his release he held important offices in the German Evangelical Church, but became a controversial figure through his rejection of confessional Lutheranism and his emphatic pacifism, aimed at an active engagement of the Church for the prevention of a nuclear war and for closer co-operation with the DDR (see Deutsche Demokratische Republik)and Eastern Europe. Niemöller published in 1954, jointly with W. Lüthi and others, Frieden. Der Christ im Kampf gegen die Angst und den Gewaltgeist der Zeit—Reden (4 vols.) appeared in 1957 ff.