Rev. Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) was a German Lutheran pastor who was an opponent of Adolf Hitler.
He was born in Lippstadt and was a submarine commandant in World War I. He studied theology and was ordained in 1931, becoming pastor at Berlin.
He refused to cooperate with Hitler and continued to preach against him even after his house was ransacked by the Gestapo. He was arrested and interned as Sachsenshausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945. In 1941 he volunteered to serve again in the German navy, but the offer was refused. After his release in 1945 he was instrumental in the issuance of the Declaration of Guilt by German churches in which they declared their culpability in not opposing Hitler more strenuously. He was president of the Evangelical chruch in Hess and Nassau from 1947 to 1961, and became president of the World Council of Churches in 1961.
He is most known for a single quotation - "First they came" - which has many variants, but are based on his original:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.