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

Robert discusses Martin's activities after the war, which included executing unarmed socialists. Then he became a pro-Nazi pastor and was shocked when the Nazis took power and did Nazi stuff. Sources: https://www.1517.org/articles/martin-niem%C3%B6ller-controversial-confessor https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/martin-niemoller https://archive.org/details/godsmanthestory0000clar/page/28/mode/2up https://www.nytimes.com/1939/09/25/archives/niemoeller-volunteers-for-uboat-service-nazis-reject-imprisoned.html https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/08/obituaries/martin-niemoller-resolute-foe-of-hitler.html https://considerthesourceny.org/teaching-holocaust-and-genocide/overview-human-behavior/case-studies/martin-niemoller https://archive.org/details/fromuboattoconce0000mart/page/260/mode/2up?q=jew https://worldbeyondwar.org/kapp-putsch-modern-memory/ https://spartacus-educational.com/GERniemoller.htm https://nwlocalpaper.com/first-they-came-explained https://historymadeeasier.com/the-reverend-martin-niemollers-opposition/ https://blog.oup.com/2023/11/the-man-behind-the-legend-martin-niemoller-hitlers-personal-prisoner/ https://www.christiancentury.org/critical-essay/martin-niem-ller-nazis-finally-came-him https://archive.is/ww7hM https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/first-they-came-martin-niemoller/ https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/niem/NiemollersAntisemitism.htm https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/niem/njm415/NatJewMonthly415.htm God's Man: The Story of Pastor Niemoeller: Mckay, David: 9780313210655: Amazon.com: Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/0313210659?lv=shuf&channelId=520&plpRedirect=mhFallback Hitler's Personal Prisoner - Benjamin Ziemann - Oxford University Press https://global.oup.com/academic/product/hitlers-personal-prisoner-9780192862587?cc=us&lang=en& Then They Came for Me by Matthew D Hockenos | Hachette Book Group https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/matthew-d-hockenos/then-they-came-for-me/9780465097876/?lens=basic-books See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Robert Evans?

  Welcome back, dear friends and dearest enemies. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history, with one of the very best people in all of history as my guest this week, Margaret Killjoy. Margaret, welcome back to the program. How are you feeling about Martin Niemöller?

• 0:24Speaker 01

  I am, uh, I knew he was gonna start off bad, but I had him as like, you know, he's a pastor, he's kinda like a conservative.

• 0:33Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Cause like, I did, I did some episodes about, I should remember this guy's name, the saint who sacrificed himself in a concentration camp so that someone else could live. I literally can't remember.

• 0:46Robert Evans?

  Oh geez, yeah, I know who you're talking about.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  I think it's Colby.

• 0:49Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  And he started off more on the fascist side of things than the anti-fascist side of things, but I don't think he started off like this.

• 0:58Robert Evans?

  Yeah, this is different.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  And so I was thinking at the beginning, I was like, I basically run an episode on sort of this guy.

• 1:04Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  And I'm like, no.

• 1:06Robert Evans?

  No, not with the murdering drowning sailors in the ocean.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11Robert Evans?

  Sinking hospital ships left and right.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14Robert Evans?

  Stuff, yeah.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Bad enough that your biographer has to put obviously fake words in your mouth?

• 1:19Robert Evans?

  Yeah, has to lie. And that, that 1959 book by, by Clarissa Goddman is so fawning, cause it was, and it was written when he was alive, so she's talking to him. I think he didn't want to admit to this nice young journalist lady, let.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  It's just been murdering drowning boys?

• 1:33Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Ah, it wasn't me. I got lucky, I'm on this side of it.

• 1:38Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41Speaker 02

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• 1:46Robert Evans?

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• 2:17Speaker 03

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• 3:01Speaker 04

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• 3:07Speaker 03

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• 3:25Speaker 05

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• 3:40Speaker 06

  They all knew that I did the scary boogie stuff, and they said, maybe she'll find out where this girl is.

• 3:47Speaker 07

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• 4:03Robert Evans?

  Martin Niemöller ended World War I as one of the most decorated sailors in the German fleet. His prestige enhanced by the fact that the German Navy had little enough to brag about at the war's end besides its subcrews. He'd gotten engaged to be married in 1917, and one might have thought even the sting of losing the war would be mitigated by the chance to start a family and lead a normal life again. But Martin's not that kind of nationalist. He is a fanatic.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's taken after his dad.

• 4:39Robert Evans?

  Yeah, he is a fanatic. One part of the armistice deal was that the great German high seas fleet, which had so helped precipitate the conflict, would be interned at Skapa Flow, under the watchful guns of the British Navy. No one could agree quite on what should be done with it. There were a lot, the British wanted some of those boats, you know? But that was not, not something they came to an accord on. But the submarine fleet was ordered to hand, be handed over posthaste, because they were really angry at the U-boats, and they wanted them, right? And Martin was ordered to, yeah, Martin was ordered to take two U-boats to England. He refused, and his reply became famous as a symbol of German post-war resistance, or defiance. And this is how it's described in Goddman.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  First they came for the submarines.

• 5:23Robert Evans?

  First they came for the submarines, and I said, absolutely not! I'll defend those more than any person! "I have sailed in submarines for three years, fighting against England, sir," he told his Commodore. "I have neither sought nor concluded this armistice, and as far as I am concerned, the people who promised our submarines to England can take them over. I will not do it." Okay, man. Mister, Mister Hospital Killer here, getting real, getting pissy about handing over his stupid boat.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  It's a good thing they didn't have the nuclear submarine, or he just would have been like, goodbye.

• 5:55Robert Evans?

  Bye!

• 5:56Speaker 01

  I'm hanging out underwater, I'm going Nemo.

• 5:57Robert Evans?

  I'll just live underwater forever.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:01Robert Evans?

  He resigned his commission. The matter would be, wound up being moot anyway. The German fleet scuttled itself rather than fall into English hands. But nonetheless, Martin became a minor celebrity, particularly on the German right, for his actions. In 1919, he gets married and begins working as a farmer, and he briefly entertains dreams of starting a farm of his own, but rapidly rising inflation makes that a possibility, an impossibility. One Sunday, while at church pondering "my people and my home," he decided to become a pastor. In his Nazi-era autobiography, From U-Boat to Pulpit, Martin would claim that working the soil had drawn him closer to his Volk. It's hard to say what actually happened here.

• 6:43Robert Evans?

  The war had ended in Germany with a socialist revolution that actually starts as a naval mutiny. And this leads, by hook and crook, to the establishment of a democratic republic, the Kaiser's abdication, and the end of the war. Martin blames the socialists, particularly Friedrich Ebert, for German defeat. And in doing so, he adopted the stabbed-in-the-back myth with gusto. He never questions this for a moment. He sympathizes, cause right after this happens, you've got this wing of left-wing revolutions that leads to the Weimar government, but then the revolutions keep coming. And so you also get these Freikorps units, these right-wing militias of German veterans that rise up and kinda wind up in this period of time in an awkward alliance with the Weimar government, because they, the government needs them to crush this leftist uprising

• 7:28Robert Evans?

  called the Spartacists, right?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:31Robert Evans?

  You know all of the basics of this, right? And Martin is super on board with the Freikorps. He considers joining at this point to crush the Spartacists, but he doesn't right now, right? He doesn't now.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  This is like AOC joining the Trump administration to crush the PSL.

• 7:49Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, if she'd had like a military background, I guess, yeah. It's, it's really messy. German post-war history is very messy and complicated, right? In the book, Then They Came for Me, Hockenoss seems to attribute Martin's failure to join the Freikorps at this point to his belief that serving as a pastor would better allow him to participate in the revival of the German nation. Quote, "He joined the ranks of the Lutheran Church for the same reason he had joined the Imperial German Navy, to advance the cause of the Fatherland." But history had other plans for him. Niemöller starts school to get his theology degree in January of 1920. His wife Elsie is pregnant and near delivery at this point in time, but right as he's

• 8:32Robert Evans?

  about, as he's expecting his first child, General Walter von Lutwitz, the so-called father of the Freikorps, leads another coup against the government, this one a right-wing coup, against the Weimar government. And, you know, the government had just used Lutwitz and his Freikorps to suppress the Spartacists, but then afterwards, they're like, okay, so you're gonna disband your right-wing militia now, right? And he's like, how about I do a putsch? And so he, he caught, he caught, launches this putsch, and he, you know, they forced the government out of Berlin, and he makes a right-wing politician named Wolfgang Kap, the head of state. This is the Kap putsch. And it doesn't work in the long run, right? But the social democrats.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I don't know about the pre-Hitler putsches.

• 9:12Robert Evans?

  There's a lot of them. There's putsches left and right, from the left and right, in the immediate post-war period. The social democrats have to flee Berlin, and they call a general strike. The whole left rises up, and it locks the country down entirely, so entirely, that almost no state functions are possible. The government cannot act.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Is this the early 20s?

• 9:33Robert Evans?

  This is 1919 still.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 9:36Robert Evans?

  We haven't even entered 1920. It's 1919 to 1920, I think.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:39Robert Evans?

  No, this is, sorry, this is January of 20. Yeah. So the social democr-

• 9:43Speaker 01

  This is, I still want to learn so much more about late teens, early twenties-

• 9:48Robert Evans?

  It's fascinating.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Germany. So like, I'm excited to hear about this.

• 9:52Robert Evans?

  It's the mess, and this is not, I'm not trying to give a detailed history here, but Martin's very involved in all this, right? So there's a, there's a general strike, the government completely shuts down. And as a result, this both will prove doom for the kaput, because there's just not a functioning state for them to govern, so they have to kind of give up. That's not exactly-

• 10:10Speaker 01

  So the general strike actually stops-

• 10:12Robert Evans?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Right wing coup.

• 10:13Robert Evans?

  It stops the kaput, right? The general strike helps to stop the kaput, right? And it also provides opportunity for a communist uprising in the Ruhr. And this group called the Red Ruhr Army, I think is what they're called, assembles an army of like 50,000 people to create like a communist state in the industrial heartland of Germany. So, the very same day the kaput began, Niemöller and a bunch of student veterans at their university formed what they called the Academic Defense Corps. And this is a Freikorps militia for their school. But they don't mobilize to defend the kap government. That said, once the putsch attempt was called off and the kap thing, like, once they're like, okay, we lost, we're giving up Weimar, like, you're the legitimate government, we gotta do something about this Red Ruhr Army, because they're actual communists as opposed to-

• 10:58Speaker 01

  This isn't the Bavarian commune.

• 11:00Robert Evans?

  These, no, I think that's a separate one. The Ruhr is a different area. There's multiple-

• 11:05Speaker 01

  That one gives us Beitraven and the treasure this year are Madres.

• 11:07Robert Evans?

  Mm-hmm. Yes, it does. And someone else who we'll talk about in these episodes, Margaret.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 11:12Robert Evans?

  But this is the Red Ruhr Army uprising. Basically, so, the right, like the right always does, like, when they feel like they're winning, just says, anyone left of us is a communist. But as soon as there's a communist army in the Ruhr, they're like, oh, Weimar, no, we can work with you guys. You're different from the communists, obviously. What were we saying earlier? No. So, at this point, the Academic Defense Corps is, is like, risen up and the government, the Weimar government, calls the Freikorps into action again to crush this Red Ruhr Army. Niemöller takes command of one of the three battalions of the Academic Defense Corps. They enter combat on April 1st, and the Red, yeah, he's a Freikorps veteran, right?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 11:54Robert Evans?

  The guy who wrote First They Came is a Freikorps veteran.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  He's like, first I came for the communists.

• 12:00Robert Evans?

  First I came for the communist with a gun. And I didn't say anything, because I was shooting them in the head while they were unarmed. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. They enter combat on April 1st, and the Red Ruhr Army had mostly dissolved by the 5th. They do not hold up for very long. Hockenos's book gives a description of the kind of service Martin and his comrades would have been engaged in. The right had a policy of taking no prisoners. A student volunteer, Max Zeller, wrote his parents, "We shoot even the wounded. Anyone who falls into our hands first gets the rifle butt and then is finished off with a bullet." Estimates vary, but approximately 1,000 communists were killed, along with 200 to 300 rightists. "We were greeted as liberators from the hell of Bolshevism," Niemöller maintained, although

• 12:44Robert Evans?

  few industrial workers in the Ruhr saw it that way.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  He probably, they probably threw them into the water to pretend they're drowning soldiers, as sailors.

• 12:51Robert Evans?

  Probably threw them in the water. Yeah, yeah, he loves that. And Martin never, I read his autobiography, he talks about this, but he doesn't talk directly about what they did. He never admits to executing any prisoners or unarmed people. He never admits to engaging in any specific violence. But if you want to know, did Martin Niemöller execute wounded and unarmed people during the Ruhr uprising? Think of how he behaved to those drowning French soldiers.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:14Robert Evans?

  And I think you might have your answer. I think Martin Niemöller probably shot some unarmed people to death, right? From this point on, Martin only grew more and more involved in right wing politics. As a monarchist to his bones, he felt that ideally, politics would not be necessary, because it would not be allowed. He was unable to see that the monarchy had brought Germany all of its problems, and instead blamed the left, which is an insane read of World War I. But it is the read all these guys have of it, right? Like, we did everything, we were in complete power and control, it was a disaster, the fault of these Jewish communists, who had to, who had to write in when we starved

• 13:54Robert Evans?

  the country to death, to try to rescue our few survivors from nightmare, right? They're the ones who fucked it up, right?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, famously.

• 14:03Robert Evans?

  Yeah. In his book, Hitler's Personal Prisoner, Benjamin Zeeman describes most of the early 20s as a time of intense right wing radicalization for Martin. He joined the German Volkish Protection and Defiance Federation, arguably the first German fascist populist party, right? This is the first, like, mass fascist party in Germany, debatably. The DNVP was intensely anti-Semitic and considered Judaism and Bolshevism to be synonyms. Martin also joined other right wing parties and organizations over the next years, while he worked as a plate layer for the railroad company to make money as he finished school. He made a point of bragging to his wife Elsa whenever he encountered his coworkers, because he's very proud to briefly be a blue collar man, that I worked on the railroad, like

• 14:47Robert Evans?

  a real Volk. It's like, Martin, you're a nerdy pastor's son, fuck off. I mean, being in the U-boat should be good enough for your blue collar credentials, you don't need to work at a railroad and brag about it.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:57Robert Evans?

  But that's the hip thing in his, in his subculture. In 1923, after graduating, he opted not to take on his own parish due to the disastrous economic conditions, and instead manages to get a job as manager for a much larger church, the Intermission of Westphalia. In this position, he managed all church social welfare programs for the entire province. Martin was delighted that this job paid enough to, Zeeman writes, "secure a bourgeoisie lifestyle for him and his family." So by 1923, 24, they're like, middle class again, you know?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  By running charities.

• 15:32Robert Evans?

  Yeah, by running, by running charities. Yeah, yeah, that's how he's making his money. By 1924, he's pushing 30 and a father of three. His latest was, had been born just that January. He voted first for the Nazis, probably in this year? I don't 100% know. Zeeman, one of his biographers, the author of Hitler's Personal Prisoner, says that he did not vote for the Nazis at this point. But Hockenos's book reports that he voted for the Nazis at least once before 1930, and several sources I found say that he did so in 1924. I don't know if that would have been the year, because in his own autobiography, Martin writes almost nothing about the Munich putsch that had been carried out by the Nazis

• 16:13Robert Evans?

  around then. So he doesn't seem to be super involved in the Nazis at that, by 24, but certainly at some point before 1930, he starts voting for the Nazis and does so at least once. We don't, I don't, I can't exactly know when.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  This is really relatable to me, not voting for the Nazis, but you trying to figure out exactly which year and which sources are true and not.

• 16:34Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Because this is, there's not a lot of people who have the same job as me. And yeah, that's really just us.

• 16:40Robert Evans?

  You're like, getting really annoyed that these sources don't agree with each other, and needing to figure out which seem more accurate, so that you can give the most... Anyway, it's a very charming thing. It's frustrating, but yeah, I try, I don't know exactly, but certainly he does seem to have voted for the Nazis before 1930 at least once, right?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:59Robert Evans?

  He was finally-

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Which just makes complete sense with everything you're describing.

• 17:02Robert Evans?

  It's, it's totally in line with him, right?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. They're just the lesser evil, he probably said.

• 17:07Robert Evans?

  Well, no, actually, Margaret. We'll talk about what he said. He's gonna say a lot about what he thinks about the Nazis.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:14Robert Evans?

  He was finally ordained as a pastor this year, and his first act was to baptize his new son, who he named for one of his dead comrades. However, one could not call Martin a diligent father in this period, as Zeeman writes. Martin's immense workload and frequent periods of absence were the reason for many marital conflicts with Elsa. In a 1926 letter to him, she describes herself as a "grass widow," which I think means that like, you know, a regular widow is a dirt widow, because they're, her husband's underground, right? He's buried. My husband's still walking, but I'm a widow, right? Because he's never fucking here, you know? I actually think that's a pretty clever term. You don't get a lot about Elsa, but she could turn a phrase, I think. Maybe that was a common one, I don't know.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  She probably wrote the speech.

• 17:56Robert Evans?

  She may, yeah, yeah, she probably wrote it. As he spent years engaged in making welfare programs operate for the church, he began to think more and more about who exactly was included in the people's community? Which Germans are really German and thus deserving of help? Hmm. While he mulled these issues, the National Socialists recovered from their failed putsch attempt and slowly built themselves into a major electoral force. Well, not really all that slowly. Next, per an article by George Bloom, quote, "By 1931, Niemöller was eager to accept a church of his own. He was appointed third pastor to a church in Berlin-Dahlem, one of the richest and most fashionable parishes in Germany. Within months, he became senior pastor upon the death of the incumbent, and

• 18:39Robert Evans?

  two years later, he found himself a national figure in Germany. The two sides of his personality continued to show. He was a committed Christian, caring for the souls of his parishioners, and a man of deep political convictions." So he is now, it's not really a mega church, but it, this is as close as you get in this period to something occupying that position, because it's like a, it's a rich church. It is a parish-

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:00Robert Evans?

  -for people with money, you know? Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Where you can sit around and think about who's really German.

• 19:05Robert Evans?

  Right. And his, his parishioners included a lot of very influential conservatives, including a lot of early Nazis. And as one of the most affluent parishes in Germany, it was not seen as inappropriate that Martin repeatedly spoke up to advocate for far-right politics and political parties. The 1929 Depression seems to have hardened him to the necessity of something like the Nazis and someone like Hitler, for clearly, Germany needed a single, strong man to embody the national spirit and whip things back into shape. In their "Teaching the Holocaust" section, Consider the Source writes this about Niemöller's Nazi sympathies at this time. "Like many Germans, he believed Hitler would provide strong leadership and help Germany recover. Niemöller even viewed Hitler as 'an instrument

• 19:48Robert Evans?

  sent by God,' and supported the Nazis despite their open anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews and other groups."

• 19:54Speaker 01

  An instrument sent by God.

• 19:57Robert Evans?

  An instrument of God. First they came for the communists, and I thought that was great, because God declared it, and made Hitler in his own image. A little different of a poem, if you read it that way.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh-huh.

• 20:09Robert Evans?

  I would say so. Probably wouldn't be, be, be spread so much on social media. That same source notes that Martin, quote, "himself held anti-Semitic beliefs, referring to Jews in the 1920s and 30s as 'a despised people' and 'Christ killers.'" He would later insist that his support for the Nazis never included support for genocide. He simply hoped Nazi racial policies and laws would force the Jews out of politics and public life. This is like one of his excuses. I just thought you were gonna make them not be allowed to talk.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, I just don't want them dead.

• 20:41Robert Evans?

  I didn't say I want them dead.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  I just want them not where the food is and the shelter and the healthcare.

• 20:46Robert Evans?

  That may be true, but I don't care.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 20:49Robert Evans?

  I still think you should have been shot at the end of the war, to be honest, Martin. I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe you'll think that's unfair by the end.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, because in my mind, he's still- In my mind, he still has redemption arc ahead of him.

• 21:02Robert Evans?

  He could, he could. That's sure. There's room.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  All right.

• 21:06Robert Evans?

  Because there are some guys who were legitimate Nazi. If you're a legitimate Nazi, for me, redemption means you either gave or risked your life to save people from the Nazis, right?

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 21:17Robert Evans?

  That's kind of the only redemption for you, if you're a committed Nazi in the pre-war period, right?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:24Robert Evans?

  However, it must be said that Martin was not like a racial antisemite, right? Or at least, I don't see a lot of evidence for that. This is not, I'm not saying this to like mitigate what he's doing. That doesn't make it better. It's just different, right? What I mean by that is Martin was not driven, so far as I can tell, by a belief that the Jews are destined to only be Jews. His issue is with their faith and culture. And so when Jews converted to Christianity, he was generally happy to recognize them as his fellow citizens and Christians, right? And that does separate him from the Nazis, right?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 21:55Robert Evans?

  And this is a sticking point that he's unwilling to, well, not unwilling, but less willing to compromise on, right?

• 22:03Robert Evans?

  1931 and 32 would be the happiest years of Niemöller's life. His career was going great. He had a large and healthy family. He was influential. And his political side seemed to be winning, but had not yet come to power and thus been able to like fuck up. All the things that they were saying were good, right? And then in July of 1932, after a month that saw dozens killed and hundreds injured in street fights between left and right wing groups in Berlin, the Nazis came out on top in a parliamentary election. This did not lead immediately to Hitler's chancellorship, but it did lead quite directly to it. Hitler's going to demand to be chancellor from Hindenburg. Hindenburg is the president. And for months, there's backroom deals and skullduggery. We've covered this on another episode, so I'm not going to get into it.

• 22:48Robert Evans?

  But it's during this chaotic period when Hitler is destined for, but not yet in, total power, that Pastor Niemöller gave one of his most famous speeches on New Year's Day, 1933, in his church. Per an article in Christian Century by Matthew Hockenos, "What God's intentions may be with regard to our nation or to ourselves in the new year, we do not and shall not know," he intoned. "But he warned that in these dark times, God's grace is not just a source of relief or comfort. That is, easy Christianity and artificial grace. Rather, God offers us his grace so that we will put our whole trust in him and his son. We are not God's generals, but his soldiers. Ours is not to make the plans, but to carry out the orders." Niemöller's message was clear. It was not the responsibility of the individual or the

• 23:31Robert Evans?

  church to meddle in the secular affairs of state and its law. Now, Hockenos notes that Hitler published his own New Year's Day appeal, the same time that Martin gives this speech, and in it Hitler urged his followers to reject conservative power sharing and give all power and trust to him. Any compromise, he warned, would destroy them and their party. Per that article, Niemöller's parishioners, at least the more conservative and nationalistic ones, must have suffered a conflict of conscience after reading this propaganda, wondering whether it was possible to trust both their God and the Nazi leader. If the parishioners looked to Pastor Niemöller for direction on this question, the answer was clear. Niemöller made no secret of his support for the Nazis, although he never campaigned from the pulpit for Hitler.

• 24:15Robert Evans?

  Niemöller initially saw no contradiction in calling on his flock to follow a merciful God, while at the same time backing the Nazi leader who demanded absolute political loyalty to his racist worldview. German Protestants, Niemöller believed, could and should do both. So he's not saying, "Vote for Hitler," but he's making an ethical case where the only response is "Vote for Hitler" to his parishioners, right?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, he's making a theological case for, "Shut the fuck up and let bad stuff that's clearly anti-Christian happen."

• 24:43Robert Evans?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 24:45Robert Evans?

  Shut up and let it happen. Shut up and let it happen. That's, that's what he said, right?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the first thing came for the trade unions, and I didn't say anything because I believe that the state should make its own decisions about what to do with the trade unions. That's not my place to say.

• 24:58Robert Evans?

  Not my place to say. I did vote for them to kill those guys, but it's not my place to say what happens to them.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  But that's unrelated to my personal beliefs.

• 25:04Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I can't be blamed for that.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:07Robert Evans?

  Martin's support certainly was not crucial to Hitler taking power later that month, but it had the effect of helping calm any conservative parishioners who weren't fully convinced of this Hitler chap. In another speech on March 5, 1933, before the first-

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Because the monarchists didn't totally love Hitler, right?

• 25:22Robert Evans?

  Like, no, no. And in fact, I talked to a man who fought, he was 14 when the war ended, but he fought in the Hitler Youth when they were drafting the teenagers, right? His grandfather was a Prussian military officer who died in a concentration camp because of his resistance to the Hitler regime. And his resistance to the Hitler regime wasn't Hitler's a racist or Hitler's a bigot. It was, "He's an idiot and he's going to get us all killed. I know more about war than this dipshit, and he's fucking up," right?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's probably right.

• 25:52Robert Evans?

  Yeah, he was certainly right. He was absolutely correct.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Probably wouldn't have invaded the USSR. Probably would have left him alone.

• 25:58Robert Evans?

  Might have been a bad call. Might have been a bad call. Probably the whole Battle of Britain, bad call, you know?

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:03Robert Evans?

  North Africa, I don't know, that could have worked. I don't want to get into war gaming, though.

• 26:09Robert Evans?

  So in another speech, on March 5, in another speech on March 5, 1933, before the first and last elections of the Nazi era, Martin gave a different kind of talk, accepting that, quote, "It is simply impossible for us today to accept the comfortable formula that politics have no place in the church." And so he urged his parish to "take a conscientious stand this very day." Given that Niemöller voted for Hitler, I'm not sure what to call this but an endorsement. And Hitler wins, obviously. Once Hitler gets what he wanted, though, Martin slowly began to get cold feet. And one thing that upsets him is once the new Nazi era is like fully underway, this new Protestant movement starts up, and they call themselves the German Christians.

• 26:54Robert Evans?

  And the German Christians have an issue, right? Germany is a Christian country, mostly like Protestant, but a lot of Catholics. And Jesus was Jewish. Or was he?

• 27:07Robert Evans?

  The "or was he" is where the German Christians come in. And their argument is, Jesus wasn't a Jew. He had no Jewish ancestry. And their whole goal was to purify Christianity of Jewish influence. And as a result, one of the things they advocated is, "We got to toss out the Old Testament. We got to throw that shit in the trash." All these Jews wandering around the desert? Absolutely not. Can't have that in our Nazi Christianity.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  I love it because like, yeah, the Old Testament is like more conservative than the New Testament.

• 27:36Robert Evans?

  It's super conservative.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  And they're like, "But it's too Jewish. Gotta go."

• 27:41Robert Evans?

  It's really, it is very Jewish. I mean, yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  I got bad news for you about Christianity, my guys.

• 27:46Robert Evans?

  Yeah, got really bad news.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  It comes from that.

• 27:49Robert Evans?

  Yeah, they do not believe this. And this is where Martin starts to realize, oh, this is his like Arrested Development, "I've made a terrible mistake" moment?

• 27:58Robert Evans?

  When Martin, the theologian, starts hearing his parishioners say, "You know, Jesus wasn't a Jew," and he's like, "Well, okay, wait a second."

• 28:07Robert Evans?

  So Martin does not like this. And he doesn't like that the German Christians also think Jews should not be allowed to be baptized as Christians. One of their slogans was literally, "Baptism can't straighten a crooked nose." And this-

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 28:21Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah. This, this is the line for Martin. This is where he is like, "I have to do something," right?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 28:31Robert Evans?

  This, this is the fucking line.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Because he actually is religious at the end of the day.

• 28:35Robert Evans?

  He is religious. He believes in something.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  He's not just looking for power from religion. He believes in religion.

• 28:42Robert Evans?

  He does believe in something, even when it's inconvenient to him. That is, that is true, right?

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:48Robert Evans?

  He's not completely without a moral backbone, right? He does have things that he believes in. And it's Martin's rejection of this nonsense theology that would sow the seeds of his resistance to Hitler, if we can really call it that. I say this because while the first concentration camps are being set up, while the police agencies of the German states are being Nazified, while Jews and socialists are being murdered and tortured and locked up, Martin chose to become an activist against the German Christians by helping to form a group called the Young Reformers. And the Young Reformers say, "The German Christians are wrong, but we joyfully affirm Hitler and the new state," while also demanding church independence and condemning the so-called "Aryan paragraphs," a paragraph of the 1933 law for the restoration of civil service,

• 29:33Robert Evans?

  right? So they're not, their whole thing is like, "Well, if Jews are going to be Christian, we shouldn't be shitty to them. And if someone just has like a little bit of Jewish ancestry, that shouldn't be a problem, as long as they're Christians." They do believe that, but that's kind of their only issue. And they're, they're still emphatically, "We love Hitler."

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:49Robert Evans?

  Don't get us wrong. Huge Hitler fans, right?

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I love, it's the reformist approach to Nazism. They're like, "We still want Nazism."

• 29:57Robert Evans?

  We have to reform Nazism a little bit.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  But like, what if it was like 95% Nazism?

• 30:02Robert Evans?

  Yeah, what if we dial it down just a skosh? You know who else wants to reform Nazi?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Dials it down a skosh.

• 30:11Robert Evans?

  Yeah, dial it down a skosh. That's a better way to lead an ad.

• 30:15Speaker 06

  Jesus.

• 30:18Speaker 03

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• 30:59Speaker 02

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• 31:05Speaker 06

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• 31:17Speaker 02

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• 31:21Speaker 06

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• 31:30Speaker 03

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• 31:33Speaker 02

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• 31:39Speaker 04

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• 31:45Speaker 06

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• 31:53Speaker 06

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• 32:16Speaker 05

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• 32:42Speaker 06

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• 32:45Speaker 07

  Here's what you missed.

• 32:46Speaker 04

  And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power.

• 32:54Speaker 06

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• 32:55Speaker 04

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• 33:01Speaker 07

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• 33:01Speaker 04

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• 33:10Speaker 07

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• 33:21Speaker 07

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• 33:25Speaker 04

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• 33:35Speaker 06

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• 33:40Speaker 07

  Or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 33:47Robert Evans?

  And we're back. So I don't want to be, the young reformers are more complicated than just like a bunch of assholes who believe Hitler's basically fine. There are some really good people in them who just see this as a way to fight the regime. The best of them is probably Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is like Martin, a pastor, a Protestant pastor. Dietrich is ultimately going to die helping to rescue 14 Jews late in the war. He would be executed by the Nazis in 1945. As Hockinos writes, Dietrich does not buy, he and Martin work together because they're both pastors fighting against the German Christians, but Dietrich does not buy Martin as a dissident. Quote, although they agreed about the need to fight the German Christian threat, they did not see eye to eye on much else.

• 34:30Robert Evans?

  In a letter to a friend, Bonhoeffer referred to Niemöller and his type as naive, starry-eyed idealists who thought they were the real National Socialists because of their dual devotion to National Socialism and National Protestantism. This was nothing less than delusional, as far as Bonhoeffer was concerned. Nazism and Protestantism were inimical because the Nazis openly derided Christ's message of love and mercy. Simply put, a good Christian, Bonhoeffer believed, could not be a good Nazi. And, yeah, I've thought a lot doing these episodes about my own Protestant upbringing, and I had both Catholic, because my dad had been raised Catholic, and I went to mass some as a littler kid, but we wound up being more Protestant than anything.

• 35:09Robert Evans?

  And I feel like if I'd met more Bonhoeffer Christians as a kid, I might not have given up Christianity, but unfortunately, I met only Niemöllers.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:21Robert Evans?

  Oops, all Niemöllers. And my old church is a kid that split away from the Episcopalian Church and led that breakaway to the African Anglican Church because they didn't want gay people to be bishops. That was my pastor as a kid. He was in charge, like the head of that whole movement. I got on TV for that. It's like coming out of Sunday School, there was a, anyway, a bunch of fucking Niemöllers, right? That's my, that's my attitude about these people.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  I remember like being like really confused and going to my nun aunt and being like, why are all of a sudden people saying that Christians believe the earth is like 10,000 years old or whatever? And my like nun aunt is like, don't worry about that bullshit, kid. Yeah, like.

• 35:59Robert Evans?

  My dad was always great as a fucking former altar boy. When I was like, what is with these creations? He's like, they're idiots.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 36:06Robert Evans?

  They're idiots and the Pope says so.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, like my aunt was literally married to God. God's wife says it's fine. Fuck off.

• 36:14Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, it's the, I think a lot about the two different ways you can interpret Christianity, right? Like my pastor did where he's like, well, you shouldn't let gay people preach the word of God. And that's, that's the, that's, that's a big enough cause that I'm going to fight for it. Of all of the evils in the world, my pastor picked that as the one to like stake his name to fighting. Whereas Dietrich Bonhoeffer is like, oh, people are being oppressed? Guess I'll die like Christ would, saving them. That's the Christian thing to do is die saving them.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, you know, you, the connections to American, what's this word? Christofascism in America?

• 36:54Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Like Christian nationalism, that's the word. They're so direct, like what you're saying about like, we need to basically reinvent Christianity and like leave out all of the.

• 37:05Robert Evans?

  Purge out this nice shit.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a whole lot about being nice to random people.

• 37:10Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Like especially strangers and foreigners.

• 37:12Robert Evans?

  You gotta get rid of that.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying like, the Bible is inherently consistent or moral.

• 37:18Robert Evans?

  No, there's a bunch of shit in there.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  That's one it hits on a lot. And they're just like, nah, nah, nah, nah.

• 37:22Robert Evans?

  Nah, nah, nah, gotta get rid of that. Gotta get rid of that.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:26Robert Evans?

  And so even to the extent that Martin sort of breaks good after this point and becomes an enemy of the regime, he never, ever, at any point in his life, shows even a tenth of the moral courage that someone like Bonhoeffer existed. In fact, even as he organized with Dietrich, he worked to profit off of nationalism and ingratiate himself to Nazi leadership, as this quote from an article by Barry Yorgrow in The Nation makes clear. That very summer, Niemöller was once again reaffirming his nationalist bona fides, writing and quickly publishing From U boat to pulpit, a memoir of his submarine exploits and his struggles against the Weimar Republic. By the end of 1934, it had sold 60,000 copies. Hockinos observes that the author sent it to Joseph Goebbels with a note saying it was

• 38:10Robert Evans?

  written in the spirit of the Third Reich. At the Dolem Church, remarked Simon, the pastor would receive the sig heil salute from parishioners and acknowledge it.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 38:20Robert Evans?

  Would we call him a relentless foe of Hitler at this point?

• 38:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:25Robert Evans?

  I'd say someone who has like a mild structural disagreement with Hitler.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, there's like kind of a level where if it's like, if there's Nazis and you have any kind of public voice and you're not basically dead or dying in your fight, you're not doing it right.

• 38:40Robert Evans?

  You're not doing it right. And fucking Martin sure is not at this point. But over the next few years, he did work to thwart a narrow plank of Hitler's system, organizing to try and beat the German Christians in church leadership elections and generally failing. This finally made it clear to Niemöller that he had made a grave error, and he dedicated the next three years, like 34, 35 to 37, 38, trying to staunch the bleeding and stop Hitler from taking over the Protestant church in Germany entirely. It was for this that Hitler had him arrested for the first time in July of 1937 for misusing the pulpit to a political end. Now, he'd been detained several times prior to this, but 37 is when it sticks, and he's

• 39:23Robert Evans?

  taken to prison and he's not going to get out until the war's end. He is in jail for the next like almost a decade, right? This prompts international outrage for reasons that are somewhat frustrating. While American newspapers lauded Martin as a heroic figure of anti-Nazi resistance and published op-eds making him out to be a martyr to Hitler's cruelty, Niemöller defended himself in court by arguing, wait, no, I love Hitler, bro. Don't, don't even get me wrong. Like, I'm such a fan of this dude. Like, I don't know even why I'm here, right?

• 39:55Speaker 01

  It's just all a mistake. If Hitler knew how I felt, he'd let me go.

• 39:59Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Quote, and this is from Zeeman's book. The court allowed the defendant to talk about his life in detail. Niemöller seized the opportunity and gave a speech that contained many elements of the narrative in From U boat to pulpit. He presented himself as a Navy officer and U boat commander who had risked his life for the Fatherland and wanted to serve the uprooted German people as a free corps fighter in 1920, as a student of theology and as a pastor. He claimed to have always voted for the NSDAP from 1924 onwards. And Zeeman notes that this is untrue, although as I've said, other sources insist he voted at least once for the Nazis in the 20s. That said, if Martin had, if Martin had been saying this in court, to be like, I love Hitler, I voted for you guys, while actively sneaking Jews and other endangered people

• 40:42Robert Evans?

  out of the country, and the lie was just a cover, I'd be like, totally forgive him.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he'd be on my show, not your show.

• 40:47Robert Evans?

  Awesome thing to do, bro. Yeah. He's not, right? And we, part of why we, I mean, we know he's got, because he didn't do that, and also in court, he insisted Jews were alien and that he disliked them. So, again, he's still calling them Christ killers.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  I wonder if there are any like, I hate the Jews, I want them out of the country, but I want them safely out of the country.

• 41:07Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's what he would say was his attitude, right?

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Not, not an okay attitude, to be clear. I'm not defending this position.

• 41:13Robert Evans?

  Yeah, not meaningfully different. Now, it is true that he succeeded in pissing off Joseph Goebbels because the judges really liked him and he was cleared of all but one charge. And the last one was, shouldn't have been that big a charge, but this does not get him out of prison, right? Hitler personally orders Martin Niemöller to be sent to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp outside of Berlin, mainly for political prisoners. If you're ever in Berlin and get a chance to see it, I really recommend going.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:40Robert Evans?

  He would spend the next two thirds of a decade behind bars as the personal prisoner of Hitler. This was not like a great situation, obviously, but as Hitler's personal prisoner, his own treatment was vastly better than that of the Jews, homosexuals and socialists, that he had no problem voting to put in camps. He is much more comfortable than they are, right? This is not, not a death camp situation. He's not being tortured, right? But across the pond in the United States, his legend only grew. Barry Yorgrow writes that in numerous churches.

• 42:11Speaker 06

  God, Americans are so stupid. It's unbelievable.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Oh, we're dumb as fuck. We're so fucking dumb.

• 42:18Robert Evans?

  Oh, man.

• 42:18Speaker 06

  Not you, Truman. My dog thought I was telling, I was calling her name.

• 42:22Robert Evans?

  No, no.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  No, Truman, you're great.

• 42:23Speaker 06

  You're great, girlfriend.

• 42:25Robert Evans?

  Just the rest of the country.

• 42:26Speaker 06

  Not American dogs. You're, you're innocent. It's not your fault that us human Americans are so stupid.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  I have one immediately at my feet right now. I'm very happy.

• 42:37Speaker 06

  I got one at my feet and one right next to me. That's how I'd like to be forever, double dogging.

• 42:43Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I got, I got no dog, but I do have a bunch of shit to read about this asshole. So, yeah. Barry Yorgrow writes that in the United States, numerous church pastors asked their congregations to pray for the man they called the Fighting Pastor. That's what the American nickname of Martin Niemöller is. Although I'm not really sure what fighting he'd done, other than in the Freikorps at this point, right?

• 43:03Speaker 06

  I hate this.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  He's more famous than the other guy you said, just because he's like the personal prisoner?

• 43:08Robert Evans?

  At this point in time, for sure. For sure. Probably still today more famous than Dietrich Bonhoeffer, right? Yeah. Dietrich doesn't write a poem. He just dies saving, saving people, but he doesn't write a poem, you know?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  That's what, he should have thought about that.

• 43:20Robert Evans?

  Should have thought about that, Dietrich.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he didn't believe in trying to be immortal by writing poetry. No, no. But instead through good deeds.

• 43:29Robert Evans?

  One Brooklyn clergyman restaged Niemöller's arrest on his pulpit, then delivered his sermon from behind mock Saxonhausen cell bars. The New York Times and Time Magazine issued regular updates on his fate. Time, as noted, put him on its cover as the martyr of 1940. The martyr of 1940.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Nothing else bad happened in 1940.

• 43:48Robert Evans?

  Nothing else bad happened that year that the Nazis did.

• 43:51Speaker 06

  Fucking stupid.

• 43:52Robert Evans?

  In 1939, a German Jewish exile named Ernst Toller, who'd previously been a major part of the Bavarian Soviet Republic that had been crushed by the Freikor, wrote a barely fictionalized, well, wrote a fictionalized play about Niemöller's life called Pastor Hall. Uh, it barely, I would say it's a barely accurate play about Niemöller's life titled Pastor Hall.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 44:13Robert Evans?

  The play was made into a movie in 1940, and James Roosevelt, son of Eleanor Roosevelt, brought it to the United States for release. The poster gives you an idea of the contents of the film.

• 44:23Speaker 06

  No.

• 44:23Robert Evans?

  Up at top, it says, "It can happen here."

• 44:25Speaker 06

  No.

• 44:26Robert Evans?

  And there's like a whip in front of, above his head, and you, the pastor's like cradling a young girl. You know, there's Nazis beating guys in the streets. Yeah.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  This is where you all got your podcast name from.

• 44:37Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's, that is. That's where we stole it from.

• 44:39Speaker 06

  Um, actually, Robert, do you recall that you were gonna call the show, "It Can Happen Here," and then I just changed it to "Could," and then that was the title?

• 44:46Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Yeah, cool, cuz I was copying it from a book that they were also referencing in this movie. Anyway. You can find the whole movie on YouTube today. The opening card reads, "The story of the individual in Europe during the past decade has shown us how much more potent is truth when compared to fiction. Pastor Hall is based on authentic, verified facts." I just love that, like, you proved that contention wrong by the fact that you made a movie about this guy. No, fiction is way more powerful than truth. You're making a movie about a guy who's a committed Nazi and saying he's a foe of Hitler. And everyone in America pretty much buys it at this point. Here's how Jorgau reviewed the flick for his article. "The film shows Pastor Hall being brutally flogged in wretched concentration camp conditions. This was pure invention. Niemöller was never physically abused

• 45:31Robert Evans?

  or punished with forced labor in all his eight years of imprisonment. The Nazis didn't want to enhance his martyr status." Right? Just a complete fabrication.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  But the fact that there's movies and shit about him is why they didn't beat him, according to this.

• 45:46Robert Evans?

  Probably. Like, right, that, that did help. That's part of why he does not suffer as much. Um, Martin's fame was not diminished by the facts. Like, that in 1938, a year into his incarceration, he wrote a letter to the Nazi authorities and volunteered to serve in the armed forces again. In 1941-

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Okay, that's, that's actually the, I've now hit a-

• 46:07Robert Evans?

  The fighting pastor.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  I've now hit a fuck this guy completely. I, I was fuck this guy completely in like World War I.

• 46:12Robert Evans?

  I was wondering what it would hit in the 1920s. But like, once he's like in prison, I'm like, look-

• 46:17Speaker 01

  In prison.

• 46:18Robert Evans?

  He like clearly disagreed enough that he's in prison. But when he's like, "Let me out so I can go further your war aims."

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the Third Reich.

• 46:26Robert Evans?

  That's why they call him the fighting pastor. Tell you who he wanted to fight for.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He must've, yeah, yeah, fight the, everyone else, fight the allies.

• 46:34Robert Evans?

  Very true. In 1941-

• 46:35Speaker 01

  He's like, "Why are we in fighting? I'm on your side."

• 46:38Robert Evans?

  "I'm on your side. Let me help." "In 1941, he was transferred to Dachau, and once the war was well and truly underway, he volunteered again, begging to be allowed to crew or captain a U-boat for Hitler."

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Wow. No, it was the long game. He was like, "I'm gonna rescue people with my U-boat. I don't believe this," but, yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 06

  Incredible.

• 46:59Robert Evans?

  Around this time, a man claiming to be a Jewish refugee from Germany, Leo Stein, published a book in the United States called, "I Was in Hell with Niemöller," in which he claimed to have sat with Martin in Saxonhausen. And it's, he talks about like, oh, he talked about how, you know, the, the Jews are being so horribly abused, and Hitler's a monster, and we have to stop this.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Those are just lies.

• 47:18Robert Evans?

  It's complete lies. He was not, he would have never seen- Stein never met Martin. Martin was too high-value a prisoner to have been in a cell with any Jews, right? This is a complete fabrication, and it still gets referenced today.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Which means that this guy both was grifting and making anti-fascist propaganda. And honestly-

• 47:36Robert Evans?

  At the same time.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Kinda not mad. Fucks over historians.

• 47:40Robert Evans?

  I'm not mad at him. At Leo, no. No, I'm just kinda mad at what it does to his reputation, right?

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

• 47:45Robert Evans?

  But I can't blame Leo, you know?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Robert Evans?

  Tough time out there. In 1943, after the disaster at Stalingrad, when German defeat became inevitable, Niemöller wrote to his wife to consider trying to join the, about like, "Should I consider trying to join the military again?" He confessed to Elsa, "Sometimes I am tormented by the thought that the whole bloody fighting might end for us in Bolshevism." And I do, in terms of determining the character of Martin, one thing I find interesting, he's willing to fight for the Nazis in 38. He's willing to fight for the Nazis in 41. He considers it in 43, but he says nah. Cuz at that point, you know they're not gonna win. And I really think, more than any ethical concern, Martin was a guy who liked being on the winning side.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:26Robert Evans?

  Right?

• 48:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 48:27Robert Evans?

  I think that's a big part of his psyche.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  If you're a big bootlicker, if you like.

• 48:30Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:32Robert Evans?

  Yep. He was the subject of another movie in 1944, "The Hitler Gang," which was a fictionalized account of the Nazi rise to power in which Hitler at all were depicted as actual gangsters, right? Which is actually a pretty good way to look at the way the Nazi party functioned. Niemöller gets a scene in the movie where he yells directly into Hitler's face, "Do you think we're really so contemptible that we would surrender the sacred faith given to us by God and accept a political program in its place?" This never happened. Nothing like this ever happened.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Do you think he was like mad about the fact that everyone kept calling him a leftist, basically?

• 49:07Robert Evans?

  No. He's, he's gonna make hay out of that, Margaret. At least try to.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially after the war. Everyone's like, nah, I was, I was on the other side, I swear.

• 49:16Robert Evans?

  Yeah. It's, I don't know how much he knows about that at this point, right?

• 49:20Speaker 01

  There are not a lot of movies he can watch in Dachau.

• 49:22Robert Evans?

  Yeah, they're not showing that movie in Dachau. Uh, Martin's entire reputation today, though, is built on these fictions. Writing for The Nation, Barry Jorgau describes Martin's actual wartime conditions and how World War II finally ended for him. "In Dachau, he was housed there with three German Catholic priests in a separate facility for special and honorable prisoners, along with foreign inmates with whom he could mingle and share meals. On Christmas Eve, 1944, he conducted a profoundly poignant service in a makeshift cell for six fellow Protestants whose country's Germany was besieging or occupying. In the war's chaotic final days, shortly after Bonhoeffer was stripped naked and gruesomely hanged at Flossenberg Camp for his connection to the plot to kill Hitler, Niemöller was rushed away with select others into northern Italy by SS troops, according to Zeiman,

• 50:06Robert Evans?

  and to be either murdered or held as a bargaining chip. Hockinos argues for the latter. Niemöller was at last liberated on May 4th, 1945, to an international jubilation." Right? So, he's sitting comfortable in a cell where they'll fucking killing Bonhoeffer in the worst way possible. He's kinda tangentially connected to this, this attempt to take out Hitler. Um, and yeah, the war ends, and he's a celebrity for a little while. It comes out not long after he gets freed that Martin had volunteered twice to fight for Hitler. And that really messes with his reputation.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Oh my God, is this why he gives the speech and writes the poem? Is to try and like-

• 50:48Robert Evans?

  Yep.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Get himself to be seen as a good anti- Oh my God. You are breaking my heart. I know that your job is to pick a guest who's gonna be heartbroken by the topic.

• 51:00Robert Evans?

  Yep, yep. Well, we'll see how you feel at the very end.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:05Robert Evans?

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• 53:37Speaker 05

  Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin Unfiltered podcast?

• 53:40Speaker 07

  Here's what you missed.

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• 53:49Speaker 05

  It's real.

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• 53:56Speaker 07

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• 54:21Speaker 04

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• 54:31Speaker 05

  And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts.

• 54:35Speaker 07

  Or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 54:42Robert Evans?

  And we're back. At a press conference with Allied Occupation Forces that was given after it had come out that he'd volunteered to fight for the Nazis, Martin tried to explain, this is where he gives that quote, "If there is a war, Germany doesn't ask if it's just or unjust, but he feels bound to join the ranks." But he was forced to admit during this press conference that he had, quote, "never quarreled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds." And for a time, Martin's reputation was justly deflated. A writer for the New York Times assessed that he had been a singularly ineffectual figure of anti-Nazi resistance, and this is true. Even after the war, Martin refused to admit supporting Hitler had been a total mistake. He insisted Germans could not live in a democratic society.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  I kind of like that he doesn't lie about what he believes in.

• 55:28Robert Evans?

  He doesn't at this point, right?

• 55:30Speaker 01

  He's saying like, no, I'm a piece of shit, you know?

• 55:33Robert Evans?

  Yeah, he kinda is.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Thanks for telling us.

• 55:35Robert Evans?

  This is coming to the thing that's a little grayer, right? Because he does have what seems to be, I think, is somewhat of a genuine flip, right? And to the extent that this is a genuine flip, it comes with the growing awareness of the Holocaust and what had really happened. Martin claimed to be stunned when he learned about it, and the specific moment that caused this is he and his wife go on a visit and they see the crematoria at Dokow, where there's a plaque put up commemorating the people murdered there, and he saw that the deaths dated from 1933 to 1945. And that made it undeniable that the killing had started while he was still free and supporting the Nazis. From this point on, if you believe this story, Martin became a belated anti-Nazi, one who

• 56:17Robert Evans?

  would dedicate the next portion of his life to loudly preaching German guilt for the atrocities of the war years. However, even if you read his apologies after becoming aware of the Holocaust, they're mostly shit, right? And this is one of the things he says in that, in one of these press conferences. "I really believed, given the widespread antisemitism in Germany at that time, that Jews should avoid aspiring to government positions or seats in the Reichstag. There were many Jews, especially among the Zionists, who took a similar stand. Hitler's assurance satisfied me at the time. I am paying for that mistake now, and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me." Right? Hitler lied to me, and I didn't know it would be that bad.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm paying for it now.

• 56:55Robert Evans?

  That apology's ass, my guy. I'm paying for it now. Ass, bro.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  You? But it's a shit apology, but I'm glad it's a shit apology, because he's still, so far, presenting to me someone who is not trying to lie.

• 57:10Robert Evans?

  I don't think he is.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Like, he's, he seems to be about what he's about, and what he's about is

• 57:15Robert Evans?

  Kinda, yeah.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  largely bad, right?

• 57:18Robert Evans?

  Yeah, but he's pretty open about it.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, even his antisemitism being kind of about his own guilt, like, one, that's the most German way to handle it possible. But like, you know, honestly, him being a shitty politician about it, not a mark against him, what he says a mark against him, because it's what he believes, and it's a bad thing to believe.

• 57:40Robert Evans?

  He is like saying in front of these cameras, oh no, those rumors about me are not true. I was like, pretty cool with Hitler for the most part. I don't know where you guys got this movie script from, but that's not me.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, he would be a worse guy if he'd come out and been like, it was all true, I was anti-fascist.

• 57:56Robert Evans?

  Hero pastor.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:59Robert Evans?

  So what he finally decides to do, as a result of his, he says he's convinced that, like, Germany is guilty of an historical crime, and we need to make, like, clear our personal role in that, right? And he makes something called, or he helps make something called the Stuttgart Declaration, in which he and a bunch of other Protestant church leaders declared their personal guilt and the German Protestant Church's guilt for the slaughter of European Jewry, per an article in 1517.org. "Many Germans rejected this document because they objected to the idea that they were complicit in the murder of their neighbors. Others thought it too little and too late as a rejection of nationalism and racism from Niemöller. During the Cold War years, Niemöller raised the ire of fellow Protestants in Germany

• 58:43Robert Evans?

  by refusing to articulate the strong anti-communist and pro-American views of the new West German government. Condemning both sides, Niemöller met with leaders of both NATO-oriented and communist states. Citing the horrors of the Second World War and the apocalyptic possibility of a nuclear war, Niemöller became a champion for peace and disarmament and dreamed of a united Germany." And that all sounds good, right?

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 59:06Robert Evans?

  That doesn't present the whole story. Because while Martin did become a dogged and vocal advocate of German war crimes guilt and anti-war activist, he also used his notoriety to kind of troll people, as Jorgrow writes. "He railed about the treatment of the German people by the occupation forces. He fiercely opposed denazification as far too blunt and punitive an instrument, insisting it would only further victimize suffering Germans. 'There is a new antisemitism in Germany,' he contended in a statement quoted by Zymon. 'It is caused by the Americans letting Jews carry out the denazification. There were other such ugly outbursts.'"

• 59:39Speaker 01

  It's anti-Deutschism.

• 59:41Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, he's not better. And when I came across that passage, I couldn't help but think of a different passage that I read in the book God's Man back at the start of my research that goes, "He is happiest when a storm is raging about his ears," is a phrase often used about Martin Niemöller. And some have interpreted this to mean that he enjoys a tempest so much that he provokes a controversy if none exists. And I think this is done more than any other data point to solve one of the mysteries of Martin Niemöller for me, was that, above all else, he's kind of a troll, right?

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was a little edgelord kid, and he's still a little edgelord guy.

• 1:00:16Robert Evans?

  He's kind of an edgelord, yeah. Yeah, even when he's like largely right about stuff in the post-war period, he's still kind of a troll.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 1:00:24Robert Evans?

  And this last chapter in Martin's life is the one that people prefer to remember, because it was at points pretty good. He travels regularly to the Soviet Union, he kind of gets pilled on communism, actually, because he sees what capitalism is doing, and he thinks the Christians in the USSR live a more wholesome and less materialist existence? And he's like, well, this seems better, actually, to me. Perhaps I was incorrect.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  It is closer to Catholic social doctrine. I don't know as much about Protestant social, but he was, he was running the social charities.

• 1:00:54Robert Evans?

  Yeah, exactly. It's not surprising he would feel that way to me.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Robert Evans?

  It's during this period that he writes his famous poem, although there's some debate about exactly when and whatnot it's finished. This post-war period, though, is kind of when that comes out, probably. It's not famous in 1959 or 1984, at least not famous, both, he has biographies published in both of those years, and neither of them mention the poem, which is interesting to me. It was out by then, but it wasn't evidently.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Because that's all he's known for now.

• 1:01:23Robert Evans?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. His second wife would later claim the poem's origins dated to a meeting he had with German students in 1946 who asked him, "How did it happen?" But this may not be true, we don't really know.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I think that's what I had heard.

• 1:01:37Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's the common story.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Which doesn't make it right, I just, that's what I had, you know?

• 1:01:41Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  But that's like the Wikipedia level of it.

• 1:01:44Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Yep, yep, exactly, because of his second wife, who was not there for it, right? Martin Niemöller did not fully and unequivocally disavow antisemitism until a radio interview conducted in 1963. But during the 60s, he appeared on stage next to Martin Luther King Jr. and went to Vietnam to meet with Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War, where he endorsed the Vietnamese cause, is correct, right? So he's not wrong about everything, you know?

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:02:12Robert Evans?

  He wound up taking what I have to call, he's not like, wrong necess, I'm gonna call it an uncomfortable stance on Palestine, as Jorgrow's article, that's hard, his, a complicated stance on, the morality of his stance on Palestine is really messy.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:29Robert Evans?

  Here's from Jorgrow's article in The Nation. "While Hockenoss salutes the extraordinary transformation of this German ultra-conservative with his repellent early views into someone with the courage to change deeply held beliefs, Zymon is not so forgiving. He traces unsettling continuities with particularly acute sensitivity to Niemöller's behavior regarding Jews. In all his globe-trotting, for instance, the ambassador of God somehow never set foot in Israel. And I think that's a silly thing to judge someone as an antisemite for. I don't agree with Zymon that that matters. However, Martin's specific comments defending the Palestinian cause are not ideal." Right? Quote.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  A classic problem.

• 1:03:06Robert Evans?

  Yeah, Zymon indicts Niemöller for remarks such as saying in 1963 that he couldn't hold it against Arabs if they felt threatened and under attack by the Jewish state, or in 1967 privately expressing that if he were an Arab, he'd be antisemitic about an alien people founding a state on his soil. And like, you don't have to be antisemitic to see why people don't like an army kicking them out of their home. And the fact that he's like, oh, I get why they'd be, because he can't, he, oh, he has to think of things in that way, right?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:03:32Robert Evans?

  That's not necessary at all.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  He's telling the truth.

• 1:03:34Robert Evans?

  Right.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  And it's damning that he is, that's the way he presents it.

• 1:03:37Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Robert Evans?

  Just like, couldn't you just be pissed that they're kicking you out of your home and like, shooting your guys? Do you have to be a racist about it?

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Robert Evans?

  I don't know that I think, I don't think that's necessary, Martin.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:03:49Robert Evans?

  But it is, it is very telling that that's how he talks about it, right?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  You know, you can only go so far from what you start, where you start, I guess.

• 1:03:57Robert Evans?

  Yeah. There is evidence that he never left his bigotry completely behind. He does seem to have become at least a committed anti-authoritarian by the end of his life. At age 90 in 1982, Niemöller stated, "An ultra-conservative who wanted the Kaiser to come back, and now I am a revolutionary. I really mean that. If I live to be 100, I shall maybe be an anarchist." He never made it that far, dying two years later in 1984. But yeah.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Whoa. That's the Martin Niemöller story?

• 1:04:27Speaker 06

  Shit.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  This is fascinating to me.

• 1:04:30Robert Evans?

  Really interesting.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  I like his turn, not because

• 1:04:34Robert Evans?

  Late.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  he's right. I mean, he is. It's the right turn for him to have made. But I do get the sense that he thinks about his positions and tries to make them morally consistent and is just like, wrong, a lot.

• 1:04:50Robert Evans?

  Yeah, a lot.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  But he like, but because he's coming from a like, like, his moral positions do get him in trouble. I haven't spent that long in prison, you know?

• 1:05:02Robert Evans?

  Like, yeah.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  And my beliefs are substantially

• 1:05:05Robert Evans?

  That's that he tried to get out of prison by fighting for the Nazis.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, totally. No, totally. No, like, yeah, like, I, I'm not, I don't want to say, like, is good man, right?

• 1:05:15Robert Evans?

  No.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  But like, but I, like, I prefer when my enemies are morally consistent because I can respect it. I can respect it and fight it, you know? But most of the time, most people

• 1:05:27Robert Evans?

  They don't believe in shit, but power.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And he does, he thought he believed in power as a moral imperative, a theological imperative. And then he was like, oh, I've seen why I'm wrong. And yeah, so to defend the poem, like, the thing that is really interesting to me about the poem is I think, and I could be wrong, I think that that poem has saved uncountable lives. I think we look at that poem, we don't think about the man at all anymore, right? I don't know that there's two movies about this man. You know, I couldn't remember his name if you asked me like, right now. I mean, I could tell you Martin Niemöller, Muller. But

• 1:06:11Robert Evans?

  Niemöller, yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  But like, there's so many people who are like, nah, man, we read the poem. We're not falling for this shit again. Right? Like, going to Minneapolis and talking to people, it's the sense of like, nah, man, we, we've read this. We know what this is about. First they come for, then they come for it. You have to speak up. So, and I don't know if I believe total separate art from artist kind of thing. I like, literally don't know how I feel about that. And I hate when people try and make me have an opinion about it. But like, it, that poem does matter. You could, you could, yeah, go ahead.

• 1:06:49Robert Evans?

  That's, I don't, I don't know that I think it matter. Like, I don't know that I, I think it, I don't know that it stopped much. I think it might be a poem that affects and is valued by people who were already going to react the right way to the threat of fascism.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:07:05Robert Evans?

  Like, I don't know if I think it's caused any of that.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Robert Evans?

  And I think the further point, maybe, maybe it has in his post-war life, the activism, the anti-nuclear stuff, the anti-war stuff, that's good. Can it, does it make up for the fact that he did not realize he was wrong until he had been beaten and had the piles of corpses shoved literally in front of his face?

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Robert Evans?

  Right? And for me,

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  No, I don't say we should forgive him or not.

• 1:07:35Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I, I guess, it, from a moral condemnation standpoint, I think before 2024, I probably would have been more open-minded about coming to a better opinion of Martin. And now I'm kind of like, I just sort of wish, I kind of just wish you'd gotten hit by a bomb, you know? Like, I wish, I, I wish they'd fucking, a B-52 had rolled over your ass or something, right? And right at the end of the war. Like, I don't, I, I do not, I don't have a lot of charity in my heart for the, the people like this anymore. And perhaps I should, that may just be a sign that I have gotten too angry and bitter in my, in my dotage. I'm willing to admit that.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's, it's real easy and possibly useful to be really angry right now. I'm not like,

• 1:08:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  But I also like, I want everyone to leave the Nazi side right now, right?

• 1:08:33Robert Evans?

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  And so, in order to do that, we have to let them leave.

• 1:08:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:08:40Robert Evans?

  But we are not at 1945, right?

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:08:43Robert Evans?

  And so that is where I come from. It's like, I am still willing to, willing to take on people who are willing to get off the fascism train. But that, that is a limited time offer, folks.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, his, the fact that he like, did the rate, like, it just being like enough that you're like, no, you helped Hitler come to power. You helped, not, not a major instrument of it, but you, you did what you could. You, you, you pulled with the team in order to try and get, you know, the, one of the worst things that's ever happened in human society to

• 1:09:16Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  happen. Like, being able, I have no problem with just being like, no, you're done. Like, I'm not, I, I fully understand where people would be coming from about it. But I just like, I'm interested in his, how a morally consistent but wrong person.

• 1:09:34Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, go ahead.

• 1:09:37Robert Evans?

  I mean, and that is the fascinating thing about him is you do get, and one of the things I like about Hockenos's book and Zeeman's book is you get a look at how this guy keeps trying to make, keep a consistent worldview in his head as the evidence around him builds that he's completely wrong about everything he believes.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Robert Evans?

  And he does eventually seem to be like, I was so fucking wrong.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Robert Evans?

  But also, you know, in 1959, he's still covering up that he's killing, that he murdered, you know, drowning sailors and shit.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  No, you're right.

• 1:10:06Robert Evans?

  You know?

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  No, that's true. Cause he was, cause he, okay, he is inconsistent on this, right? Because sometimes he's like,

• 1:10:12Robert Evans?

  He's not perfectly consistent.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  He's like, no, no, I did help Hitler. It wasn't so great.

• 1:10:16Robert Evans?

  He lies.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  But then like, he's like, oh, no, I was great on that U-boat. Like, they're glad I was there.

• 1:10:22Robert Evans?

  That was fine.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  I saved seven of them.

• 1:10:24Robert Evans?

  It was a good thing. It was a good, yeah, it was, it was, I stopped the killing.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  No, no, I, I'm not trying to come out pro this guy. I just, I'm fascinated by

• 1:10:34Robert Evans?

  I brought you on because I, I wanted that, this conversation at the end about like, where do we land on Martin Niemöller? Cause I, I, I'm very, I, I, I'm pretty frustrated with the fella. But I do find it fascinating, his admission that like, even if he couldn't quite make himself into an anarchist, that like, I could, he's, I can see at 90 that that's probably close to the right thing than I've ever gotten in my life.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59Robert Evans?

  Maybe I'll get there in another 10.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Cause he's just like, oh, I am moving away from authoritarianism and that is the actual direction I should be taking my entire life.

• 1:11:08Robert Evans?

  Every power structure I've endorsed has proven wrong.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. Totally.

• 1:11:14Robert Evans?

  Um, maybe that's the problem.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  But if, but if like a centrist or a, especially like a leftist had written that poem, it would be meaningless.

• 1:11:24Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  It, it is meaningful. Now, I was expecting him to be what I first thought, which was the standing around, like, the good German who just went along. That's what I had thought.

• 1:11:36Robert Evans?

  Maybe he voted for Hitler holding his nose once, but didn't ever really get like, supported in the streets, certainly.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally. You're like, no, this guy fucking

• 1:11:44Robert Evans?

  Probably shot unarmed people.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Put down a revolution, like, yeah, like,

• 1:11:49Speaker 06

  Not, not boat boy shouting, "I fucking love Hitler" from jail, that guy. Yeah.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Like, I swear he'd let me out if he just knew what a great guy I was.

• 1:11:59Robert Evans?

  If he knew how much I liked him.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Fuck, that is, this is not a boring man.

• 1:12:06Robert Evans?

  No, no, he does live quite a life. He does live quite a life.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Even if I, even, it would, it would have been better if he either made it to 100 or died when he was like, 15.

• 1:12:17Robert Evans?

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. World War I death would have been great for him, I think.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  What if his brother had survived instead of him? The guy with the good name?

• 1:12:23Robert Evans?

  Gerhard would have, would have done us a solid. Gerhard would have been saving people left and right. He would have stopped this Hitler stuff.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:30Robert Evans?

  Like Mark Wahlberg if he'd been at 9/11, you know? If only Gerhard had been there.

• 1:12:37Speaker 06

  We got a Margaret Pluggables on that note.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Speaker 06

  Christ, Robert.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  If you want to hear me talk about complicated people where I try and talk about the good they did, I have a podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, where it always starts with people who people think are heroes. And then I'm like, oh, they're like 70% heroes. And it's on this very network. I also have a podcast where I read fiction to you called Cool Zone Media Book Club. And I write books. And one of my books is about a trans witch. And the book is called The Sapling Cage. And it's legally distinct from YA. It's a crossover book because of the way that I write characters, somehow disqualifying it from YA, even though it's a coming-of-age story about a young trans witch.

• 1:13:19Robert Evans?

  I have some frustrations with how people define YA, but yeah.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  So do, so do a lot of my readers. A lot of my readers are like, oh, thank God, a fucking protagonist I don't want to strangle. So yeah, you can check me out, Margaret Kiljoy. I'm on the internet. I wish I wasn't.

• 1:13:34Robert Evans?

  Check out The Sapling Cage, great book. Check out whatever episode we do next, which won't be on Martin Niemöller, because we, we already, we already did him, you know?

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:13:43Robert Evans?

  Maybe, maybe we'll finally do the Jim Henson episodes.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  No!

• 1:13:47Robert Evans?

  Jim was nice. Jim was nice. Jim was nice. That's just a bit. That's just a bit.

• 1:13:51Speaker 06

  Good lord.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  No, I was terrified that you know something I don't.

• 1:13:55Robert Evans?

  No, no, no, no. Other than he probably should have gone to the doctor faster, unfortunately.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:00Robert Evans?

  All right, we're done.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:14:05Speaker 06

  Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit Remind Me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/AtBehindTheBastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.

• 1:14:39Speaker 03

  I'm Melissa Jelton, host of the What Happened to Her podcast. We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police wrote off as a suicide in a snowstorm. Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing a disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to iHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today.

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  If anyone wanted to commit a murder, up here would be the greatest place in the world to hide the body. But no one will find it.

• 1:15:29Speaker 07

  He acted friendly. He talked friendly. He sounded friendly.

• 1:15:34Speaker 05

  They all knew that I did the scary boogie stuff. And they said, maybe she'll find out where this girl is. I saw him violently. Backhanded her. Pow!

• 1:15:46Speaker 07

  Listen to The Devil's Quarry, Season Two, in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:16:01Speaker 03

  You broke me. You do not deserve happiness.

• 1:16:05Speaker 06

  I'm Andrea Gunning. On this season of Betrayal, Carl thought he was living a normal, drama-free life, until the messages started.

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  Someone's not going to make it out of this alive.

• 1:16:17Speaker 06

  Every piece of evidence pointed to the wrong guy.

• 1:16:20Robert Evans?

  He was not going to stop unless we stopped him.

• 1:16:24Speaker 06

  Listen to Betrayal, Season Six, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1986, a man named Scott Macklem was killed in broad daylight. Police quickly found their suspect. Prosecutors convicted him. But now, almost 40 years later, I'm reexamining this case. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're, they're

• 1:16:49Speaker 02

  going to figure out this is not me. They're, they're going to do their police job. Has the wrong man been in prison this whole time? Listen to Examine: The Backfire Effect on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.