Dr. Niemoller's Sentence Pastor Niemaller was on Wednesday found guilty
of endan- gering the public peace and contravening President ilinden- burg's decree " for the protection of the people and the State "; his real crime was to have preached the Gospel in a totalitarian State. Sentence of detention for seven months in a fortress was passed, but in fact he left the Court a free man, as he was held to have served his sentence during the period he has spent in prison since his arrest. And in the eyes of the civilised world he will be held to have left the Court an innocent man, against whom nothing has been alleged or proven which could justify his arrest or the sentence passed on him. He has the distinction of being the only person in Germany who has publicly and successfully vindi- cated the rights of the individual conscience and opposed the National Socialist doctrine that man has no activity outside the State. For this reason, the regime must be accounted to have suffered a defeat, even if no political results follow. But in fact it seems unlikely that the conflict can end here. For Pastor Niemoller has in no way abandoned or modified the attitude that led to his arrest ; and having formally branded that attitude a criminal one, the Government cannot but continue to persecute anyone who persists in it, even though the Nazis have no desire to make Christian martyrs.
* * * *
Previous page
