Dr. Niemoller Talks
There is nothing very new in Pastor Martin Niemoller's campaign of speeches and articles, in which he insists on subordinating a great number of political complications to the simple aim of holding together at all costs the German Evangelical Church, whose unity he considers to be threatened by the division of Germany between Eastern and Western Powers. The campaign has been on for a year or more. An article in the Spec-tato,' of May 5th, 1950, examined the Many complications and dangers of Pastor Niernotler s rash argument that even submission to Communism would not be too heavy a price to pay for German unity. Recently the matter has come to a crisis again with an attack by Dr. Niemoller, who is head of the foreign relations branch of the Evangelical Church ,n Germany as well as Church President of the Protestant Church in Hesse, on Dr. Adenauer's policy of a degree of rearmament for Western Germany, and a conference presided over by Dr. Dibell us, the Bishop of Berlin, has had the awkward task of reconciling Dr. Niemoller's views with a more realistic regard for the unity of Germany. It is one thing (and a sufficiently unwise thing) to be willing to accept the known wickedness of Communist domination for the sake of highly problematical future benefits, but it is positively foolish to go on, as Dr. Niemoller has now done, to hostile generalisations about the motives of the Western occupying Powers. He must know that the Western Powers are far less likely to prevent the unification of Germany than are the Russians. He must know that far from uniting German Protestants his verbal campaign is helping to divide them. And knowing these things he should recognise the virtues of silence.
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