On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> Excellent sentiment, but I doubt Niemoeller ever said it, given his
> politics. Several attempts to source the quote haven't worked.
Peter Novick cites "Martin Niemoeller, Activist as Bystander: The Oft Quoted Reflection" in Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, eds. _Jewish-Christian Encounters over the Centuries_ (New York, 1994)
One of the things about this quote is that it seems that almost everyone who uses it (at least in America) changes it -- not only as a parallelism, as Charles did (although that's been popular too) but also changing the original to better accord with what they think he should have said -- moving Jews from last to first, omitting the communists, adding Catholics and homosexuals, etc, depending on political context.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com