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Arachne: A Literary Journal. No. 1

[Pastor Niemoller]

One can hardly avoid an acute interest in the visit of Niemoller to this country. As much as anyone else in recent years, he has caught the popular imagination, and become, in his own lifetime, a legend. But the nature of the attraction must be clearly recognised.

It is hard to believe that people listen to Niemoller in such numbers because he is a Christian—visiting churchmen are not draw-cards in this country. The Open Air Campaingers, if they think that an audience of 3,000 is a sign of Christian revival, are deluding themselves. I would suggest that the thousands flocked to the Pastor for two reasons. First, because he is, in a very prominent way, The Man Who Defied Hitler. And second, because he is by no means in sympathy with the communists. As much as anything else, the visit of Niemoller should be viewed as an aspect of the communist vilification campaign. For the rest, he should be regarded as a man of unquestionably great personal courage, a man who acted in a way in which we would all like to act if we were faced with a conflict between interest and principle.

But the act of defiance should not be taken as the acme of political and spiritual rectitude. I do not know Niemoller's past in detail; I can say no more than this—that the bare record as presented by the daily papers contains attitudes and actions which are pro

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foundly undemocratic, and in no way progres-sive. This much, too, seems certain: that anti-Nazi movements, both in Germany and the rest of Europe contained elements drawn from the extreme right as well as the extreme left, and from all intermediate grades. One cannot agree with a political standpoint merely because it did not lead to defiance with a recognisable evil government. Niemoller's courage should be, and has been, everywhere applauded; for that reason alone, though, he should not be treated as an apostle of right religion, as an exemplar of political conduct. Politically, he seems to be no more than a Christian conservative, a man who would be at home with Adenauer and other highly suspect elements in Germany's present political life.

W.H.O.