Martin Niemoeller was a close friend of Bonhoeffer. Together they founded the Confessing Church, and in 1933 the two wrote letters summoning pastors to a strong allegiance to the scriptures and a rejection of the Aryan Clause which denied the pulpit to ordained ministers of Jewish blood. When the Gestapo came to arrest Niemoeller in 1937, Bonhoeffer was there in Niemoeller’s home. Niemoeller would serve 8 years in prison before his release. After the war’s end Niemoeller addressed more than 200 audiences often ending with words that have come famous: “First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jew, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”
