Niemöller himself states that the phrases were established in his speech without a manuscript and were not published as poetry, so there is no original in the strict sense of the word.
- [When they first attacked the communists - Wikipedia https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BD%BC%E3%82%89%E3%81%8C%E6%9C%80%E5%88%9D%E5%85%B1%E7%94%A3%E4%B8%BB %E7%BE%A9%E8%80%85%E3%82%92%E6%94%BB%E6%92%83%E3%81%97%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A8%E3%81%8D]
- Milton Meyer
-
Pastor Niemöller told the thousands of people about himself (all too humbly). The Nazis attacked the communists. He became somewhat uneasy, but he was not a communist, so he did nothing. Then they attacked the socialists. He was uneasy, but did nothing because he was not a socialist. Then the schools, then the newspapers, then the Jews, and each time he was worried, but again he did nothing. And they attacked the church. He was a churchman. So he did something. But it was too late.
This page is auto-translated from /nishio/彼らが最初共産主義者を攻撃したとき using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.