First they came for the words, and there was no one left for the context
Context matters.
Niemöller was a famous German evangelical pastor that lived through World War 2 and that was known for publicly criticizing Adölf Hitler and his Nazi regime. He tried to raise awareness about the crimes and complicit behavior of the German people and became specially famous for the quote:
“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 Jews, 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.”
In essence, these words describe the persecution of multiple groups by the Nazi regime, and that bystanders end up meeting the same fate as those to whom they turned their back on. Without any semblance of anti-fascist coalition (to make use of a popular word now) created across the different socioeconomic classes, the Nazis rose to power and took control of the state to push their agenda and commit heinous crimes against humanity.
I used to find this message powerful, and I still do to some extent. However, this kind of reasoning always left me slightly with some discomfort, because it seemed to frame the issue from a purely egocentric view. It begged the question: what if one knew that they would never be troubled by the Nazis? Does it mean that we should strive to act in a way that preserves our own lives and motivations, turning a blind eye to the suffering and needs of others? The statement does appeal to a sense of belonging to a multi-faceted community where the needs and wants of the self are dependent on the rest of the group, but it stops there. At most, it shows subtle signs of sympathy.
So I went looking into the context to better understand the quote. These words showed up for the first time in 1946, after the end of the war, as a way to voice repentance for the horrors committed by his people. They were not verbalized from the perspective of someone calling on people to proactively condemn and fight the Nazis, but rather from someone that felt like they had failed morally and needed to accept and repair, to any possible extent, what had been done. They were completely confessional, and even though they came too late to make any dent in the inexorable march of the Nazi movement, they served to drive a sense of guilt and responsibility for the events, even at a personal level. In that sense, there was (and is) definitely merit to them.
The context, as with many things, changes the implications of the statement. The words are looking back into the past, painfully describing some events, and the realization that a sense of community had been lost due to cowardice. They were not used to convince people to fight fascism. Even though they can be reasonably effective at it, these words set a view of the world where others are defined by the value that they hold towards fulfilling the desires of the individual, and if that is the case, then we are almost as lost as the Nazis.
