Poem goes so hard that the US had to censor the “communist” line so people wouldn’t sympathize

i love this poem, makes me tear up everytime.

Lmao, did the original really start with three flavors of communists?

(I knew it was first communists of course.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler's rise to power. But when, after he came to power, Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. He was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a cleric and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II.

This bit should extra notable given the "Spanish" Flu in the decades before

the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—"should I be my brother's keeper?"

Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? Only then did the church as such take note.

Ever notice how often "nonpolitical" reactionaries, such as , appropriate that poem while removing the scary commies from it?

First they came for the communists,

And I spoke out, because I LOVE MY TRANS COMRADES!