DR. NIEMOLLER

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20891, 24 August 1939, Page 3

DR. NIEMOLLER

TWO YEARS IN PRISON CONGREGATION LOYAL (From a Correspondent) LONDON, July 7. Two years ago last Saturday Pastor Martin Niemoller, leader of the German Confessional Church, was arrested by the Secret Police, writes the Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. After many months in custody he was put on trial and acquitted, but was immediately arrested again on Hitler's personal orders and handed over to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Since then for more than a year he has been kept, in strict solitary confinement. All attempts to secure his release failed because they were opposed by Hitler, who has reserved to himself all decisions in Pastor Niemoller's case. On Hitler’s fiftieth birthday, April 20, 1039, Mrs Niemoller, in a personal letter to the Chancellor, applied for her husband's release. Hitler refused, giving 1 as his reason that "Niemoller would surely, after his release, form a centre of groups hostile to the State.”

Pastor Niemoller received another blow in the form of a letter from the Nazi Church authorities informing him that he had been superannuated. The authorities added that "unless Niemoller approved of their decision within the next two weeks they would take his approval for -granted.” Yet they knew well that under the concentration camp regulations Pastor Niemoller has not been in a position

to answer their letter. This new measure against Pastor Niemoller means that his family will probably be compelled to leave the rectory in his former parish, Dahlem. It means, at the same time, that the parish, now that he has legally ceased to be its pastor, will be compelled to elect a new one. As the result of elections is subject to the approval of the Nazi Church authorities the measure is intended to prevent the election of a successor to Pastor Niemoller from the Confessional Church The parishioners, however, at a largely attended meeting, rejected the measure and unanimously declared that they have not given up hope >f again seeing Pastor Niemoller as the head of their parish.