First they came…

"First they came…" is a famous statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The text of the quotation is usually presented roughly as follows:

There is some disagreement over the exact wording of the quotation and when it was created; indeed, the content of the quotation may have been presented differently by Niemöller on different occasions.