The moral of Niemöller’s poem, then, isn’t really “speak up even if you aren’t in danger.” It’s “speak up, even when the Nazis threaten marginalized groups that you yourself despise.”
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He is tracing his own experience, not looking from the outside at what happened. He was literally the one arrested after he had not cared about all the other groups, because there was no one left to speak for him.
right, but...my point is he is misrepresenting his experience! he was not indifferent to the plight of Jews and socialists, as the poem implies. He supported the Nazis precisely because the Nazis promised to hurt those groups.
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