And then they came for me.
First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Catholic.
And then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Attributed to Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran protestant cleric in Nazi and post-Nazi Germany. Niemöller and many of his fellow clerics, while they cannot be called Nazi sympathizers, failed to take timely and effective actions against the Nazis. This was a situation they regretted later. After internment in several concentration camps and liberation by the US 7th Army, Niemöller’s views on inaction against evil had clearly matured.
Per Wikipedia, the above text is a poetic expression of the confession made by Niemöller in his speech for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on 6 January 1946, of which this is a partial translation:
” … 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.
Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren’t guilty/responsible?”
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.