. NMT06-T0340
Volume VI · Page 340
| 5. AFFIDAVIT OF PASTOR NIEMOELLER | |
| TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT STEINBRINCK 375 STEINBRINCK DEFENSE EXHIBIT 93 |
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| AFFIDAVIT OF
PASTOR MARTIN NIEMOELLER,* 9 AUGUST 1947, CONCERNING DEFENDANT STEINBRINCK'S ASSISTANCE AFTER NIEMOELLER'S ARREST BY THE GESTAPO |
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| Pastor D. Martin Niemoeller
D.D.,D.D. Buedingen (Hessen) Schloss Telephone: Buedingen 368 Bank account: Buedinger Bank |
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| Buedingen
(Hessen) 9 August 1947 Schloss . P. O. Box 19 K./M. |
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| Affidavit | |
| I, Pastor D. Martin Niemoeller,
resident in Buedingen, Schloss am aware that I render myself liable to
punishment by making a false affidavit. I declare under oath that my statement
conforms to the truth and was made to be submitted as evidence to the Military
Tribunal at Nuernberg, Germany. I have known Mr. Otto Steinbrinck since my youth. In the First World War he was one of the best-known U-boat commanders, and as such was respected and held in esteem for his chivalrous manner of waging war, even by the Allied Powers. After the war, he went into industry, and I met him again when I became pastor of the parish of Dahlem in 1931. We then renewed our old relationship, and I confirmed his older children and baptised his youngest son there. When national socialism came into power in 1933, Mr. Steinbrinck and I had many conversations on the relationship of the new government to Christianity and the Church, during which he never left any doubt as to his disapproval of the steps taken by the new rulers against the Church. Although he held an "honorary" rank in the SS, and felt himself obliged as an industrialist to pay consideration to the State, since the State took control of and governed the entire economy. he had his children attend lessons in religion and had his youngest son baptised by me at a time when I was already considered a "public enemy" by the Nazis, and particularly by the SS, and was persecuted. |
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* Pastor Niemoeller was not called as a witness by either the prosecution or the defense.
