Part One: Martin Niemöller, the author of 'First They Came', was a murderous fascist

(upbeat music) - Cool, so media. - Welcome, friends. Back to behind the bastards. A podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And I've got a controversial pick for y'all this week. But before I introduce him, I want to introduce my guest, somebody you know and love, the great Margaret Killjoy. Margaret, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for coming. - Thank you. - Always glad to hear about terrible people. It's a nice reprise from hearing about good people. - Yeah, this is, I made some statements online a couple of weeks ago about a guy that everybody knows, right? That I don't like. And a lot of people think came around to become a good person and a lot of a person. And part of what we're gonna be doing this week is I'm gonna try to present you what I think is like a fairly fair look at his life. And we'll see if you come to the same conclusion about this son of a bitch that I do. Maybe you don't think he's the son of a bitch. - Are we doing Lovecraft? - No, no, but we will one day. Don't worry, yeah, we're definitely okay. Although I don't think Lovecraft was a bastard at the end of his life, right? At the end of his life, he wrote like in right at the end, but he wrote about like I regret horribly being a fascist all those years I was a terrible person. - Yeah, he was the way about the Nazi stuff specifically. - Anyway, he came around, he was starting to on some, anyway, he got cancer before we could have seen. And he also never really hurt anybody other than being like a voluminous racist in his personal life, but he didn't have power, right? Anyway, whatever, that's not important. We will do Lovecraft 'cause you could argue he was a terrible person. There's plenty of evidence for that too. But no, we're talking about a different guy today. We're talking about a poet, Martin Nemuller, right? And you probably know him as the guy who wrote the first they came, poem, right? First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out 'cause I was not a communist, right? That guy, I like that poem. Everyone does, I know that he was conservative. Oh, this is gonna be interesting. Yeah, conservatives want a way to put it. (laughing) Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, 'cause that's, I think what most people think when they read it is that this is a poem from somebody who was like a conservative or a centrist, right? And didn't take action during the rise of the Nazis, right? That's what the poem seems to be about. Somebody who was either somewhat conservative or like more of a centrist by nature and just didn't do anything to stop the Nazis and regretted it, right? Okay, okay, I can see where you're going with this, uh-huh. That's not really accurate to who Martin was. (laughing) His life, he may have been a little bit more enthusiastic about the rise of the third Reich than the poem would suggest, right? Okay, okay. First they came for the socialist, and I was really excited 'cause I hate this too. It was pretty cool, actually, I'm not that good. It was lit. I was outside of my balcony with a pen and kill trade unionists. Yeah, I was shooting at trade unionists, which we'll talk about that. Okay. There are numerous versions of the poem, but I think we should start by just reading the, how the original version of the poem went, as far as I can tell, right? This is sort of the original version of the poem. First they took the communists, but I was not a communist, so I did nothing. Then they took the social democrats, but I was not a social democrat, so I did nothing. Then it was the trade unionist turn, but I was not a trained unionist, and then they took the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came and took me, there was no one left who could have stood up for me. Now, that's a great poem about someone who did not act enough during the rise of the Nazis. That is not accurate. Okay. For example, Martin didn't do little when they took the Jews. Martin kind of was enthusiastic about them taking the Jews. Big phone and that says, I'm an anti-Semite. Yeah, it's like number one racist. Yeah. The most common variant of the poem, right? 'Cause you said, first they came for the socialists at one point, and that is generally the version you'll hear. A lot of school textbooks, which communists for socialists at some point, 'cause it made it a little bit easier, I guess, to-- It's allowed in the Cold War America, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you've seen, like in the first, sorry. All right, so I recently wrote an essay, I don't know anything about this man's life, but I recently wrote an essay about this poem and the fact that it is referenced constantly. And I looked up the speech that it comes from, and there's no, in the German, there's no first. Yeah. It's like, it's not, first they did this, then they did this, then they did this. It's when they did this, when they did this, when they did this, and so, I don't know why that matters to me, but it's so interesting to me. That is actually a really good point. Yeah, and I should have said that, the one I read is close to the original translation, but I think you're probably right that he was saying, when they took the communists, I was not a communist and did nothing. And it's, yeah. I only think it matters for the American context when people are like, well, who's the first in the poem? As if we're doing impression Olympics on our way to the camps. And I'm like, I'm not rushing to be first in line, but trans people are in there, definitely. And it's, you know, there's a, you've seen some versions of the poem, some new ones that people have made for the Trump era. I think they write about 2016, right? I think the first article I saw was in 2016 in an article for Quartz. Gideon Litchfield provided a rewrite for Trump's America that I wouldn't say is super accurate, but it's first Trump came for the women, and I did not speak out 'cause I was not a woman, then Trump came for the people with disabilities, and I did not speak out because I did not have it. I don't know. I don't know if that's like the order I'd put these things in, but yeah, I don't need to go on. You get the idea, right? And the wake of Trump's reelection, the poem has spread further and wider than ever before. And again, from the text of it, you would assume the author was something different than I think he was, right? There are hints, however, about Martin's real politics, or at least what they were during the Nazi era, and what he leaves out of the poem, right? For example, the modern variant, the Trump era one, mentioned the disabled. Martin's original poem does not mention them coming for the disabled. Even though by the time he wrote it, he knew that thousands had been sterilized and even gassed under the Teeth or Euthanasia program. The original poem also leaves out queer people, Slavs, the Roma, and these emissions are not coincidental. (laughing) These are emissions because Martin was kind of fine, actually, even after the war, with them having done that, really. - Yeah, I know that the queers were still. You know, they did a lot of the gay men didn't get out of the camps at the end of the war. - To be fair to Martin, the United States government did not care about queer people being part of the Holocaust, right? We were fined to continue punishing them afterwards. So most people sharing Martin's work, though, don't notice that because again, on a casual reading, the poem does like, describe a large number of people's reactions to fascism, both then and today. But Martin was not a neutral observer, nor was he what anyone would have called a political. You do run into some people who know this, and I will say it seems more common now to describe the mode, motivation behind him writing the poem, as like, "Elepards eating faces," type of thing. And those people tend to describe Martin as a reformed fascist sympathizer, right? Somebody who saw the error of his ways after Hitler rose to power and then fought tirelessly, but fruitlessly against him. This is the most common historical depiction of Martin, because prior to World War II, he did protest openly against Hitler, and he was imprisoned in several concentration camps for it. And as a result, he became an international symbol of anti-fascism. I think the common view of Martin is summarized very well by his obituary in the New York Times, which was titled, "Martin Neumiller, Resolute Foe of Hitler." And I'm gonna provide you with a somewhat different depiction of Martin. I think more historically accurate, but I'll admit how we ultimately feel about Martin and whether or not he became a good person is somewhat of a matter of opinion. I don't think he did. I certainly don't think he was a resolute foe of Hitler, but maybe you'll feel different. - This is an "I Heart" podcast, guaranteed human. - Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Yuanio, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the "I Heart" radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hi, this is Kylie Breikman, Angel Jaretana. - Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald. - And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists podcast. - The improvised character comedy podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. - Join us for a panel of Eurovision participants. - And we do a little Halloween sometimes. - Does the Pope dress up? - He winks on Halloween. - It's right up next to the microphone. - I hear you get the bubbles here, the eyelashes hit each other. - You've never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. - Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the "I Heart" radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of "Scam Goddess" podcast. - The true crime comedy podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. - Each week I bring on an amazing guest. - Ooh, I scammed him. - What? - I could talk to you for an hour. - You're a generational yapper, like me. - That's why I had to make yapping a job. - And now you can catch full episodes of my show, on YouTube. Start listening to scam goddess on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of The What Happened to Her Podcast. We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police wrote off as a suicide in a snowstorm. Her family never bought it and the man they suspected wore a badge. And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to iHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait, head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. There should not be a single law enforcement agency that does not have body cameras. It's real. That farmers have been under attack. This is just the latest example of them just slapping DEI on anything. It's raw. And I'm sitting here going. They are playing y'all for foals. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts. Oh, wherever you get your podcasts. If anyone wanted to commit a murder, up here would be the greatest place in the world to hide the body. But no, no, find it. He acted friendly. He talked friendly. He sounded friendly. They won't knew that I did the scary boogie stuff. And this is maybe she'll find out where this girl is. I saw a bomb, backhand her a pow. Listen to the devil's quarry season two in the Bone Valley Feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1986, a man named Scott McLean was killed in broad daylight. Police quickly found their suspect, prosecutors convicted him. But now, almost 40 years later, I'm re-examining this case. I really didn't believe any of it was real and I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me. They're going to do their police job. Has the wrong man been in prison this whole time? Listen to examined, the backfire effect on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, let's talk about where this guy comes from. Martin's ancestors stretching back to the medieval era at least had made their living traveling around as farm laborers or as small independent farmers and what's now like Westphalia, Germany. Their last name comes from a relative, probably in the 1600s, who moved to a village near Versen and Westphalia and worked as a miller. Neymiller just means new miller, right? Oh, okay. Which gives me hope that one day, Margaret, our descendants are relatives or whatever. We'll have the same last name, like podcaster. If we go back to that naming scheme. Oh, yeah, yeah. New podcaster. Yeah. New podcaster. Margaret podcaster. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe one day. Well, it's like the way that people end up with names in a phone is very different from. I think the way we name people in our phone, like John Barista is more accurate. Yeah, exactly like John Goodcoke, you know? It's extra fun. No, it's just a bit. So sometime around the late 17 to early 1800s, the patriarch of the family seems to have decided to make education a priority for at least some of his sons. Martin's grandfather, Gerhard, became a school teacher in the mid 1800s and his son Heinrich became a pastor in the town of Lipstadt. Like nearly everyone in that part of Germany at that time and roughly like half of Lake Guoba gone today, the neemolars were Lutherans. As most people sort of know, Martin Luther was a Catholic priest who came to have some opinions that the pope did not appreciate. He was entrepreneur. He hit him down. Yeah, a lot. A lot of them. He wrote a list. He would have been a poster. One thing you can say about Martin Luther. He had the poster spirit. He did it literally post. So he was a literal poster. Yeah. He had to use nails back then. I think if you still had to use nails, the internet would be a better place. And I agree. And if you did it on churches still, right? Yeah. Totally. Yeah. He was excommunicated in 1521 and Yada Yada, shit happens and you get Protestants, right? I'm leaving out a lot. But that's basically how it happens. And by the time, you know, our story starts in the late 18 early 1900s, Westphalians are like militantly Lutheran. And Lipstadt was the most Lutheran of all of the Lutheran towns in the area. Their claim to fame was that they were the first town in the region to accept Martin Luther's teachings, right? That like we are the earliest of the Lutherans in this region, okay? So these people took everything Martin Luther said very seriously. It's probably relevant then for me to point out that in addition to the 95 theses that Martin Luther wrote that ended up splitting a Catholic church, he wrote another book and published it in 1543 on the Jews and their lives. Thanks, Martin. The book does not get better after the title. Luther very much thought that the Jewish people deserve to suffer for what had been done to Jesus. Only if I'm remembering right, got it, slash Jesus, like one of that to happen. So I don't really get the blame. It's necessary, right? Yeah. And from the Catholic Christian point of view, his plan also like just never made sense to blame the Jews that that includes Jesus, like, like what do you want? Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of incoherencies here, but Luther chased his condemnation of the Jews with an exhortation to burn synagogues and a statement that Christians quote are at fault in not slaying them, right? If you don't kill the Jews in your midst, you're fucking up, right? Martin Luther was a fucking monster when it came to that sort of thing. Luther's book would become very popular among the Nazis and a lot of scholars will argue that Luther's book is the formative moment behind like modern anti-Semitism. Martin Luther kind of invents modern anti-Semitism, right? And takes it from like, well, those people are just kind of like different and they live here. And so like, we're sort of shitty to them to like, now there's lore behind that hatred, right? The Middle Ages is so funny because you have all of these people fighting against power structures where you're like, there's no way they can mess this up. And then instead, you have them like doing all of these revolutions that are completely counter revolutions just constantly and you're like, yeah, how can you fuck up being critical of the Catholic church in the Middle Ages? How can you mess that up? You somehow made it worse. I think the unfortunate problem is that when you carry out a successful revolution against even like a very bad power structure, it creates this awareness of possibility. And then everybody starts thinking, well, I've got some shit. I want to change. You know, a lot of that's going to be bad, right? Yeah. That's just a complication, anybody who wants to change things has to deal with. Heinrich Neymuller Martin's father grew up venerating Luther and became a pastor with a deliberate goal of copying Martin Luther as directly as possible. His parish was famous mainly because Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III had visited and made some proclamation there. Heinrich venerated the Holenzollern family almost as much as he venerated Luther, right? Martin Luther and the royal family of Germany are like this, right? They are the protectors of the faith and he almost worships the Kaiser, right? In 1889, he marries Paul Emyler, the daughter of a local businessman and the two have their first child, Gerhard in 1890. Two years later, I don't know anything about that, but Gerhard is a good name. Gerhard's a solid name, not enough Gerhard's. Two years later, they had Martin, too many Martin's. And on January. So Martin. There's some good ones. But some. Sure. You know, that's that one famous one that's the one I'm even a good Martin Luther. There's one good Martin Luther, you know, there was there was, although he had King, I assume he was junior. So there must have been two. Oh, yeah. I don't know anything about his dad yet. One damn. I don't know enough about his dad. Yeah. Um, Martin Emyler is born on January 14th of 1892. His life as the second son might have been somewhat different than it wound up being will never know, though, because in 1894 Gerhard dies of being a little kid in 1894. So Martin, you couldn't protect him. Yeah. No, sorry. Uh, Martin's going to be the oldest from this point forward. His younger brother William recalled him playing a leading role among the kids. For his part, Martin says that his older brother's death was the source of some of his earliest memories, particularly his very first thoughts about Jesus Christ in heaven. Since Heinrich died on Martin's second birthday, this may be a lie. He told a lot of lies. I don't know that he actually has any memories around this, but he'll claim this later. And it's a good story for a pastor, right? Yeah. And he might have like, as a kid, he might have like, decided that about his younger time, you know? Sure. But he doesn't remember being too, but like I doubt it. Yeah. But he might remember having thoughts about being too, you know? Yeah. And his parents explaining, you know, the putting out a place for him during a Christmas dinner or something. Yeah. I don't know. So he died. He had died centuries before any of the neemolars were born, but Martin Luther was still a constant almost invisible family member for generations in their home. Heinrich, the father, wrote a booklet for him. his son's Martin and Ville Helm about how to be a man, which was later published in 1927. I think by Martin, as like my dad was such a good, like this, you know, this, this is his guide to being a man. And it's kind of neat that he wrote it just for his kids. It is kind of a mad idea. Publish it wide. Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. Also, it's probably a terrible book, considering how this guy turns out. Yeah, exactly. One of Martin's biographers, Benjamin Simon, describes this booklet in a passage from one of my prime sources for these episodes, the book Hitler's Personal Prisoner. Quote, Heinrich explained how we imagine the role of a Protestant pastor. The idea of the pastor is that Patre Familius harkened back to the emphatically idealized example of Martin Luther and his household in Wittenberg. Glorien Luther is a model of national Protestantism. Heinrich postulated that the thought of the cloister house in Wittenberg would provide refreshment and edification as long as there is a German history, referring to the relationship between Luther and Katarina von Bora. Heinrich claimed that the husband is the head of the wife, right? So it is, this is the most patriarchal kind of relationship that you can have. Is the one that Heinrich is encouraging for his, his children to have with their wives, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's based on the example Martin set. Yeah. So again, maybe not, maybe when the priest Mary was not the right call. It didn't work out in this case. Yeah, it's one of those things where you're like, this seems silly. We should get rid of that. And you're like, how do we make it worse? Oh, no. Once the religious guys start talking about how to do marriage, it's gets even worse. Yeah. It just makes it worse. Yeah. I don't know. What it makes everyone, like cop, like everyone is, it's up to everyone to determine how to do things, you know. That's kind of the problem. Yeah. The priest just tell, tell me what to do and I ignore it, you know. Yeah. And not that, not that I'm like pro-Catholicism being the only way things should be, but there were definite downsides when we gave the Bible to everyone, right? Yeah. When we decided anyone's interpretation is valid, counter revolutions. Yeah. Like they try to get rid of kings and they make it worse. How do you do that? Yeah. Yeah. How do you fuck that up worse? Well, you know, because the king made a society where once he was gone, there was no one who knew how to like, anyway, whatever. I've talked in a couple of other episodes about how patriarchal German society was in the lead up to World War I. And this is a big part of why, this, this, this Lutheran kind of heritage. And again, I'll remind you also of the Roman origins of the term "patter familiarist," which is this idea that like the, the, the husband or the, the man of the family has like power of life and death over his children and the women. You ever seen the, the play Titus Titus in Zionicus? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. That's, I've heard you talk about pattern familiarists before and all I can think of is the movie version of Titus and it's scarring young me. Yeah. Yeah. It hits. So this is a very hierarchical society and male dominated, although Martin's household did have a twist on that. Simon claims that among the nemolers, quote, "the mother was responsible for corporal punishment." Martin has said at one point to have told an elementary school friend that this family quirk was a good thing because quote, "it doesn't hurt that much when mothers hit." So I guess that's a benefit. The kids get less injured. They were not a military family, but in the way that every, but in like a way every German family was, right? Like you're all doing some amount of compulsory service. You all expect that at any moment you might get called up to fight for the fatherland. His father described himself as the sergeant on duty for the family when it was time to inspect his children's bedrooms or monitor their overall behavior. So they are kind of raised like soldiers from the jump as are many Germans. That's more normal than it is not. Hence World War One in some ways. Martin's other biographer Matthew Hockinos describes him growing up, quote, "in the shadow of the church." And Martin himself would later write that "Bells ushered in and closed each of our days." The fact that Martin and Wilhelm's father was the pastor of their church and the pastor of the church where those bells were located only increased his perceived aura of power, right? Your dad isn't just your dad. He's the man who talks to, he's got like a line to God, right? Both boys grew up practically worshiping Heinrich, who for his part was absent constantly and at several points made it clear that his sons were a secondary priority in his life. God and the Kaiser would always come first. Heinrich's proudest moment in his life was not the birth of either of his sons, but was the time that the Kaiser visited his parish. He left his family behind for six months, left his wife with two young boys to follow the Kaiser on a trip to Palestine when Martin was like six. He's just like, "All right, I got to go. I got to go to Weird Christian stuff by all." "Where a cool guy." "I got to go where I am absolutely not wanted or needed." Well, he wrote a book. I mean, what more do his kids need? A bookletteach. I got to read this. You got any question? You wrote a guy device, so that you don't have to. If I ever had a kid, that's what I'd give him. Go give drugs to your friends and somehow pay off your student loans by doing it. It worked for me, kids. So as part of his duties, Heinrich made more than 2,000 house calls to parishioners a year, and he made Martin follow him often to groom the boy to follow in his footsteps as a pastor. As Matthew Hockinoe's writes, quote, "one home visit made a lasting impression on the boy." He accompanied the father to his father to the home of a poor weaver dying of tuberculosis. As his father prayed with the man, Martin eyed on the wall, a framed piece of cloth stitched with gold colored beads that read, "What would Jesus say?" This was Martin's introduction to the social question. What would Jesus say about the poor, the sick, the infirm, the victims of the industrial revolution, right? So he's going, he does think a lot about social justice in his own way and about welfare in his own way. That's a constant concern of his, but it is always through the lens of his religion, right? And not the lens of like what's good best for people, right? And like nationalism, it seems like like, yes. But also, what would Jesus do his way older than I thought? I thought that was a late 90s, pre-slit thing that happened to the people around me in high school and was terrible. No, it's been going on a while. I mean, it obviously like he's the deity, right? Of course it goes back that far, I guess. It just is weird to hear, it does sound very modern, right? Yeah. Heinrich, although it is the worth of the modern era that we're talking about here, Heinrich adhered to a specific sect of the Lutheran faith that followed the ideas of a pastor named Adolf Stoker, who was viciously anti-Semitic and supported legislative reforms to reduce social misery, while also enshrining class differences as ordained by God. Kaiser Wilhelm himself advocated the so-called doctrine of two kingdoms, which had been crafted by friendly right-wing pastors to enshrine the emperor as the supreme bishop whose God-given authority was a sin to question, right? There are two kingdoms. God is the absolute master of his kingdom and no one can question him, but the Kaiser is who God has made the absolute master of the earthly kingdom, right? And in the same way, no one should question him is kind of the idea. Martin, like all little German boys, grew up first learning to follow. In school, Martin and his classmates would have sung songs like "The Emperor is a kind man alongside him's in church with titles like "A mighty fortress is our God." One of Martin's friends later said that "the national ideal was always foremost in Martin's mind when he was a young boy," right? He is thinking of the of Germany constantly as a child and what he can do for Germany as he grows up. It's amazing that this person ended up writing a, I don't really like how the whole Hitler thing happened, Paul. It is, it is surprising. Although, again, when we wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm still convinced it's all going to turn out all right for our God. But, well, no, I'm not. At the very end, maybe there's some debate, but yeah, we'll see how you feel. I mean, even Hitler did all right at the end. That's one thing that you could say. The very last move. No one gets along with, right? No one gives him enough credit. The man who killed Hitler. It's not for ads. Before we go any further on this bit. You know who else killed Hitler? Maybe? Can't prove it. Who knows who was in the bunker, right? Perhaps it was Blue Apron, you know? Maybe they did it. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to iHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. Show! Oh my god, Lexi. I'm Lexi Juanu, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lise de Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not going to get any worse than fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. And I've always got something to say. If the man were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. - Don't lie to me, don't lie to me. - Don't lie to me, liar. - Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care. - I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, standup, comedian, creator, and host of SCAM Goddess Podcast. - Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Deppery, Lamon Morris, and Nicole Buyer. - Ooh, I scammed them. - What? That's why I had to make yapping a job. - And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s, all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. 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If you don't win, you have no power. - It's real. - Those are the very people who I always say and vote against their own economic interests and they complained about the very thing they were seeing. - It's raw. - I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. - Roland Martin unfiltered. - I went off, I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. - Y'all go scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same bag. - Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the black information network. - 12 seats, those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground, going hard in the south now. - And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHeard Radio app, Apple podcasts. - Or wherever you get your podcasts. - My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system. And over my career, I've heard account after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice. But I've never heard a story quite like this. - The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over. - We'll hypnotize them to strengthen that memory. So he went into a good France. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're gonna figure out if this is not me, they're gonna do their police job. - Listen to examined the backfire effect on the iHeard Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Shortly before 6 o'clock AM on November 13th, 1991, Annette's mother and her two young sons found her unresponsive inside their apartment. Investigators ruled the case a homicide. Over the years, detectives continued searching for answers. But the case eventually went cold. This is Hunter Youngwarm, host of Hunting for Answers, a two crime podcast, shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls, bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told and to the questions that still remain. As the years passed, detectives continued working the case, but more than three decades after Annette's death, no one has been held accountable. Annette's mother, Freda Scott, spent years hoping to see her daughter's case song. She never saw that day come. Annette Jones's case remains unsolved. - Listen to Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeard Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - We're back and a quick correction, folks. I just checked in with our sponsors, Blue Apron did shoot Ava Braun in the bunker on that dark day, but not Hitler. So just as a heads up. - Robert, no. - So the assist, Sophie. - Robert, no. - What? That's a good thing to say they did. - Yeah. - Pretty much. - Yeah, yeah. - Basically, it led to the life, other problems later, but you know. - You're annoying, continue. - One of Martin's earliest biographies is the book God's Man by Clarissa Davidson. And it describes Martin at this point as a child as thin, dark-haired, brown-skinned, active, energetic, and an imaginative little boy. One of his first conscious wishes was for a toy boat. His father ordered it made by the plumber out of tin as a Christmas gift, right? That says a lot about the way life worked back then. - Yeah. - Like that's your toy store. - What does it mean for him to be barked as brown-skinned at this time? - Does that mean like, Mediterranean? - Or is it just means like, - He's active. - He's gets a tan. - He spends a lot of time. - He's not a racialized thing. - No, no, no, no. They didn't use terms like that in a racial way that, if you hear a white guy describe that way, it means that like you get a lot of sun, right? - Yeah, okay. - Martin's childhood coincided almost perfectly with the beginning of the reign of former Bastard's pod subject, Kaiser Wilhelm. He was closely related to the British royal family and insecure about his cousin, the king's naval dominance. So Wilhelm made massive expansion of the German Navy a priority from the beginning of his reign to his and Germany's peril, right? This is one of the things that leads to World War I, because the British are like, we're fine with Germany being the main continental like land military power, but once you start trying to have a navy, if you talk with the royal navy, that is not okay with us. We have some real PTSD about the Spaniards and the French in that regard. And once Germany starts doing this, it's one of the things that makes war more likely, right? But the Kaiser fucking loves his navy. He's like a kid playing Warhammer. I do make that comparison a few times, but that is how he treats his navy, right? He's got his little ships that he's building and he takes so much personal interest in it and he's like picking individual officers to captain them as he wants to craft this great force because it's like the coolest thing you can have. And because the Kaiser thinks that a lot of Germans think that too, right? There's an enormous amount of naval propaganda. Yeah, and they're wargaming, right? They're the originators of, I think them in this part of how they beat the French and the, his digestion. Yeah, the war of 1878, 1771. Yes, and so all of this is very popular. And so Martin as a boy, as like a child and adolescent, grows up obsessed with this stuff and obsessed with the navy. He has like posters that have silhouettes of all of the different kinds of German battleships on his wall and stuff, which is another very modern thing, right? But he, from the earliest we know about Martin, no later than age five, he is telling everyone he is gonna join the navy when he grows up and he will never veer from this dream until he finally does. Perhakanose's book, quote, "When asked what he wanted for Christmas, Marine calendars and nautical posters top the list, he shared with his siblings, perhaps foisted upon them, his enthusiasm for games of ships played in bed using sheets for sales. He expected his sisters to memorize the types and names of ships in the German fleet from the large poster in his bedroom. Indeed, you could not see the wallpaper for the newspaper clippings, postcards and photos of ships that covered it. Heinrich hoped that his son would take an interest in the priesthood, but during his early years, Martin never wavered from his goal of a career on the high seas. This is this kid, could not love boats more. It's his favorite thing. - Oh boy. - He just wants to die. As like a teenager, he's writing at like 1911-12 that he wants to see the British nation annihilated and be a part of it, right? Like, so he's very much drinking all the cool aid here. - He's like, what if I got on? - He's like, what if I got boat and then I could like kill people? - Woo! - Yeah, I mean, who doesn't want to kill people on a boat, right? But most of us grow out of that by the time we're in our, at least 18 or 19. By the time there were lots of guns, I hope. - Yeah. - Yeah, you know. - At least by the time we're allowed to have boats. Martin would later say that the two main unquestioned rules of his household as a child were. A good Christian is a good citizen and a good Christian is a good soldier. He was a great student also from an early age. Hock and Oost describes him as mastering his numbers before he was old enough to attend primary school by using his mom's tape measure and writing with chalk on the sidewalk. His other biographers, is somewhat less praiseful of his academics, noting, "Teachers frequently lamented that Martin was easily distracted "and was ever prone to be disruptive. "And this is going to be a pattern in Martin's life. "Biographer Clarissa Davidson writes that even as a boy, "he was not noted for his tact, "and also notes that he frequently read "a more exciting book behind the covers of his dull, easy lessons. "So he's distracted, he does not like to pay attention "so much in class, and he likes to make jokes "and disrupt people, right? "He likes to make statements that he knows will be disruptive. "And this is going to be with him his entire life too, right? "He's kind of a class clown type figure." - So he's like a little edgelord kid. - A little edgelord kid, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. - So the Neemolars were not wealthy, but they were certainly upper middle class. In 1908, when Martin was 16, they sent him to London for a six week tour of Britain. He soon fell in love with the country and came to speak fluent English. During his trip, he began what would become a lifetime habit of keeping a diary. And Martin continued after returning home and wrote this in his diary just before his 17th birthday. A new year has started, a year that holds unusual importance for me. It is my final school year. It will bring the decision on my professional path and impact my character building and intellectual development. I'm taking many things from the old year into the new one. Christian faith, youthful patriotism, all kinds of knowledge and an old, fervent love. Immediately after this, he wrote out the lyrics to a drinking song of his own design that Simon did not choose to reproduce in his book. So Martin's, you know, he talks a lot about his diligence and how much he wants to help Germany and how much he wants to be a good kid, but he also likes to party. This is like the guy who has-- - He's right in poetry. He's right in dirty poetry. He's flirting, you know. And he doesn't like to write about this later, but there is evidence that he really liked to party, pretty hard as a young man. - That's because he had that friend, John Goodcook. That's right, John Goodcook is buddy. Very Lutheran name, Goodcook. But above all else, he was an obsessive student and a loyal subject of the Kaiser. While he was in secondary school, Martin created a Navy club for his fellow classmates who'd come to share the Kaiser's obsession with making Germany a naval power. While the army was heavily dominated by the old Prussian nobility, the appeal of the new German Navy was that any man with a decent family might make a name for himself there. You don't have to come from an old military family to become an officer or a general of a future. The Navy, any German man, could make a career for himself there, right? And the Kaiser's made it clear by this point that the Navy is his special project. And by the time Martin is 18, the number of naval officers had almost tripled from where it had been in 1897. 85% of these new German naval officers were members of the middle class, which itself was very new. They're people like, they're from families like Martin Nemoler's family, right? These kind of newly middle class families. And part of why you, like Germany's, it's ocean. They have to like go around Denmark and shit to get anyway, right? Like, no, they have a part, they have it, they've like made a train and now Poland. No, there's, they've got their Germany at this point. A chunk of what's Germany at this point is what we call Poland today. And that's where their ports are. One of the things that's going to happen in Germany after the war is the Allies are going to take away some of their ports. So all of these new young Navy officers are members of the fairly new German middle class like the Nemoler family, right? These are families that hadn't had money previously but do now. And you have to have some money to be a naval officer. There's like a pseudo college that you have to go through to, that's like preparatory training to become a naval officer. And it's only available to men who'd already passed the abitur or the college entrance exam, which Martin aced in 1910. And it also costs like the equivalent of eight or nine thousand dollars today, right? You have to pay money in order to become a naval officer to get this kind of training. It's like always been the whole distinction between enlisted and officers anyway. It's a class distinction. Yes, yes. I mean, it very much was at this point in time. That's become less the case in modern years. But at this point, it definitely is. Martin graduates at the very top of his high school class. And I should note here that of the 23 men and his graduating class, you want to guess how many survived World War One? Seven? Five. You were close. Oh, what a war. You were close. Yeah. World War One really, really came for this generation of German boys like a fucking wheat thresher. Yeah. Martin enters adult life and the Navy desperate to experience war and fight for the fatherland. As a naval cadet, he became enmeshed in what we might rightly call a proto-fascist culture. Arguably the first in Germany, because the culture of the new German Navy isn't just conservative as military cultures tend to be, it was obsessively devoted to the greatness and brilliance of one man, the Kaiser. And in his frequent speeches to naval cadets and officers, Wilhelm made it clear that he considered his Navy to be a bulwark against rising left wing sentiment, which had seen social Democrats consistently gain support in recent Reichstag elections. Perhakanos's book, quote, "Shirtly before Niemoller entered the Flintberg Merwick Training College north of Kiel on the Baltic Sea, none other than Kaiser Wilhelm had appeared in person to inaugurate the college and celebrate the cadets' choice of career. I love the profession, which you, my young comrades, have chosen." He announced at the opening of their new training center, Wilhelm mused that the honor and prestige of a nativeal career distinguished the officer cadets from the unpatriotic louts and scoundrels in the German parliament. Right? It's very proto-fascist. And you're going to get a, yeah. Oh, it's just like, house, because a lot of times when there's like the guy that everyone's like, "This is the best leader ever," or at least I'm imagining it with like Trump is not, particularly competent or intelligent person, was like, I'm not trying to defend their position, but was Kaiser Wilhelm like at least competent? No, no, he's terrible at his job, and everyone knows it. Everybody in the royal family, everybody in the German government is like, "This guy is an idiot. He's a maniac. He didn't know what he's doing." He's got a weird thing for his mom that we do not want to really talk about, and he's going to fuck everything up because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Right? People are scared of him and the government. Like you can't say that. And the citizenry doesn't know that as all, right? But everyone close to the Kaiser is aware that he does not know what the fuck he's doing. Yeah, okay. I mean, this whole building and navy thing is evidence of that, right? Like this is just needless provocation and expense that doesn't help Germany that things it's best at, right? Yeah, and most of what they want to do involves armies, not navies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every young boy obsessed over, every young navy boy obsessed over the same two things. The brand new U-boats that were basically the sexy new space-aged tech of the day and the fairly new gigantic battleships, the dreadnoughts that these had just become a thing, right? And everyone's obsessed with these absolutely Titanic battleships with guns the size of buildings, right? Like the single barrels bigger than your fucking house, massive Titanic war machines that have never fought each other yet, right? And everyone's like, well, that's got to happen. These massive ships are going to get to square off. We get to do it. We get to see what happens when they blast each other. We get to be the one who shoots the big gun. Never mind that the other guy is a big gun and they shoot at me. Yeah. Yeah. There's like one battle, I think, and where they kind to do, but it's not very satisfying. Like it's like the big fucking blue balls of like naval history. If you're interested in this air, it's like, I just wanted to see them blast each other, right? But we figure out aircraft carriers too soon. And then these giant ships just get murdered immediately. Like. So Martin enters the navy college as one of the 85% of cadets who were middle class and he swore a personal oath to the Kaiser. Quote in peacetime and wartime, regardless of where this may be, he would take that oath deadly serious until the death of the Kaiser in 1941. He can tend, he considers himself bound by this oath even once the Kaiser leaves office. So Simon notes that Martin and his fellows considered themselves the Emperor's elite core. They saw that as Navy men, they felt like they had a personal bond with the Kaiser, which the Kaiser himself stressed by regularly observing their training both in person and from his yacht, giving regular speeches where he called these boys, a sizable number of whom were pastor's sons. Like Martin, his comrades. It's like a major, like a significant chunk of these new Navy officers are like the sons of pastors. That's like actually a major source of these guys. I think a lot of real loyal people is to be like, yes. The middle class never had a chance to be this before. But I have given you this. Me, your father figure. And you have a personal relationship. Yeah. Napoleon was actually pretty good at the same thing. It's a big part of why he does what he does. So, young Neemuller had trouble connecting with his actual comrades at first. He wrote home to his mother about his unwillingness to socialize with his barracks mates. For the book Hitler's personal prisoner quote, he did not want to take part in the trivial everyday conversations in the barracks room. Or like other sea cadets, seek diversion in cafes and shallow theater plays. His firm hope was that he would never learn to enjoy himself in such a mindless way. That's how he refers to his like comrades and their hobby is his mindless. He's kind of a prank. A neurotypical guy. Yeah. So, he seems to have gotten over some of his pregitionists by the time he was sent out on his first extended deployment, traveling across the Mediterranean and winding up in Venice for New Year's Eve, which does sound nice. I'm sure Clarissa Davidson's book, God's Man, after an overly riotous celebration, 45 of the 50 midshipmen were incapacitated on New Year's Day. The captain and his crew officers had been arrested. been invited to join them for jelly-filled donuts and grog. Preparations had been made for more than 50 guests, although only five of the 50 were on their feet. The provisions and grog disappeared. One of the rugged five was Nemuller, right? So 50 guys go out drinking. And the next day, he's one of five who are like, not too hungover to go to breakfast. This is the second time he's been one of five to make it through something. Well, the other one happens in the future, but yeah. Yeah, that is funny. Martin finished his first in his Navy class, which will become known to history as crew 1910, because a lot of crew 1910 guys become pretty prominent in World War One. His classmates included Simon Noteson, his biography of both a future radical pacifist and enemy of the Nazi state, named Heinz Krasciutski, and Hitler's briefly reigning successor, Admiral Karl Donets, Donets and Martin Nemuller go to Navy school at the same time, right? After Hitler shoots himself, Donets takes over the Reich to do the surrender. So those guys are classmates together. When Martin is assigned a ship first, it was disappointingly just a light cruiser, right? It's not one of the sexy boats, but he does really well on the ship and gets promoted to full lieutenant in 1913. And so by age 21 on the eve of war, Martin Nemuller was commissioned as an officer in the Kaiser's Navy. 1913 was a fun year for him. It was the Kaiser's silver Jubilee, and no one knew that anything bad was just on the horizon, right? When trouble started brewing the next year after the assassination of the Archduke, Martin was unconcerned, or rather, he was a static, per Hakanos' book, quote. Wilhelm II's pronouncements at the beginning of the war, including "We shall show our opponents what it means to provoke Germany, and we are all German brothers," resonated with many in the middle and upper classes. For them, the war was an opportunity for Germany to stand up to its hostile neighbors and achieve its rightful place, its hegemon, and a new Europe, its providential place, some thought. When we fight for victory, a Silesian pastor preached in 1914, we are not fighting only for our people in nation. No, we are fighting in the cause of law and truth, culture and education, humanity and Christianity. Martin Nemuller shared that view, right? How common, I always hear about World War I is like Europe was a powder keg waiting to go off, but there's an implication that it didn't want to go off. But how common was it everyone was like, less like a powder keg and more like runners at their starting positions waiting for this starter gun? Yes, I would say runners at their starting positions is a better way to look at it because there is this very strong understanding that a European war is going to happen among a lot of people and a lot of them think it's desirable and arm schedules, armaments, refurbishment schedules and whatnot have a lot to do with that too. Oh, we've got the best guns now, so we want the war to happen now. But there's also just Bismarck, a generation before, had been worried that everything he'd built would be screwed over by some damn full thing in the Balkans, which is what causes World War I, some damn full thing in the Balkans, so it does not do Germany any favors or it's economy or it's no 18 of the 23 people in the graduating class, right? Yeah, are dead. No, have I ever done for, I don't think I've done for the show, my personal World War I blameless, like where, how I have a proportion blame for the war. Oh, yeah, okay, you should tell that, but first. Yeah, it's first, you know who's definitely responsible for World War I. Yeah, the sponsors of this podcast, you can blame every man who died choking on his own lungs and the trenches on whoever, whatever sponsor comes on next, you know? And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an I Heart True Crime Plus subscription, exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to I Heart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait, head to Apple Podcasts, search for I Heart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my god, Lexi, we have a new podcast. I'm Lexi Iwanyu, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. I'm not gonna get any of your fighting. That is wild. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're gonna talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. Obviously I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Lier. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care. I'm Lexi Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of SCAM Goddess Podcasts. The True Crime Comedy Podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamont Morris, and Nicole Buyer. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I could talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper, like me. And the scams run the gamut. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy, and you like learning, and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to SCAM Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. SCAM Goddess! Hi, this is Kylie Breikman, Angel Jaretana. Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the artist on artist on artist podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is foe journal. Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. OK. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class? No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sudako in the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audrement Donald at the Wonderland Bookstore 14. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday. And I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. We'll have to come to the last bookstore, though. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. It's right up next to the microphone. I hear you'll get the elbows here. The eyelashes hate each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on the IHERD radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the argument is, do you want to win? It's real. Those are the very people who I always say voted against their own economic interests. And they complained about the very thing they were seeing. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all go scream at Chanel. But you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same bag. 12 C's. Those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 23. You better be hitting the ground going hard in the south now. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the IHERD radio app, Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. And over my career, I've heard a count after a count of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice. The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over. We'll hypnotize them to strengthen that memory. So we went into a good France. And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me. Listen to examined the backfire effect on the IHERD radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shortly before 6 o'clock AM on November 13, 1991, Annette's mother and her two young sons found her unresponsive inside their apartment. This is Hunter Yang Worm, host of Hunting for Answers A True Crime Podcast, shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls, bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told, and to the questions that still remain. "Never saw that day come," Annette Jones' case remains unsolved. Listen to Hunting for Answers A True Crime Podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. We are sponsored by the Black Hand, right? Yeah, yeah, we're sponsored by that Serb Terrorist Organization. So I was going to give my World War I blame list, right? And at the very end, I start at the bottom, right? And I almost don't include them because they don't deserve any blame at all. And everyone else has some degree of blame. But at the very bottom should be Belgium. Because all Belgium really did was be like, "No, you can't use our country as a military base, Germany." And they got invaded. So they're the least to blame for anything, right? Second, this maybe controversial is Serbia. Did they get the most dead bodies per capita of anywhere else in that war? I don't think so. I think it was actually Serbia that had the most deaths per capita, certainly among their military. Like a quarter of the Serbs serving military dies. I don't mean the Belgians themselves, but Belgium was not one of the first places where people were like, "Let's try the machine gun out on these marked people marching in the line." Oh, no. I can be wrong about this. Kind of, not, I mean, I wouldn't say so. That's really the battle of the frontiers is where that happens in like a major way. That is some of what happens when they move through Belgium pretty quick. No, but they're the bottom of my list of my blameless. Serbia is going to be second because there is some blame. Serbian intelligence was funding groups like the Black Hand and the Black Hand, which is what led to everything. But also, ultimately, Serbia didn't say, "Yeah, we want to start World War One." There were definitely people who wanted a conflict with Austria-Hungary within the Serb government, but it wasn't like the nation made the choice to have that war happen, right? Some of their intelligence agencies get the fuck out of pocket, a guy gets shot, and then Austria-Hungary makes him insane demands that they can't say yes to, and boom, they're in war in like a quarter of the country dies, right? So they're second to the bottom on my blameless. Right above them, and I'd never give credit to the British Empire for anything, but it has to be Great Britain. Because of all of the powers in World War One, they had the most noble reason for directly forgetting involved. And this does not say that there were a lot of people within the British military establishment, particularly the Navy, who wanted a war with Germany to cut the Germans down to size, and that was a big part of it. But fundamentally, the reason why Great Britain got involved is that Germany moved through Belgium. Germany didn't need to move through Belgium, and that's a reasonable line to draw morally, I think. Saying like, if you guys do this, we gotta get involved, right? Yeah, you can't fuck with our friends. Yeah. You can't fuck with our friends. Yeah, next leased in blame, and by now we're getting into the middle. So obviously, they're still blame to a portion. And this is, again, none of these are zero blame by this point. But next is going to be Austria-Hungary, right? And it's a terrible empire. They only make bad decisions every single decision. Anyone in Austria-Hungary in power makes for this whole period is the wrong one. But on a human level, they shot your guy, right? And it's a human thing. If somebody shoots your guy and you have a chance to fuck them up, you're gonna. That's just how people are, right? Like, we build all these structures to try to make that be less how people are, but that is how people are, and their guy did get shot. So they do kind of have a reason for going crazy. And then the most blame. And I share it pretty equally between France, Germany, and Russia. If I had to pick, I'd say Germany and Russia have more blame than France. But they're all sort of guilty of the same thing, which is like, none of you could have been forced into this war. Nobody's making Germany get into World War One. Germany says we're not backing Austria-Hungary's play. Sorry. And likewise, nobody's making. Nobody's gonna invade Russia if they say we're not backing the Serbs, right? And nobody's gonna invade France. If France does not say we're going to fight in this, right? All of you had the ability to try to hold back the dipshits that you were chained to and you failed to. And so that's how I, a portion, were blame. Literally. Kind of more than anything. Yeah, okay. That's my World War One blame list, right? Love it. Martin does not feel like I do. Martin feels Germany is completely in the right. And not just like in the right, because it's a good. He doesn't even really care about why the war is happening. What he cares about is that Germany's honor has been insulted and this is a chance to prove and to make ourselves the greatest nation as we know we are, right? They do have really big guns. They have the biggest guns. That is true. It seemed like it should be a shoe in. Nemoler would later explain his thinking at the time as that the war started. Quote, "If there is a war, a German doesn't ask, is it just or unjust? But he feels bound to join the ranks." And I guess I would say, "Yeah, Martin, that's kind of the problem with you guys." I'm not disagreeing with you, but that is sort of the issue. In his book, "Cockinos" provides a photo of Martin, top foreground at the outbreak of war, stationed on a mind-laying ship. And you can see it in the Netflix. It's guys on a boat. I don't know. You don't really see much of his features here, but like, yeah, there's him on a mic. And that's what he's doing when the war starts. He's laying minds, right, classically ethical behavior. Classically ethical job. He's going to do only ethical jobs in World War One, Margaret. He was very good at all of the tasks the Navy set to him, which were universally the most ethically gray and fucked up jobs they had. As I said, he starts the war laying minds. Now, the British established a naval blockade early on, because Germany had to import half or more of all of its basic food, stuff, not to mention war material. The German Navy was potentially mighty enough to have fought the grand fleet of the British, and maybe have won, right? The German Navy could have beaten the Royal Navy. It's theoretically possible, but it will always remain, something that was theoretically possible. Because when you're the Kaiser, and you've built this like your precious little warhammer army, you might find you can't work up the courage to risk sinking at all, right? Oh. And that's their fucking problem. He and his name ain't-- So Hitler's not going to have that problem. No, no. Hitler loves blowing his shit up. But the Kaiser-- they're never able to work up the courage to really take a risk with this fleet. So for most of the war, the bulk of the surface fleet sits bottled up, waiting, while Germany relies on mine layers and U-boats to conduct a different sort of war against not just warships, but civilian shipping. In April and May of 1916, minds laid by Martin's boat U-73 sank six ships. Their prize kill was the Russell, a major British warship. Martin and his fellow crewmen were decorated by the Austrian emperor for their victory. At around the same time, the British and German navies met for what would be their only grand clash. I think this is the Battle of Jutland, I think it is, which involves more than 200 vessels. And it's one of these-- it's the only time we really get to see these navies turn of the century navies with massive dreadnoughts, fight like a Trafalgar-style mass battle, right? And if this is a video game, you'd call it like a slight victory for Germany, really? But it's a draw, effectively. And I would say it winds up being a win for Great Britain because it scares the Kaiser enough that they never try again, right? And so the weight of the German naval expectations is going to fall on U-boat officers, like Martin for the rest of the war. That summer and fall, they mined the Aegean Sea and sink nine more ships. Perhakanos, quote. Well, I thought it was on a light cruiser. He's on a light cruiser to start. When the war starts, he's on a mine-layer, which is a U-boat. That's not the only thing that lays mines. But the mine-layer he is on is a U-boat, right? There are U-boats that are meant to torpedo boats primarily, and there are U-boats that are mostly laying mines. And he's laying mines. I don't know anything about World War I submarines, but I'm weirdly obsessed with submarines in World War II. So I'm like, curious. Yeah, this is, it is interesting stuff, but they're using it because of subs really good at putting mines somewhere. The justification Martin gives is revenge, right? Like, that he writes in his diary after sinking a bunch of boats. Revenge is sweet. From Hakanos' book, quote. Neymuller bragged in his memoirs that one of their mines near the Greek island of Kea had bagged the British hospital ship Britannic, the sister of Titanic, taking 30 lives. It was at that time the largest allied ship sunk in the war. So if you want to know what kind of soldier was Martin Neymuller, he's really happy that he sunk a hospital ship. Yeah, that's the revenge that's necessary. What? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Revenge against the hospital. I mean, what he is talking about in terms of revenge, and this is important on a moral level, because what the German U-boats are doing is really gross and disgusting. We don't often think enough that what the British Navy was doing was just as disgusting if not much worse. It's just less, they're not shooting directly at like shipping, but they're stopping shipping from entering Germany, which leads to a famine that kills around a million people, mostly children and old people. Right. Right. The British Navy does that. That's a war crime. Yeah. So when we, when we, I think we should say, it's kind of, it's pretty shitty that Martin was doing this stuff, but the average British sailor is engaged in an act just as bad, I think, in a lot of ways. It's just less immediately, obviously, fucked up, right? Because they're not laying mines to sink hospital ships. Well, and that's like submarines task as you think is like not necessarily to destroy enemy battleships, but to destroy enemy merchant. If you can. But yeah, It's, yeah, it's to do economic damage, it's due logistical damage. And it is, this is reported at the time as an outrageous act, right? The New York Times coverage read, pirate sank the Britannic despite clear Red Cross signs, right? And this will be talked about as a war crime because you're not supposed to sink hospital ships and it was very clearly marked as a hospital ship. So by the standards of the time, this is bad. Okay. Yeah. An article by Andrina Alpini in, for in-depth magazine notes, the Germans, it accused of committing a war crime by targeting a hospital ship, defended themselves by claiming the vessel had carried troops, not wounded men. The British, the Germans argued, had disguised a warship with white paint and red crosses. Now, I've never heard of anything like that in the current world. Right. Yeah. Nobody does stuff like that claims the hospital they shot was full of soldiers, right? There is, there are some boats that get sunk that we will claim was like, oh, that civilian shipping. How well they was loaded with guns, like we had filled those ships with guns to send to the British. Right. But that's not really what's going on here. But it doesn't matter to Martin and his crew, there are millions of dead comrades in Europe and the fact that their own wives, mothers and children were going hungry back home thanks to the British blockade more than justified their actions, at least in Martin's mind. In January of 1917, he was transferred to a proper U-boat. This is a torpedo boat, right, that's meant to go out and directly engage in sink ships. It's got enough speed to use them directly. The boat he's on is U-39 and U-39 is going to end World War I as the second most successful U-boat in the entire fleet, sinking 153 ships. One of the boats they take down was a French troop ship, the Amaral Magal, which held 935 soldiers in addition to her crew. From Hakanose's book, quote, this is about after he sinks this troop ship. It sank in 10 minutes, but one of the destroyers sought to rescue them in from the water, the other two sped off with the second troop ship. The U-39 stayed in the vicinity, attempting unsuccessfully to sink the remaining destroyer. All we could do was put up our periscope here and there to prevent the destroyer from picking up too many survivors, Nemoler later wrote. War is war. The entire crew of U-39, Captain Forcemen recalled, was proud of its deed. The whole purpose of war, Forcemen asserted, was to annihilate the enemy's armed forces. The people being picked up out of the water after all were soldiers bound for the front. Soldiers who would not hesitate to kill Germans. The Amaral Magal had slipped beneath the surface, along with 203 French soldiers and crew members, U-39 made for home, where Nemoler was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. I wore my Iron Cross with a feeling that I had earned it. Yeah, I killed a thousand guys. This is a war crime. Yeah. Well, this is a war crime. Well, Cup 200. Well, and this is in the Napoleonic war, if you had told, if you as a fucking French sailor had told Napoleon, we sunk their ship and then we killed them in the water rather than rendering aid. He'd have been pissed at you, right? He was not a nice man, but this has been it for a very long time. Europeans had considered in war once you sink a ship, as long as you're not an ongoing danger. It's your duty to try to rescue the people you sunk, right? That had been the norm in European war for quite some time. So the fact that the Germans are doing shit like this is very upsetting to a lot of people. But not Martin. He has no problem with this. But what I find interesting is that his earlier biographies did not report the story, the same way that Hakenos's book does. So God's Man by Clarissa Davidson was published in 1959, which is decades before Hakenos's book. And it's passage about the same act reads, "A destroyer and a trawler appeared on the scene to rescue the survivors. The submarine had one torpedo left, stand by the captain's shouted. First two ready, no Captain Nemoler protested. We can't torpedo that destroyer again. It's not right." The captain looked at him. As if he thought he was mad. But every soldier they pick up will be fighting our men in a few days. He said, "Nemoler persisted and won out. The rescue mission was allowed to go on." That's just a lie. That's just a bald-faced lie. And the reason why that lie is in there is that in 1959, Martin was an anti-fascist hero, right? And so he didn't want to admit that he was a deliberately drowning helpless men. Yeah. Have you ever seen the submarine movie, "Dos Boot?" Yeah. It's like, consider the most realistic submarine movie a long time and it followed a German crew in World War II. And the whole thing, the captain starts crying when he realizes that the boat he torpedoed, like, still had crew on it. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm not convinced that's an accurate piece of the movie. No. No. It's technically very accurate in terms of how the boats work, but more often than not, the norm for these guys was like, fuck yeah, kill as many of them as we can, right? For one thing, these are the most radical of Germany soldiers. In the trenches, you get some of that trench solidarity, some of that nobility, like the Christmas truce. You boat guys are the most radicalized or the most radicalized part of the German military machine. They are not nice people by and large. I can't believe you're telling me that the three and a half hour movie I watched made by Germany in the 1980s was not an accurate depiction of the German military in World War II. I mean, I'm sure there were some you boat guys who tried their best to act ethically, right? You know, and it's always, again, there's always a degree of silliness where we're like condemning Martin for killing these men in the sea who are helpless, but we're not condemning a bunch of British sailors who are starving babies to them. Right. Totally. Like, but still, I think at the end of episode one, Martin E. Muller, not, not sounding like a nice guy, right? Maybe understanding how he's not going to be super anti-hittler in a couple of years. No, I, I am shocked that he will be anti-hittler at all. Yeah. That is what that is. What is shocking to me about the, the bit I know about the end of a story. In our next episode, we'll find out when he really became anti-hittler because that's a subject of some debate. I assume it's when Hitler came for him, you'd think. You want to plug your pluggables? Yeah. I'm Margaret Killjoy. I have a podcast on this very network called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. I do basically the opposite of this, although it's still mostly actually about bad people, but it's about the people who fight the bad people usually. And I also have another podcast called Cools and Media Book Club or every Sunday. I read you a story, did just kind of whatever kind of story, and then we talk about it. And also I write science fiction fantasy. My most recent book is the third book in the Daniel Cain series. If you like the idea of punk rock Scooby Doo, check out the Daniel Cain series. The first one is called The Lamb will slaughter the lion. It's available in German, actually. You could, you could get it. Excellent. Duss lion. I don't remember how to, don't remember how to pronounce it. I don't know what German is for lamb, either. Yeah. No, I think I think lamb might be LAMM, but yeah, something like that. Anyway, check out Margaret's book and I don't think some shipping in the Atlantic, you know? Maybe you could become the next Martin Emiller and take out a hospital ship, you know? Why not? There's no harm in it, except for the people. All right, we're done. Behind the Bastards is a production of CoolZone Media. For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, CoolZoneMedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips and our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/at Behind the Bastards. We love about 40% of you statistically speaking. 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