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35 D Chapter Eight d the new pAStor On January 14, 1892, a son was born to Heinrich Niemoeller, who was serving as pastor in Lippstadt, a sleepy little Westfalian town with some thirteen thousand inhabitants.At baptism the little boy received the names Emil Gustav Friedrich Martin, the last one, by which he would be called, in honor of Martin Luther. The rectory, an ancient Westfalian frame house, was situated in the shade of the sixhundred -year-old Church of the Augustines. Here the Lutheran pastor lived with his wife, Paula, whose ancestors were Huguenots. From her southern French grandmother, Paula inherited her dark black eyes and complexion, characteristics she would pass on to her son Martin, together with a southern French temper, undiluted by the proverbial cautious prudence of his Westfalian father. What both temperaments have in common, however, is an equally proverbial stubbornness. The second of the Niemoellers’ five children, Martin was small for his age, painfully thin, with slightly protruding ears; his most prominent feature was a pair of dark, burning eyes.His outbursts of rage would be as notorious as his willingness to repent,his seemingly inborn sense of fairness and justice—character traits that would accompany him throughout his life.The romantic garden behind the rectory stretched all the way down to the Lippe River, a child’s paradise. Here the sheep grazed, and Martin let his most prized possession, a sheet metal boat, glide on a long string into the water, imagining himself as a captain on the high seas. For him, there was not the slightest doubt that someday he would be a real captain on a real ship. At age seven, he became the undisputed leader of a regular street gang; his most faithful allies were his two sisters who, without question, delivered all their precious discoveries to their older brother. There was a lot of love and tolerance in his family, which was quite remarkable in comparison to the frugal strictness and prudery prevailing in most evangelical pastors’ homes. Martin would later state,“We were on a leash, but on a very long one.”7 After his sixteenth birthday, Martin was sent to England for the summer vacation. He lived with a physician’s family, pious people, requiring him to attend church services daily, and twice on Sundays,when even playing the piano was not permissible.He loved London, where he would roam the streets, travel by horse-drawn streetcars, enjoy his favorite dish, which was steak and kidney pie, and take extensive strolls on the banks of the Thames and on the docks. He admired the big ships. Later, as a naval officer, he still maintained that as ParT one 36 far as appearance and behavior were concerned,British naval officers served as the one great example to their German colleagues. Being more certain than ever that his future would be the sea, he set a modest goal for himself: to become Chief of Staff of the Imperial German Navy. The idea of becoming a pastor like his father never even occurred to him. However, there was one particular experience , the memory of which would not leave him for the rest of his life. One day,the fourteen-year-old accompanied his father on a pastoral visit to a member of his congregation, a seriously ill coal miner. Calling on his parishioners at home was regarded by the pastor as his foremost duty. What better way was there to know his flock, to find out about their problems, wants, and needs, offering his advice, concern, and help? In the coal miner’s wretched basement dwelling, located in the poor section of Elberfeld, they found the prematurely aged husband and father of five dying of tuberculosis, a common disease in those days. Letting his eyes wander through the shabby, sparsely furnished quarters , young Martin noticed something that attracted his attention. Hanging on the naked wall was a framed epigram, which read:“What would Jesus say?”The youth had no idea to what extent those four words would determine the course of his life. After graduating from the Humanistic Gymnasium in Elberfeld with the supreme honors of a Primus Omnium, he entered the Imperial German Navy as a cadet, the first step toward his goal of becoming Chief of the German Fleet. Growing up in a traditionally conservative family, he had been taught, in accordance with the generally accepted teaching of the church, that a pious Christian is a good citizen...

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