Sturdily up to the War Ministry in Berlin last week marched a delegation of farmers from East Prussia, "The Hindenburg Country." They urged embarrassed War Ministry officials to do something about 30 East Prussian pastors in jail or concentration camps. "We want to render every possible service to the Führer—in peace time as farmers and in war time as soldiers—but there is one thing that must not be taken from us!" declared the farmers' spokesman. "We must be able to serve Our Lord, Jesus Christ, faithfully!"
The War Ministry suggested that the farmers call upon Church Minister Hans Kerrl. At the Church Ministry it was suggested that they try new Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. But even though the East Prussian farmers were thus shunted around they got action last week. The State, unwilling to have such horny-handed folk go back disgruntled to the Hindenburg Country and grumble, abruptly released most of the East Prussian pastors, none a nationally prominent figure in the Church.
German papers had at first been forbidden to report the farmers' activities in Berlin or even their arrival. The State's act of clemency and the story of the farmers were then released together last week, timed to blanket in the German press the ending of the Niemoller trial (TIME, Feb. 21). Heroic Rev. Martin Niemöller, a Wartime U-boat commander who helped sink record Allied tonnage, was arraigned four weeks ago on charges which included sedition. During the trial, from which press and public were excluded, the State's case apparently so far collapsed that all really grave charges against Pastor Niemöller were dropped. The State was finally reduced to pressing nothing more than a nuisance charge of "misuse of the pulpit" under a law passed in 1871 under Kaiser Wilhelm I for the purpose of smacking, not too severely, sassy preachers.
Under this old law, the court last week sentenced Niemöller not to imprisonment in jail but to "honorable detention in a fortress"* for seven months. Showing definite leniency, the court, which might have given Niemöller two years, decreed he had already served more than the sentence imposed while awaiting trial, need only pay a $600 fine to go free last week, so far as the court was concerned.
Stepping in the Nazi Secret Police settled Pastor Niemöller's hash by simply flinging him into a concentration camp where he will remain during Adolf Hitler's pleasure.
* Such as Adolf Hitler endured after his Beer Hall Putsch misfired in 1923. In the Fortress of Landsberg he lived like a fighting cock, occupied his leisure in writing Mein Kampf, the book, which fired all Germany.