41 court determined his motives were honorable.29 Hearing this, Hitler instructed that Niemöller be taken to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg as his personal prisoner. At Sachsenhausen, Niemöller lived in a small solitary cell in a cell block behind a high stone wall. The cell block provided a place for the guards to torture and interrogate prisoners in privacy, but also within earshot of Niemöller’s cell.30 In 1939, Niemöller began the lowest emotional season of his imprisonment. Niemöller’s wife, Else, began to worry that he was giving up and might even take his own life.31 In this fragile state, the German Protestant Church authorities informed him that they were planning to retire him from his pastoral post. Following this blow to Niemöller’s professional identity, he considered converting to Catholicism and unsuccessfully petitioned the German Navy to let him return to active duty. From 1939 until early 1941, the severity of the adverse effects of solitary confinement and exposure to traumatic events increased for Niemöller. He expressed significant anger, irritability, and irrational reasoning in his family conflicts. Niemöller experienced a mental breakdown, deep depression, hopelessness, and anxiety. In March 1941, the devastating blow of Niemöller’s father’s death caused his experience to become more difficult.32 Else noted Martin became even more anxious and on edge during this time; he told her his routines no longer kept him from sinking into madness. Just as Niemöller appeared to be nearing his emotional breaking point, he was transferred to a camp near Munich, Dachau Concentration Camp, on July 11, 1941. Infamously established as a model camp, the Nazis used it for propaganda purposes and sought to set an example of structure and violence for other camps. Camp officials housed Niemöller in the camp’s prison, also known as the prison bunker. Surviving reports describe the bunker as the primary place of terror in the camp. When Niemöller first arrived, the courtyard in front of the bunker was used by Hitler’s special military force, the Schutzstaffel (SS), to torture and murder prisoners hidden from the full view of the camp. The so-called privileged prisoners, such as government officials, famous clergy, and aristocrats, were housed in individual cells in the bunker in relative comfort compared to other barracks.33 Niemöller’s cell window likely faced the courtyard, because he said that watching the gallows haunted him for the rest of his life.34 His move to Dachau marked a dramatic change; though still in captivity and likely a witness to significant physical abuse and murder, he no longer lived in solitary confinement. His new community in the prison bunker became a CHARACTER FORGED IN ADVERSITY
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