Etiam si omnes, ego non

The saying above the door of a newly built house.

Etiam si omnes, ego non (freely translated: even if everyone participates, I don't) is a Latin word that is widely spoken .

The formulation became a political motto , especially in the 20th century , to express resistance in times of dictatorship . This is how Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager used it . The motto gained fame especially through Joachim Fest , who heard the sentence from his father as a ten-year-old and found it in the title of his posthumously published autobiography Ich nicht: Memories of a Childhood and Adolescencepicked up again. Given the circumstances of the time, the sentence should express that one should follow one's own convictions regardless of the actions of others and refuse to undergo an injustice regime. With the same objective, the motto of the Bishop of Munster from 1933 to 1946, Cardinal von Galen: “nec laudibus nec timore” (“Neither praise nor fear of man [should move us]”).

The sentence goes back to the Gospel of Matthew . There it says in the Latin version ( Vulgate ): Et si omnes scandalizati fuerint in te ego numquam scandalizabor (26.33 VUL ), which in the standard translation is imprecise with And if everyone takes offense at you - I never! (26.33 EU ) is reproduced. In the Gospel the sentence is spoken by Simon Peter , who later nevertheless denies Jesus .

In the Gospel of Mark it says: Et si omnes scandalizati fuerint in te, sed non ego (14.29 VUL ) - Even if everyone takes offense (at you) - I don't! (14.29 EU ).

swell

1. ↑ Felicitas von Lovenberg in the FAZ , September 6, 2006 ( online version )