Who really said it

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree

Q: Did Martin Luther King Jr. say "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree"?

No. This line is popularly pinned on Martin Luther King Jr., and even more often on the 16th-century reformer Martin Luther — but it is found in the works of neither. Its earliest documented appearance is a German Confessing Church circular of October 1944, and the Luther scholar Martin Schloemann, who wrote a whole book about it, concluded it cannot be traced to Luther. The German original is "Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen."

Not Martin Luther King Jr. — and almost certainly not Martin Luther either Unknown — a 20th-century German saying First documented 1944 · author unknown

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

This line is popularly pinned on Martin Luther King Jr., and even more often on the 16th-century reformer Martin Luther — but it is found in the works of neither. Its earliest documented appearance is a German Confessing Church circular of October 1944, and the Luther scholar Martin Schloemann, who wrote a whole book about it, concluded it cannot be traced to Luther. The German original is “Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen.”

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree” Misattributed to Martin Luther King Jr. (and to Martin Luther the reformer). The line is in neither man's works; its earliest record is a German Confessing Church circular of October 1944, author unknown.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Martin Luther King Jr.. Use the credit shown above instead.

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We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

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Provenance

A wartime saying, not a King (or Luther) quotation

Popularly credited to: Martin Luther King Jr. — and, more often, Martin Luther (both apocryphal)
German original: “Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen.”
Earliest record: Confessing Church circular, Hesse, 5 October 1944 (Pastor Karl Lotz)
Key study: Martin Schloemann, Luthers Apfelbäumchen?

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

German original: “Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen.”

The English version circulating under Martin Luther King Jr.’s name is a modern, anonymous translation of the German saying — not a passage from any King sermon, letter, or book.

Luthers Apfelbäumchen (German Wikipedia): origin, 1944 dating, and Schloemann’s study

How we verified this

The saying is first documented in October 1944, in a circular letter of the Confessing Church in Hesse by Pastor Karl Lotz — nearly four centuries after Luther’s death and years before it was ever tied to Martin Luther King Jr.
The Luther scholar Martin Schloemann examined the phrase at book length in Luthers Apfelbäumchen? and found it nowhere in Luther’s writings, arguing it grew from a 19th-century sentimental image of Luther the garden-tending householder.
Dedicated quote-research (Zitatforschung) reaches the same verdict: an apocryphal Luther saying with no source before the Second World War.
Fact-checkers list it among statements faked or misquoted under Martin Luther King Jr.’s name, a confusion helped along by the shared name.

The exact wording is a 20th-century German saying of unknown authorship, first attested only in 1944, and the English text is an anonymous modern translation. Because no original author or work can be identified, no copyright or public-domain status can be responsibly asserted.

Fact-check

Two Martins, one saying, neither the source

The line is a favorite of inspirational posts, where it is stamped with the name of either Martin Luther King Jr. or Martin Luther — a slippage the shared name makes easy. Neither attribution holds up.

Martin Luther King Jr. Fabricated attribution

The sentence appears in none of King’s sermons, books, or letters, yet quote sites such as Goodreads post it under his name, and fact-checkers list it among statements faked or misquoted under his name.

Martin Luther (the reformer) Apocryphal

Though far more often credited to him, the saying is absent from Luther’s works and first surfaces only in 1944; Martin Schloemann’s study concludes it was retrofitted onto Luther after the fact.

The oldest known version is German, from a Confessing Church circular of October 1944 — a message of hope amid wartime ruin whose actual author remains unknown.

Context

Why it caught on

The saying spread because it distills a very modern consolation — keep doing the ordinary, life-affirming work even under the shadow of catastrophe. That resonance is exactly why it was reached for in the rubble of 1944 Germany, and why it keeps getting re-credited to famous moral authorities like the two Martins.

A kindred, much older sentiment survives in Jewish tradition — Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai’s counsel that if you hold a sapling and hear the Messiah has come, you should plant the sapling first — but that parallel is a thematic echo, not the documented source of the German wording.

A hopeful thought that outgrew whoever first said it.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Luthers Apfelbäumchende.wikipedia.org

Encyclopedic account of the saying: 1944 first attestation, Karl Lotz, and Schloemann’s conclusion that it is not Luther’s.

Zitatforschung: Apfelbäumchen pflanzenfalschzitate.blogspot.com

Quote-research post documenting the apocryphal Luther attribution and the absence of any pre-war source.

Schloemann, Luthers Apfelbäumchen? (digitized)digitale-sammlungen.de

The full text of the standard scholarly study of the saying’s history.

5 MLK Jr. statements faked or misquotedchristianpost.com

Fact-check listing the apple-tree line among quotes wrongly attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.

Luther: Plant a Tree at the End of the Worldbeggarsallreformation.blogspot.com

Reformation-studies blog tracing the quote’s absence from Luther’s corpus and its modern origin.

Martin Luther (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Collected sourced and disputed sayings of the reformer, for comparison against his authenticated words.

The figure the saying is pinned on

Martin Luther — who never wrote it

Martin Luther

1483–1546 · German reformer & theologian

Martin Luther was the German monk and theologian whose 1517 protest sparked the Protestant Reformation and whose Bible translation shaped modern German. The apple-tree saying attached itself to him only in the 20th century, drawing on a sentimental image of Luther as a serene garden-keeping householder; scholars note that the real Luther anticipated the world’s end with more eagerness than the quote’s calm suggests. It is not found anywhere in his voluminous writings.

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Origin & scholarship

Earliest documented in a circular letter of the Confessing Church, Hesse (Pastor Karl Lotz), 5 October 1944; see Martin Schloemann, Luthers Apfelbäumchen? Ein Kapitel deutscher Mentalitätsgeschichte seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/even-if-i-knew-that-tomorrow-the-world-would-go-to-pieces-i