Al principio

Al pricipio ... es un poema que, por lo general, se atribuye al pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) sobre la pasividad que mostraron los intelectuales alemanes frente a la ascención del nazismo y cómo este empezó a eliminar, una tras otra, a cada colectividad de Alemania.
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zu Beginn

adv. in the beginning, at first, initially

adv. early, at the beginning

= at first, at the outset, early [earlier -comp., earliest -sup.], in the early years, originally, to start with, early on
Ex: The style of recording instructions for references differs from that in Sears', and can at first seem strange, but instructions are clear. Ex: However, it should be stated at the outset that it is not the aim of this course to make you proficient in the use of the Colon Classification as a practical indexing language. Ex: Microforms are easy to use, although there were early reservations concerning the fact that users need to become familiar with any specific kind of microform and its reader. Ex: A unique feature of this book, then, is that the cases emphasize the kinds of problems recent graduates encounter in the early years of their careers. Ex: A relative index, as originally proposed by Melville Dewey, contains at least one entry for each subject in the scheme. Ex: To start with, most catalogues, indexes, data bases and bibliographies provide access to information or documents. Ex: The concept of such a center remained nebulous at best, and we later learned that communication problems early on had muddied the message about what was really needed.