Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a young German man who lived through both world
wars and was full of radical ideas, radical teaching styles, and radical
actions. Simply put, he was a pastor who desired to see this world change. He
believed that the Sermon on the Mount was not just full of nice teaching, but
was actually meant to be lived out. Not only that but he believed that God’s
Word was the primary judge of all human behavior, and the things written in
God’s Word need to be taken to heart because it’s directed toward the individual
person. During WWII, Bonhoeffer preached salvation through Christ whereas the
German First United Reich Church preached your soul’s salvation through Hitler.
At age twenty seven he did a radio speech entitled The Younger Generations of
Changed View, which defied Nazi rule. It was soon cut off the air. Hatred of
the Israelite people was growing strong in Germany and Bonhoeffer challenged
the church to stand up for the Jews. He taught for a while at a German Seminary
which got no government support, and even when teaching at the Finkenwalde
Seminary, he was different. Contrary to the professors of his time, Bonhoeffer
was informal about his teaching. He got to know his students and would hang out
with them after class hours. In fact, he was so young it was hard to
distinguish him from the rest of the seminary students.
A part of the German intelligence, Dietrich’s brother-in-law had access
to much concealed information. After returning from a short trip to New York,
Bonhoeffer was asked by his brother-in-law to join the Resistance, a small
group dedicated to the killing of Hitler. He accepted Working undercover as a
double agent now, Bonhoeffer passed on information of the conspiracy to
American churches. One day documents were discovered by a Hitler loyalist. They
led to Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was thrown into the Pagel Prision. His fiancée,
Maria Von Wedemayer was only allowed to see him once. When a plot of the
conspiracy to murder Hitler failed, killing many of his officers but not him,
Hitler vowed to kill every last member of the Resistance. Bonhoeffer was taken
to Flosenberg Concentration camp and marched naked to the gallows. His dying
words: “This is the end, for me the beginning of life.”
