Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - A Short Biography

[An edited transcript]

Today we're going to be looking at the biography of quite a controversial figure. His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Most of this story takes place in Germany during World War II, but we're going to begin in 1906.

In February 1906 Dietrich and his twin sister Sabine were born into a very illustrious family, a very highly cultured family, in Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's father was actually a famous Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology. He was a director at a hospital, and he was also a professor at the University. His mother was also a very educated woman, particularly for that day. She had a university degree, which was unusual for women in that time, and she came from a family of very eminent theologians. In fact, her grand grandfather was a famous church historian by the name of Karl von Hase. So, you can imagine Dietrich and Sabine and the other six children in the household had a very privileged and educated upbringing in these early years.

Now they had a wonderful little holiday house on the Bohemian border near the Glatz mountains, and they would spend their summertime there, romping through meadows and running through the woods. This was the most idyllic childhood you could ever imagine for these children. And the Bonhoeffers ensured that their children had a really good education as well.

They were schooled in their younger years by Paula, their mother, and she also made sure she was instilled in them good theology, good religious education and proper Christian values, and she expected them to live these out with great resolution. But actually, the family was not a Christian family. Karl Bonhoeffer, the father of the house, wouldn't even have called himself a Christian. He respected the values, and he was happy for his wife to teach the children the Bible, but he himself didn't believe it. As a family they rarely went to church. They rarely attended meetings.

However, the children also had some governesses and nannies who were believers, and so the children grew up with a good grounding in the Scripture, based on their mother's education, and also on the influence of their nannies. Dietrich himself had a really inquisitive mind. At the age of four, when they sat down for lunch one day, he turned to his mother and said, "Does God to sit down for lunch?" He and his twin sister used to play strange bedtime games where they would lie down in bed and try to envision eternity. The first person to go to sleep was the loser.

Once at school, all the Bonhoeffer children absolutely excelled. But they were also surrounded by a really unique group of people. They had moved to Berlin and the neighbourhood that they lived in was a hugely affluent area. They had a house with grounds and gardens, and they played with the children of various professors and historians and such like. It was a very unusual upbringing.

When Bonhoeffer was eight years old, World War I began, and Germany was embroiled in the war. At that very moment they were on holiday at their holiday house on the Bohemian border. The nannies quickly bundled all the children into the train and took them back home to be with their parents. The older children ran into the house, and they were yelling, "Hurrah, there's war!" Of course, they were promptly slapped for that, but that was the feeling of the day. The idea was that this war would be an opportunity for Germany, that there was something noble and patriotic about it all.

The two older children were soon called up for service, and in 1918, Walter Bonhoeffer was hit by an exploding shell. He was quite badly injured, and he died of his injuries. This was a huge shock to the Bonhoeffer family, particularly to Paula Bonhoeffer, the mother of the family, and we know it certainly impacted Deitrich as well. He kept Walter's Bible for the rest of his life. The family realized that they could have pulled strings and used their various contacts to maybe ensure that their sons weren't conscripted. But they didn't. The tragedy of this impacted the whole family. Perhaps for Deitrich, his pacifist ideals stemmed from this traumatic experience.

Now, when World War I was over, Germany's suffered a terrible, terrible defeat. It was quite a horrendous defeat, and it crushed the nation. And then, to top it off, the Treaty of Versailles was not only humiliating, but also very harsh, and the country as a whole felt so humiliated by this defeat, and I guess people were looking around for someone to blame. In some cases, they felt that perhaps the communists had stabbed them in the back. We know that the Kaiser stepped down, and there was a lot of political unrest and also economic turmoil, as part of all the aftereffects of the war. Deitrich was at school, and he wrote a letter to his parents saying, "Could you please send more money, because I've just had to spend 6 billion marks on a loaf of bread."

By the age of 15, Bonhoeffer was sure that he wanted to be a theologian. His family had provided for his full education, in language, in literature, in the arts. In fact, Bonhoeffer himself was a really good pianist, and his parents thought that he would pursue a musical career. But he wanted to do theology, and he was so clear that he wanted to do theology. His parents even made him play in front of a concert pianist who was in Berlin at the time, a man by the name of Kritsa. But Kritsa wasn't particularly conclusive with Deitrich's talents and whether he would make it as a concert pianist. And so, in the end, the parents decided that whatever Dittrich wanted to do, he will do.

Now, the reason he wanted to do theology wasn't because he had a real personal experience of the Lord, for theology in this day and age was a very academic subject. It was on a par with law, and particularly in Berlin, which was seen as one of the world's best places to study theology. But around this time, Dietrich attended an evangelical meeting, where Bramwell Booth, the son of William Booth who started the Salvation Army, was speaking. And he spoke to his sister about how he had seen the joy in people's faces as they were converted. This was the first time that Bonhoeffer had encountered this. Previously theology was like philosophy. It was interesting. But he'd now seen some sort of reality in people's lives that he hadn't witnessed before.

Dietrich started university at the age of 17. And as was the tradition in the family, he started with one year at Tubingen University - all his siblings were there, and his father had started there as well. These were really wonderful times of learning for his insatiable mind. But soon, he was transferred to Berlin University where he continued his study in theology. He worked with very eminent theologians who were world renowned, people like von Harnack, Ronald Seeburg, and then later, he was also the favourite student of the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth.

During this time, he had a staggering workload, and he showed his capability. He was doing his doctoral dissertation, but he was also taking on Sunday school classes, which were more educational in those days. And he ended up, not just having one class, but all the classes combined. And then he also selected certain young men who he felt showed some sort of extra promise or interest in learning, and he created what he called the Thursday circle for extra teaching and discussion. And all of this experience at this time at university made him think that perhaps an academic theological pursuit wasn't where he was headed, and perhaps it was more the job of a pastor.

Well, his parents were absolutely horrified at this idea. They knew that their son was gifted intellectually, and they didn't want him wasting away in some remote parish somewhere. At the age of 21, he had completed his dissertation, which is our equivalent of a PhD. But he was still far too young to be ordained. And so he continued his academic work, and he completed a second one. But then at the age of 24 he still had a year to go before being ordained, and so he got himself a fellowship to go and study for one year at the New York Union Theological Seminary.

This was the opportunity of a lifetime. But as Bonhoeffer arrived on the shores of New York, he had no idea what was happening in Germany at that time. News didn't travel very quickly, but when he arrived in New York, the German elections were in progress, and the results of these elections were really shocking. You see, there was a tiny party with 12 members, and in this election, they won so many seats that they became the second largest party in the nation. This political party was led by a man called Adolf Hitler.

Bonhoeffer knew nothing of the changes in Germany. As he stepped off the boat in New York, it was the Jazz Age, and he walked into the complete opposite of everything that he'd experienced in Berlin. Berlin was famous for its conservative tradition, it was an intellectual stronghold, and I think Bonhoeffer was a little arrogant when he was introduced to the theological college. He really felt that he should be teaching there, rather than sitting there as a student. He had sat under von Harnack, who was world renowned, and he had little respect for the theology that was being taught in this New York Bible College. In fact, he wrote, "In New York, they preach virtually everything. Only one thing is not addressed - the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin, forgiveness, death and life."

However, despite this, and despite his initial arrogance, this was actually a turning point in Bonhoeffer's life, and thank God for this. And also thank God for a little bit of humour here, because Bonhoeffer came feeling so superior academically, but his life was changed.

One of his fellow students, a man by the name of Frank Fisher, who was an African American, introduced him to his church, an African American church in Harlem in New York. And here there were 14,000 African Americans gathering together. And Dietrich was so impacted by their simplicity and their genuine joy, and also because he heard the gospel preached in such a simple way for the first time. He attended this church regularly, and he got to know the people. He was quite noticeable, with blond hair and blue eyes in the midst of that congregation, and he ended up really loving the music. He bought records of all the Negro spirituals, and he brought them back home with him. Something happened during that time. We don't know exactly what, but there was something that happened, when he saw the reality of converted lives. And the interesting thing was that at that time, because of the racial issues in America, Bonhoeffer was also very much impacted by that. He saw the terrible injustices of the day, and he saw how these African Americans were so unfairly treated and the segregation. He wrote to his brother and said, "It is unbelievable to see this racial prejudice. We have nothing like this in Germany. There is nothing to compare." That is a little bit ironic considering what the next few years would hold.

When Bonhoeffer returned to Berlin, he started lecturing straightaway, and the other thing was, he started attending a church, and he also started taking communion. This was something he hadn't done before. In fact, his family noticed a significant change in him. They couldn't put their finger on it - he was always interested in theology and philosophy and so on, but there was something different now about their son. Even his students noticed a difference. Previously he would lecture them but now, he didn't just want to teach them, he wanted to disciple them. He called them to ask questions so that they would be able to know God.

At 12 noon on January the 30th 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. This was the beginning of the Third Reich. On this very same day, Bonhoeffer was due to give a speech at a radio station, and his topic, interestingly, was on the fundamental problems of the concept of führer. it was interesting that he had written this before Adolf Hitler's rise to power, but he had already felt that there was something wrong, that this idea of this leader, this leader who has total control. He wrote that this would mislead, or he would be a "misleader" to the German people.

Unfortunately, his speech was cut short. We don't know if that was because of Nazi censorship, or if it was just the radio station that cut it off, or even just a technological glitch. But the timing of this speech was really interesting, because Bonhoeffer was the first person to speak out against Adolf Hitler. Perhaps, there was something prophetic in this speech. But no one in Germany could ever guess the extent and fierceness of the changes that were about to happen. Because at this point, Hitler was really, really popular, and people were throwing their support behind this person who was resurrecting the German nation and restoring great pride.

Christel Bonhoeffer, Dietrich's older sister, had married a lawyer by the name of Hans von Dohnányi and Hans von Dohnányi was a really famous lawyer, and he operated in the High Court. And so he was privy to a lot of secret information, and he had heard about this thing called "the Aryan paragraph", the idea that Hitler believed the Germanic race - the blond hair and blue eyes - that they were superior, and that he had plans to throw out all Jewish members of government, people in public service. When Hans von Dohnányi shared this with the Bonhoeffer family they couldn't believe it. In this civilized, highly educated nation, and particularly in Berlin, would anyone accept this?

At this early point in Hitler's reign, Dietrich wrote an essay, because he already knew that Hitler was going to move to try and get rid of all Jews from the churches, the clergy, the theologians, and so on. He wrote this essay with great clarity and urgency, urging the leaders of various churches to stand up against this. But the urgency was missed, and many people just ignored what Bonhoeffer was saying. Soon Hitler did roll out his plans, and pastors, ministers, church leaders all over Germany were expelled from churches if they had any Jewish blood. Soon there were posters around the streets that said things like, "Germans, protect yourselves. Don't buy from Jews." And at this point, people were responding favourably. The fear campaign was working.

Meanwhile, Dietrich's twin sister Sabine had recently married a lawyer who was Jewish. His name was Gerhard Leibholtz and he was lecturing at a university and suddenly, one day, he turned up, and the SA, the Nazi police, were in front of the lecture hall and were turning people away. Soon he was not able to lecture, and a week later, he'd lost his position just because of his Jewish blood. Students had noticed that when they walked down the street, people were crossing over to the other side not wanting to share the footpath with a Jew. This was really shocking - the speed at which that happened and the changes occurred. But even then there were some colleagues and friends who came and spoke to Leibholtz and said, "Sir, I'm ashamed to be called a German. But in a few months, all Jews were expelled or not allowed to attend entertainment venues or cultural events or any activity like that. Soon all Jews were expelled from journalism and the media.

It's really unbelievable in retrospect, but people supported this. At a university, they arranged a rally which they called "The Rally Against the Ungerman Spirit". In this rally, they gathered up all the books by Jewish authors, thinkers, and writers, and they burned them in a symbolic gesture, cleansing Germany. And in that pile of books, were books written by HG Wells, Helen Keller, Sigmund Freud, and, of course, Albert Einstein.

Hitler himself did not believe in God and he was very cynical towards the church and its leaders. He once said that Christianity was a weak and flabby religion. He hated the weakness that it promoted, as he put it. And in fact he would say that if you get all the clergy or the church leaders in a room, and you just ask one question, you will watch them shrink and shrivel in embarrassment. That's how Hitler thought. But in 1930, in Germany, 100% of the population was Christian of some sort - nominal perhaps, but they would have said that they were Christian.

So Hitler had to tread carefully. On Hitler's side, though, there were many other leaders like Himmler, who was the head of the SS, who also had an agenda to destroy Christianity, to rid the country of this and to ensure that the Nazis had total control of everything, including the churches.

In the 1920's, there was a subtle movement called the German church. These were the so called "German Christians". It came out of the defeat of World War I and that humiliation. But these were people who were more nationalistic, and Hitler used this, seeing an opportunity here. And so he offered his support to this German church, as it was soon called.

If we look at this, I think it can be a lesson for all of us. So many Christians didn't even notice the subtle changes. And in fact, there were many leaders, theologians, etc, leading Christian speakers, who are throwing themselves behind this new German church movement. Hitler did this quite subtly. But soon, after all the Jewish pastors and ministers were expelled, they starting to talk about how the Bible itself wasn't really from God and that the Old Testament needed to be removed. Soon they were removing parts of the New Testament as well. And the leader that they appointed as head of the German church stated that the voice of God is the voice of the people. They completely changed the doctrine. Hitler wanted to promote what he called "positive Christianity". "Away with the negatives," they would say, "Away with a focus on sin and the death of Christ. We want to focus on liberty, purification."

And that is exactly what they taught. They taught that God had chosen the Aryan people, and their true Savior was Adolf Hitler. Nominal Christians were swept along, Christians who were totally asleep, were swept along with all of these changes, and there were very few people who stood against this tidal wave that was washing over Germany.

Bonhoeffer was one of the few people who recognized this immediately for what it was, and he resisted these changes. And it wasn't only him, he was also joined by a man by called Martin Niemöller, and Niemöller was the head of a resistance movement. He wanted to stop Hitler from taking control of the churches and having a say on everything that was done within the buildings. And so they started this thing called "The Pastor's Emergency League". They wanted people to join together and support the Jews who had been expelled from their position. In fact, Bonhoeffer had tried to organize a general strike for all clergy to stand down just to stand with their brothers and sisters who had been impacted by Hitler's laws. But people didn't want to do it and so it didn't happen. But with the Pastors Emergency League, with Niemöller as well, they managed to get 6000 people to sign up, which showed that there were people in Germany who were really aware of the changes that were happening, but perhaps weren't brave enough to stand up on their own. This became known as the Confessing Church. They tried to work to ensure that the truth of the gospel was still taught.

But Hitler had a plan and a clear agenda. Soon, he was not just impacting the churches, but he was ensuring that all theological colleges, Bible colleges, seminaries, all of those types of places, and schools, were teaching the "German church" doctrine of Positive Christianity, and all other Bible colleges were completely illegal.

Now, this is when the Confessing Church realized they had to act, and so they decided that they would make their own little Bible colleges, hidden away in remote areas across the nation. They wanted to ensure that the truth of the gospel was still taught, that the people of the next generation would know what a Christian was. That was their concern. Bonhoeffer at this point was actually in London, ministering to a German congregation there, but he was called back to lead a seminary and he was sent to a place called Finkenwalde. This was on the Pomeranian border and it was quite a remote area in a small village. It was in an old schoolhouse where students would come and yes, be illegally taught, and then they would go on and become pastors. Now, Bonhoeffer really relished this opportunity, despite all the political unrest and all the issues that were happening in Germany at the time. He really loved this opportunity to disciple young men to become leaders of the day.

Now, interestingly, he was only 29 at this time, so he himself was very young, and it was a very hard job, because they had no resources and, being illegal, they had to keep their heads down. But the village of Finkenwalde was very supportive. They didn't like Hitler and so they threw their support behind pastor Bonhoeffer and his young men. One day, one of the farmers came because food was hard to find, and Bonhoeffer awoke to find a pig tied onto the front door with a little tag reading, "To pastor Bonhoeffer".

Twenty-three students started that first session. Bonhoeffer was so touched by Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew five, six, and seven. For him, this was the key to how Christians need to live, and how they need to live together. He wrote two books that came out of the learning from this time. He wrote "The Cost of Discipleship", and also "Life Together".

He wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." That's how he really felt, that if we are serious about living for the Lord in every aspect, then everything must be for Him, your intellect, your reputation, you must be willing to give your career or your desires, your ideals, everything for Him. And that's how he taught these students at Finkenwalde.

He taught through lectures and preaching and there was often lively discussion, but he also taught them strict personal discipline. He felt that this was really important. And for him, and he wrote this in "Life Together", it was a privilege, but not just a privilege, it's a necessity for Christians to live together in community. He said, "Living together is living in and through Jesus Christ. That's the only way."

But his focus on personal discipline, and how it's part of everyday life, received a lot of criticism. In fact, his former teacher, Karl Barth, said to him, "You're not running a monastery, you are running a Bible college here, a seminary." But for Deitrich, he believed, "In responsible, obedient action, in concrete, everyday life, in private and in public."

So, the students were responsible for the running of the place as well. One student recalls how he rolled out of bed one morning and rushed to the morning devotions, and when he came back mid-morning, he found pastor Bonhoeffer making his bed. It was very embarrassing. But that was the detail which they were taught - that they needed to get their lives right as well.

Bonhoeffer wanted to instil in these young men the truth of the gospel so that they would then go on to make disciples. He felt the urgency of this considering the time in which they were living and the fact that many churches were compromising around the entire nation. Many people had now believed that this Nazification of the gospel was the gospel. He wanted to ensure that that wasn't the case. He wanted to get these people to go out and make more disciples.

Here, in this first group of students, Bonhoeffer met his best friend who would be his confidant and also the person who would keep and later publish all his letters and writings. His name was Eberhard Bethge, and he became very probably the closest friend to Bonhoeffer.

In two years, the Gestapo found out about all these illegal seminaries, and they were all closed down. But about 100 Students had passed through those walls during that time, and little did anyone know at that point, how few of them would actually go on to be pastors. More than half of Bonhoeffer's little flock there were killed in World War II, or imprisoned and killed in concentration camps. And others of them, the ministering they did was on the front line on a battlefield.

In the middle of the night, in November of 1938, Hitler ordered the SS to go through Germany and target Jews. It was retribution and revenge, but it was also an opportunity. The SS ran through the streets of Berlin and the streets of the various big cities of Germany, smashing Jewish businesses, dragging Jews out of their homes and their families, and killing and beating people. Synagogues were burned, houses were burned. It was absolutely unthinkable what occurred that night.

This perhaps began the next chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life. It had an huge impact on him, and he had an inner restlessness, what some people called perhaps holy anger. He marked in his Bible that day a particular psalm, and he wrote that, to touch God's people is to defy God, to shake your fist at God, to touch God. How could he let this happen and just standby?

Well, war was nearing, and already Germany had invaded parts of Europe, and everyone knew that they were on the brink of war. This also meant that in Germany conscription was already happening, and Bonhoeffer, now just 30 years old, knew that he would be conscripted, and they had information that he definitely would be called up.

Again, the family sprang into action, Dietrich himself knew that he did not want to fight in Hitler's war. He knew more than most people about what was going on, and he refused to fight. So his family sprang into action this time, and they contacted various people they knew - they knew so many people across Europe - and they managed to get him a position in New York, to work there amongst the German refugees, and also to do some teaching. This was a position that was made for him, and the paperwork was done very quickly. A week before he was called to the army, everything had been finalized. And when he was called up, he was able just to hand over the paperwork and he was excused.

In June 1939, he arrived in New York again. And as he got off that ship he realized he had made a terrible mistake. This was not where he needed to be right now. He had no peace at all. In some ways, when he thought about this whole situation, it seemed that the Lord had orchestrated this, it all happened so smoothly and he'd managed to get this position, and out there he was going to escape the war entirely. He wouldn't need to fight in Hitler's war. But he certainly had no peace whatsoever. And as day passed to day, he felt with great clarity that he was wasting his time, and that every day that passed was a lost opportunity. He knew that he needed to get back to Germany.

People were quite shocked at this and that they thought, "You've just escaped! You don't want to take the next ship back!" But that's exactly what he wanted to do. He felt that if he could not be there amidst the trials with the brothers and sisters who were struggling through this time, then he had no right to be there afterwards to rebuild. He wanted to be there. And so he returned, after just 26 days. Back in Germany, it wasn't long before World War II was declared.

Already Hans von Dohnányi had discovered so much of the atrocities that were happening in Germany, and not only in Germany, but also in parts of Europe. Hans von Dohnányi, the brother-in-law of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, working in the High Court, was privy to a huge amount of information. He knew about the atrocities that were being committed in Poland against the Jews. He realized that the Jews were being targeted to the point of perhaps being even exterminated - that was the word that was being used. And not only that, but he had heard about the euthanasia program that Hitler was about to roll out. It was a program that meant that midwives would have to kill any baby born with a birth defect or disability. In a few years, 5000 babies were killed.

Hans von Dohnányi started a secret file. He wanted to ensure that these people were brought to justice in the end when the war was over. And so, although it was extremely risky, he collated evidence of all of these things, and he called it "The Chronicle of Shame". Later, it became known as the Zossen files.

But it was at this juncture in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life that he realized that he was already embroiled in so much conspiracy, not only through his brother-in-law, and through the fact that he was privy to all this secret information, but also because he was already supporting other family members and other people that he knew who were working in the inner circle against Hitler. They were known as the resistance. He had been supporting these people, and he knew what was going on.

It's at this point that many people feel there are contradictions in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life. How can a man who is so clear on living God's way, who wants to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, throw himself behind plots and schemes to assassinate Hitler and to bring down the Nazi Party, thereby ending the war? How could he throw himself into that and truly support it as a godly thing to do? Bonhoeffer himself really struggled with this. He thought through this because it wasn't easy for him, and he wrote, "If I sit next to a madman, as he drives his car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of that driver." Bonhoeffer knew that he was in a unique position. He was in that passenger seat, so close to the driver, and he really did feel that he had a duty to his nation, the people, the believers and also to God's people, the Jews. He knew more than the average person about what Hitler was doing. He knew about the concentration camps and the gas chambers. He knew about what was happening to people with disabilities, and he felt that there was no way in clear conscience he could remain inactive. We don't know if he said this, or if this quote was just attributed to him, but he said, "Silence in the face of evil is evil itself, and not to act is to act, not to speak, is to speak."

Things were changing very quickly. A church gathering he was invited to speak at was broken up. Niemöller himself had refused to sign his unconditional allegiance to Hitler, and so his phone had been tapped. He'd been followed, his house had been searched, and he'd been taken away to a concentration camp. Dietrich Bonhoeffer himself was now forbidden to travel, preach, speak or write, and he knew that he would inevitably be called up for service. This was when his brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnányi spotted a possible solution. Already von Dohnányi was working for the Abwehr. the Abwehr was the German military intelligence. It was like the Gestapo, just like the FBI is like the CIA, but they were quite separate - The Abwehr didn't associate with the Gestapo and the Gestapo didn't associate with the Abwehr, so you could be safe there, and you wouldn't be called up for service.

The thought was that Bonhoeffer could be a civilian and employed by the Abwehr as a civilian spy, and in this role they wanted him to operate as a double agent. He would have a front - his front was actually true, he was going to be a pastor, and he would, through the Abwehr, be able to travel through Europe. The official position was that he was gathering information about what the allies were doing and bringing it back to Germany for military intelligence. But actually, what he would be doing was going to Europe to give them information, acting as a courier, to support the assassination plot and to ensure that the allies were able to support them in this, and also in forming a new government quickly afterwards. So his role as a courier meant that he would be traveling, and he would be able to pass things to people, and he also would be able to visit many of the students that were scattered all over the nation and to ensure that he could continue discipling them in whatever way he could. He talked about this with his family and Eberhard Bethge, his good friend, and they felt it was it was a good option. And so he took the position. He was now a double agent for the Abwehr.

This was a very lonely place for Bonhoeffer. Many people on the outside, people who were close enough to know that he joined the Abwehr, thought that he'd compromised, that he somehow changed sides. They wondered if he'd left his faith. And then other people were so disappointed that he was not signing up for military service, that he was not patriotic and supporting the nation. And so he had criticism from every side. In fact, even his former teacher, Karl Barth was shocked and disappointed in his former pupil. But, of course, he couldn't put any of them straight, and he just had to continue on.

The speed of World War II is unbelievable, and many people who were close to Hitler, his generals, saw the huge conceit of Hitler, his incredible self belief. And many people who were close felt that Hitler was mad. The things that he wanted to do and achieve were just unthinkable. But then they saw the speed at which the war had taken off and the initial successes of Germany. But there were many generals who knew that Hitler would ultimately bring the country down.

The first assassination plot was in 1943. This was known as Operation Flash, and it was something that, although Bonhoeffer wasn't directly involved, he had been involved in couriering information. The Gestapo had already started to get suspicious of the Abwehr, but at this point, they knew that they had a chance to act. Hitler was going to be taking a chartered flight from one city to another, and one of the generals was actually a double agent. He had a bottle of brandy, very expensive brandy, that he was going to give us a gift. This bottle of brandy was in its beautiful casing, but in the bottle itself, there was a bomb. He handed this case over to another general, who then took it - they were used to receiving gifts - and they put it in the luggage carrier of this small aircraft. Hitler and his closest men boarded the airline and they flew. The resistance knew that the bomb had a 30 minute detonator, so they had already calculated exactly where the plane would be when it would explode. They had already put plans into action, and they knew that they would be able to come in quickly and form an interim government - all these plans were ready to be enacted. That plane landed safely, and they realized that that bomb had failed to detonate. Now they had another problem. They needed to get that bomb off the plane, because if anyone found it the assassination plot would be discovered and the resistance itself might be discovered. Miraculously, they managed to hand that case of brandy to someone who was a double agent, and they managed to get that bomb off the plane without being discovered. A week later, another attempt was made on Hitler's life, and that too failed.

Through his role in the Abwehr, Dietrich was not only involved in carrying information, and providing the allies with information about what Hitler was doing, but he was also starting to help get Jews out of the country. In fact, he'd already started with his own sister Sabine and Gerhard Leibholz. They had left fairly early on, and he'd made sure of that - he'd driven them himself across the border and they were now living in London. But things were becoming a lot more difficult. The Gestapo is starting to get suspicious of the actions of the Abwehr, and they starting to pry into their work. Soon the Gestapo noticed some irregularities in foreign currency transactions, and they traced this and worked out that this was perhaps something to do with getting Jews into other parts of Europe. This led to the arrest of one particular person who was actually a good friend of Bonhoeffer. The resistance knew that it was only now a matter of time, because in the Gestapo interrogation and prisons, the torture was such that very few people could withstand it, and they knew that names would be given.

Sure enough, on April 5th 1943 Bonhoeffer made a phone call to Hans von Dohnányi, and an unfamiliar voice answered the phone. He immediately hung up and knew that the arrests were beginning. But he was very calm. He went to his sister's place, she cooked him a large meal, which he ate with relish and then returned and put his papers in order. He knew his room and his study would be searched, and so he destroyed certain papers and kept certain papers. He even wrote certain papers for the Gestapo's benefit, to lead them down garden path a little bit. And then he waited, and sure enough, a black Mercedes came and took Bonhoeffer away.

Now there's no time to go into all of this, but at that point in Bonhoeffer's life he was engaged. He had met a wonderful, bright young lady by the name of Maria. She was a brilliant mathematician, and when they met both of them had fallen in love with each other. Maria's mother, and she only had her mother at that point, was not at all thrilled with the match. For some reason, she didn't feel that marrying a double agent with the Gestapo on his heels in the middle of a war was the most secure option for her young daughter. But thankfully, after a while, she realized that it was good, and she gave her blessing to the engagement. As Maria said, she didn't want to convince her mom, but she wanted her mom to give her blessing, and that's what her mother did. But three months later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested and now Maria was alone. She didn't know where he was - no one knew. But of course, she and the Bonhoeffer family had contacts and they managed to work out that he was Tegel Prison. Soon Maria became a great support to Bonhoeffer during his time in prison. They exchanged letters, she visited him, and she moved in with his parents. She did some work for the father, Karl Bonhoeffer, but she was also a wonderful support to the Bonhoeffer family.

Tegel Prison wasn't as bad as the Gestapo interrogation prisons, but it was still pretty horrific. This was where Bonhoeffer was being held. He had one thing with him, his Bible, and the strict discipline that he had maintained all his life he transferred to prison. Every morning, he would spend time in the Scripture, meditating, praying, and he had a very strict routine. And soon the guards realized that they had a very high-profile prisoner in their midst and so they gave him some privileges, more letters, a bit more correspondence. Dietrich took great advantage of this and he wrote prolifically, wrote to his family, to Maria, to many other people, encouraging the brethren. At this point, the Abwehr resistance knew that their plots had not been discovered - the Gestapo still didn't know, and the arrests that occurred were due to those irregularities, and the fact that they knew that Jews had been helped through the Abwehr, but nothing yet had been discovered. So all of the resistance, who were in scattered in prisons, had the strong hope that very soon Hitler would be dead, and all of them would be released and the war would be over. They used codes to communicate, and the Bonhoeffer family was very well set up for this. They were able to borrow books, and family members would bring books, and they would have a code - some sort of formula that would start at the back. There would be a dot under one particular letter on one particular page, and then you go a certain number of pages, and there'd be another dot, and in that way they could string together maybe one sentence throughout a whole book. In using these codes, they managed to know what the Gestapo did know, and what they didn't know, and also they managed to get news from outside. They also knew what had been asked by the Gestapo of various members.

Even in prison, Bonhoeffer was able to be a pastor. He encouraged a lot of the guards. And they would joke that he almost had a Bible school at the prison, the Tegel Curriculum they called it. He was counselling and praying for people, and on top of that, he was busy reading and writing. His letters to Maria were full of optimism and hope. They talked about their life together afterwards, even their plans for their honeymoon.

But on his 38th birthday, Bonhoeffer received a code in a book. The code said that the Gestapo had taken over the Abwehr and Admiral Canaris, the head of this secret resistance, had been stood down. The assassination plot had to be passed on to fresh hands, and Dittrich knew that an attempt on Hitler's life would have to be made very, very soon. There was a sense of optimism, that any moment now they would be free.

Things were in motion. A man by the name of Claus von Stauffenberg was the one now in charge. He was due to meet with Hitler and some of the key people and in his briefcase he was going to hide a bomb. Everything was planned perfectly. Stauffenberg arrived at the location. He was invited in. He brought in his briefcase, he had a moment to himself where he detonated it. He knew it had about 10 minutes, he placed the briefcase under the table, where Hitler was gathered with all his men, and then he excused himself. He walked out with about three minutes to spare. He tried to control himself to walk, not to run, from the building. As he turned around, he heard a huge explosion, blue flame leaping out the windows of this home where they were meeting, this military headquarters. He saw that the ceiling collapsed, and he heard the cries. And amidst the carnage, the ceiling of that room had collapsed, the great oak table where all the generals and Hitler himself had been seated was in splinters. The glass was broken, people lay dead and wounded, and there was a fire.

But Hitler himself had not even been injured. It was simply the unusual placement of that briefcase - somebody may have moved it - and the central oak leg of that table had in some way protected Hitler. Hitler took this as Providence. He believed that the Fates had made it so that he was preserved so that he could continue his work. But that night, the Resistance members in and out of prison, heard on the radio Hitler vowing in no uncertain terms to hunt down anyone and everyone who was part of that assassination plot.

Many of the Resistance members took their own lives. They feared that under interrogation, they would reveal too much and put other people at risk. Soon enough, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans von Dohnányi and the other members of the Resistance were moved to a Gestapo interrogation prison. We don't know much about this time. But we do know from other people who went to the same prison, that for many, this place was described as the Gates of Hell. We have glimpses. Some people wrote a little bit from meeting Dietrich. And we also know that many of the wardens were won over by Dietrich, even in this hellish place, the Gestapo interrogation prison, they referred to his pure noble soul. They saw such peace in him, so much so that many of them described him as when he steps out of his cell, he was like a country squire stepping out of his manor house, so peaceful and calm.

As if he were not in that horrible place, he continued to encourage his fellow prisoners. He would write notes on scraps of paper, verses, to be passed from cell to cell. Despite all of this, Bonhoeffer really did struggle during this time, and we know this because he wrote some poetry. He wrote about the fear and the loneliness, and also the idea of how was he meant to live? Who was he? He knew how people saw him and the comments that people made about the peace that he had, but there were times when he didn't feel that. There were times when he was very afraid. He wrote a poem called Who Am I? In his poem, he talks about how other people see him, and how he sees himself, and the confusion, and how he really feels. The last lines of this poem:

Who am I?
They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest O God.
I am Thine.

At this point, the Allied air raids had begun on Berlin, and soon the Gestapo prison itself had been bombed, and all the prisoners had to be transferred to concentration camps. Bonhoeffer was transferred to Buchenwald. At this point, the prisoners were hanging on, they were starved, freezing, but they were hanging on because they could hear the American guns. They could hear that, even though they knew nothing of what was going on in the outside world. They knew that the war was coming to its end, and they had hope that soon they would be free, that the Americans would walk in and everyone would be released.

Dietrich was now with a whole lot of other prisoners, fairly high-profile prisoners - British intelligence officers, Russians, etc. He was bundled up with probably about 16 of them and they were transferred to another place to be held. Here we have some information because one of the British intelligence officers, Captain Best wrote about his meeting with Bonhoeffer. It was Sunday morning after Easter, and they were all together. They were being held in an old building in a remote village called Flossenbürg. Here they gathered together and they knew that Bonhoeffer was a pastor of some sort. So they asked him to speak to them. And he did. He read from 1 Peter chapter 1, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you." This is the text that he spoke on, and Captain Best wrote that, "Bonhoeffer spoke to our hearts".

He finished praying, and the door was unbolted and two plainclothes Gestapo officers came in calling for prisoner Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer and all the others knew what this meant. It was definitely goodbye. He asked Captain Best to remember him to his good friend, Bishop Bell in London, and then he drew the Captain aside, and he said to him, "This is the end. For me, the beginning of life."

By specific orders of Adolf Hitler himself, at sunrise the next morning, Deitrich Bonhoeffer was sentenced to execution. He was led to the gallows, and a doctor who was working there, watched as this man, this good man, knelt to pray, and prayed fervently to God for the last time. He mounted the steps of the gallows completely composed, and the doctor, who at this point had no idea who Bonhoeffer even was, wrote, "I have hardly ever seen a man so entirely submissive to the will of God".

The rope was placed around Dietrich Bonhoeffer's neck and in the next moment, he was with his God, the God who he had served with all his zeal. He was 39 years old. Three weeks later, Hitler killed himself. And a week after that, the war in Europe was over.

Three weeks! Many would look on this and feel the tragedy. The death of this man just moments before the end of the war. In Flossenbürg they could hear the American guns. Why? Why was he taken right at the end?

But Bonhoeffer, I don't think, would see this as any sort of tragedy. For him, it was a privilege to give everything to Christ. He lived an authentic life, totally faithful to his calling. He used his God given gifts and the immense privileges he had to make a stand, to make a stand against the massive compromises of the churches at that time, to make a stand for God's people, the Jewish people, and to stand side by side with fellow believers, encouraging them, discipling them, showing that they had a strong foundation and the truth of the gospel.

I want to finish with something that Bonhoeffer himself wrote. But more importantly, something that he lived:

"Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought, again and again and again. The gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly, because it calls us to follow and it is grace because it causes us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs a man his life and it is grace because it gives a man his only true life. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son. You were bought at a price and what has cost God so much, cannot be cheap for us."