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 Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
FLOSSENBURG
PRISON April 9, 1945. Today the controversial theologian
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, along with other members of the
Admiral Canaris resistance group, was executed here
by hanging.
Bonhoeffer
went calmly to his death. This morning as he was led
out of his cell, he was observed by the prison doctor
who said: "Through the half-open door I saw Pastor
Bonhoeffer still in his prison clothes, kneeling in
fervent prayer to the Lord his God. The devotion and
evident conviction of being heard that I saw in the
prayer of this intensely captivating man moved me
to the depths."
The
prisoners were ordered to strip. Naked under the scaffold,
Bonhoeffer knelt for one last time to pray. Five minutes
later, he was dead.
Bonhoeffer
was condemned for his involvement in "Operation
7," a rescue mission that had helped a small
group of Jews over the German border and into Switzerland.
The 39-year-old theologian had also been involved
in planning an unsuccessful assassination attempt
on the life of Adolf Hitler. His participation in
the murder plot obviously conflicts with Bonhoeffer's
position as a pacifist. His sister-in-law, Emmi Bonhoeffer,
cited his reasoning. He told her: "If I see a
madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders,
then 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 the driver."
Interestingly,
Bonhoeffer had safely escaped the troubles in Europe
and gone to teach in New York in June, 1939. He abruptly
returned less than a month later saying: "I have
had time to think and to pray about my situation,
and that of my nation, and to have God's will for
me clarified. I have come to the conclusion that I
have made a mistake in coming to America. I shall
have no right to participate in the reconstruction
of the Christian life in Germany after the war if
I did not share in the trials of this time with my
people. Christians in Germany face the terrible alternative
of willing the defeat of their nation in order that
civilization may survive, or willing the victory of
their nation and thereby destroying civilization.
I know which of these alternatives I must choose.
But I cannot make that choice in security."
Bonhoeffer,
even while in prison, maintained his pastoral role.
Those who were with him spoke of the guidance and
spiritual inspiration he gave not only to fellow inmates
but to prison guards as well.
In
a letter smuggled out of prison Bonhoeffer showed
no bitterness but rather explained how, "We in
the resistance have learned to see the great events
of world history from below, from the perspective
of the excluded, the ill treated, the powerless, the
oppressed and despised... so that personal suffering
has become a more useful key for understanding the
world than personal happiness."
POSTSCRIPT:
In the same month that Bonhoeffer was hanged, on April
30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide. Seven days later
Germany surrendered.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's Products
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