Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Last week I talked about Che Guevara and the worship of a man that done terrible things in the name of his cause and why he should not be viewed as a hero or be on a shirt. So now this man should be on a tee shirt and is a true hero in my book. His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. What he did is started a movement of peace and love when his country geared up for war. He country was Germany the war that is being started by his countrymen is World War 2 and this is a brief on his story.

He grew up in a home where morals where taught even tho his father Karl Bonhoeffer was an atheist he still let his mother teach about the word of God and even helped and worship with them at Christmas. His brother was a famous Chemist Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer who help discovered the spin isomers of hydrogen. He to was an atheist. In fact when he came to his parents and told them he wanted to become a theologian his whole family beg him not to do it. Then when he became a Pastor they had trouble with dealing with that as well but in the end his parents where proud of him and the stand he made against evil. Even going so far as to help him in his struggle to keep Nazism outside of the Church.

His first battle with the Nazis happen two days after Hitler's election on February 1 1933. He made a speech speaking out against The Fuhrer Principle on the radio that was cut sort by the radio station but accident. He stated that anyone that any leader that put himself before God has turned himself into a false God. He stated in this speech.
 “…if he does not continually tell his followers quite clearly of the limited nature of his task and of their own responsibility, if he allows himself to surrender to the wishes of his followers, who would always make him their idol – then the image of the Leader will pass over into the image of the mis-leader, and he will be acting in a criminal way…The true Leader must always be able to disillusion…He must lead his following away from the authority of his person to the recognition of the real authority of orders and offices…He must radically refuse to become the appeal, the idol, i.e. the ultimate authority of those whom he leads.”

“Only when a man sees that office is a penultimate authority in the face of an ultimate, indescribable authority, in the face of the authority of God, has the real situation been reached…Alone before God, man becomes what he is, free and committed in responsibility at the same time…Leaders or offices which set themselves up as gods mock God and the individual who stands alone before him, and must perish.” 

His second clash against the Nazis started when they wanted the German Church to support The Aryan Paragraph of course the so called German Christians wanted to pass this Paragraph that prevented Jews from being in any high level position in the Church education or government. Many lost their jobs because of it. Which in response and some reluctance from his fellow pastors who did not like the Aryan Paragraph started the Confessing Church Movement to combat the Nazis move into the Church. They tried everything to shut him up and his movement even going as far as placing him outside the country to England and when he was causing more trouble for them their than he with the British press they threaten him and the pastors under him. Making threats to their families if they did not stop with their ways but they refused to give in.

Now skipping ahead to the the plot to kill Hitler and Operation Valkyrie. This was late in the War and he returned to his country from America feeling that it was his duty to go back and be with his movement. When he got back he took a job with an intelligence group in his country rivals to the SS. their job was to help the war but what Bonhoeffer was doing was helping as many Jews as he could to escape Nazi work camps. He got involved with the plot to kill Hitler shortly afterwards. He was not going to be apart of the killing. No his job was to use his connections that he made during England to make peace with the allies. He did this because he felt he could not stand by as the killed the Jews off in his country and around Europe.  But the allies did not want to hear his pleads and the other plotters decided to take it into their own hands and do so without peace with the allies. The plot failed which lead to the round up and executions of everyone involved eventually including him in April 9 1945 Just three weeks shy of Hitler killing himself and the end of the war. He been bounced around from prisons to concentration camps to keep him from being saved by American troops who were close to them on the front. He died a true hero and is what we all should be as followers of Christ.

I will leave you with a poem that he has written while in prison called Who am I

If you want to learn more about his life here is a link to buy Eric Metaxas book Bonhoeffer.