In my book, Eternity through the Rearview Mirror, I profile seventeen historical figures, from Galileo to Johnny Cash. I let these people speak to us from their heavenly vantage point. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not in the book, but my research for people who loved Jesus led me to him. So here is Dietrich, speaking to us from the heavenly realm. It’s a biography that’s an autobiography! His story is an amazing one, a true man of God. I pray that it is inspiring for you. (His actual words are in quotes.)

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

 

It seems appropriate to begin my story with my last words: This is the end—but for me, the beginning—of life. 

 

I was a theologian who could not justify war; to love each other as Christ did was the only way for me. I did not yet know the strength or depth of my convictions. It was the dark evil of Nazi Germany that caused me, a pacifist minister, to become a spy—and eventually, a martyr.

I was 24 in 1930s Berlin, and had already earned bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees. To young to be ordained, I went to America for additional study. There I became close friends with Harlem Pastor Frank Fisher, and he made a profound difference in my life. First he introduced me to Gospel music, which I loved. (Back home during study breaks, I would lead my serious German friends in rousing renditions of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.) Then he showed me what it was like to live under a cloud of racial bigotry. I never forgot either one of those things.

Ordained in 1931, I led a life dedicated to writing, lecturing at Berlin University, and promoting world friendship through my employment at the World Council of Churches. That work allowed me to move from an intellectual love of God to the practical teaching of the Gospels, and I made many international connections which would serve me well later on. Ways in which I could never have imagined; ways in which I would never have wanted to imagine.

Hitler rose to power in 1933. The German people, despondent from their World War I defeat and resulting devastating economic depression, saw Hitler as their ‘savior.’ This was a fearful, anxious, and wrong reaction; I became an outspoken critic of the Christian churches and pro-Nazi sentiment such as this: “Christ has come to us through Adolph Hitler!” That’s what people like Julius Leutheuser, a leader of the Lutheran church leadership, were saying. In protest, a few of us created The Confessing Church. “Jesus, not Hitler, is the only Savior,” we adamantly proclaimed. 

Criticizing the Third Reich leveled an intense scrutiny upon me and I was ordered to stop teaching and writing. Of course, all I did was go underground. Terrified at the thought of being drafted and having to swear allegiance to Hitler, I legitimately sidestepped that obligation by joining Abwehr, a military group that was secretly the center of anti-Hitler resistance.

Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. November 11, 1938, a planned series of attacks; German police and non-Jewish citizens demolished 7,000 Jewish businesses, 1,000 synagogues, Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools. Their sledgehammers became maniacal extensions of their hatred as they smashed windows and covered the streets with many thousand shards of glass. People were killed and 30,000 Jewish people were thrown into concentration camps. The world became dark and sinister.

Freedoms were taken away from everyone, no matter their race. Even listening to the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) on the radio could get you executed for treason. And that was only the beginning. From deep inside Abwehr, I came to learn the full force of the Nazi atrocities.

Trying to make sense of all this, I found myself rethinking my pacifist stance. Fearing for my life, I fled Germany to work in America. I soon realized my mistake in running away and quickly returned. The ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation shall continue to live.

[After I died, my sister-in-law Emmi explained my change of heart was like that of a passenger in a car who suddenly realized the driver was a madman, bent on crashing into a crowd of people. “You can’t stand by to just care for the wounded after they are injured. No, you must do what you can to wrest that steering wheel away,” she said.]

So, I became a double agent. The government thought I was making legitimate contacts for them, but I was really a courier for the German resistance movement, exposing plans and strategies of the Hitler regime. As I could, I helped many Jewish people escape to safety.

Amidst all this I did find some happiness. I fell in love with Maria von Wedemeryer and we became engaged. (Maria loved my eyes; she said they could see her soul.) Shortly after our engagement in 1943, however, my association and activities with the spies of Abwher was discovered, and I was imprisoned. I loved Maria with everything in me, and our many letters to each other were full of hope and love; we planned a life together. I wrote with such fervor, as if the intensity of my passion would somehow shorten that prison time. “My beloved Maria, be tenderly embraced and kissed and loved, more and more, by your Dietrich.”  Those two years of imprisonment did nothing to diminish our devotion. “Wait with me, I beg you! Let me embrace you long and tenderly, let me kiss you and love you and stroke the sorrow from your brow,” I told her.

I was really needed in that evil prison. Fellow prisoners sought me out and I ministered to them. I was able, by the strength of God, to care for, comfort, and counsel them. And when I learned of a rescue operation orchestrated by my friends, I had to stop them; fearing it would put their lives in jeopardy.

Even while in prison I never regretted my decision to return from the shelter of America. The diary I wrote survived, and through my suffering others were strengthened. I am sure of God’s hand and guidance. You must never doubt that I am thankful and glad to go the way which I am being led. My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.

In 1945, Abwher’s botched plot to kill Hitler was exposed, and I was moved to Buchenwald concentration camp. Hitler then ordered all Abwher conspirators killed. As a result, I was transferred to Flossenburg concentration camp, and there hanged until I died to the world.

The Lord gave me limitless faith, courage, and conviction. I wrote about the role of persecution and suffering that plays in life. Each has a different share: some God deems worthy of the highest form of suffering, and given them the grace of martyrdom, while others He does not allow to be tempted above that they are able to bear.

It was a small thing God asked of me. I was rewarded with infinite peace and joy here in heaven, and that was my true beginning.

*****

There are hundreds of Holocaust Museums in 27 nations around the world. Click here for a reference list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_memorials_and_museums

More about Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the United States Holocaust Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/search/results/?q=Dietrich+Bonhoeffer