The Pastor Who Defied the Third Reich
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident whose life provides one of the most powerful modern examples of faith in action. He was a man who moved beyond intellectual discussion to embrace what he termed “costly grace”—the willingness to suffer and pay any price for following Christ. His story is a profound challenge to believers, illustrating that true faith requires not only a defense of the truth but also active resistance to evil.
The Call to Discipleship
Born into a prominent, intellectual German family, Bonhoeffer was academically brilliant, completing his theological dissertation by age 21. However, his faith was radically tested when the Nazi party rose to power in 1933.
The central conflict of Bonhoeffer’s life revolved around the German Church’s complicity with Adolf Hitler’s regime. He quickly recognized the existential threat the Nazis posed to the Christian faith, as the state attempted to co-opt the church for its nationalist, anti-Semitic agenda.
Bonhoeffer became a founder of the Confessing Church (a movement that resisted the Nazi-controlled state church) and ran an underground seminary. During this time, he penned his most famous work, The Cost of Discipleship. In it, he sharply distinguished between:
- Cheap Grace: Grace that is offered without discipline, repentance, or obedience—a doctrine he felt the state church was preaching to justify its inaction.
- Costly Grace: Grace that “is the sanctuary of the living Word of God… it is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.”
For Bonhoeffer, genuine faith required a complete break from any religious practice that did not align with the literal, active following of Christ, regardless of personal cost.
Espionage, Imprisonment, and the Ultimate Testimony
As the war progressed, Bonhoeffer realized that active political resistance was required to stop the atrocities. He abandoned his commitment to pacifism and joined the Abwehr—the German military intelligence agency—which was secretly a nucleus of the German resistance dedicated to overthrowing Hitler.
This choice was not an act of cynicism but the logical extension of his faith. He believed that failing to act to protect the innocent was a greater sin than breaking a vow of non-violence. He wrote extensively on “doing the small evil for the greater good.”
In 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two years. During his confinement, he wrote deeply moving letters and fragments that were posthumously published as Letters and Papers from Prison. He grappled with profound questions about what it means to be a Christian in a **”world come of age”—**a world that seemingly had no need for God.
In his final months, his connections to the failed 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler (the “July Plot”) were discovered.
“By faith [Bonhoeffer] endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:27, KJV – A principle demonstrated in Bonhoeffer’s cell.)
On April 9, 1945, just weeks before Germany’s surrender, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossenbürg concentration camp. A camp doctor later testified that, just before his death, Bonhoeffer knelt and prayed, departing this world with a serene and composed spirit.
His life remains a beacon for the faithful, teaching that true conviction must be prepared to face the world’s power structures, even unto death, in the defense of truth and humanity.