Bonhoeffer

This film is a tremendously powerful account of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian martyr who fought the Nazis, and died at their hands only thirty days before the Germans surrendered in 1945.

It encompasses the best of humanity, and the worst. Bonhoeffer fought evil in the name of Christ, while his opponents were disciples of the Devil, led by that psychopathic megalomaniac Adolf Hitler. While Bonhoeffer and his associates went to their deaths professing the Gospel, the swine who killed them continued to carry out the orders of the Nazi hierarchy, even when it was obvious that the war was lost.

The film displays courage, and cowardice, as even despite the threats of the Gestapo and the SS, and the horrendous fate meted out to so many, Bonhoeffer never wavered in his defiance of Hitler, while so many either yielded, or collaborated with the demons who had turned Germany, and then Europe into a prison, where normal people were made to live in a nightmare.

Apart from Bonhoeffer himself there were others who stood up to be counted, not least Martin Niemoller who, after a short period during which he mistakenly sought to accommodate the Nazis, saw the light, defied them, and spent eight years in concentration camps, eventually surviving the war. He is famous for his well known statement:

"First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me".

Of course at times it is not easy to put truth before self preservation, and there are very many of us who would not be brave enough, so those who did, and do, are true heroes.

Another whose efforts to save people from the fascists is covered in the film, was Bishop Bell of Chichester, who gave what help he could to Bonhoeffer, as Christianity was being suppressed in the Nazi Empire. Indeed one of the last messages from Bonhoeffer before his execution was to Bell "Tell him that for me this is the end but also the beginning - with him I believe in the principle of our universal Christian brotherhood which rises above all national interests."

It is a disgrace that Bishop Bell's reputation was unfairly besmirched after his death, by unfounded accusations, which the Church of England was finally obliged to admit were not true. In November 2021, the Archbishop of Canterbury retracted the previous claim that there was a significant cloud over Bell's reputation, and announced that a statue of him would be erected on the west front of Canterbury Cathedral.

My wife and I did not know the actors, not the production company, but this film deserves acclaim as a expose of light versus dark, of Christian revelation versus the worse excesses of men's hearts, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know the truth about the most evil regime ever to have existed, and the brave people who defied them. It should be required viewing in schools, to show to those stupid children who shout anti semitic hate, that they are associating with the worst of humanity.