Bonhoeffer's Final Morning

On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer woke in Flossenbürg concentration camp knowing he would not see another sunrise. The German pastor and theologian had spent two years imprisoned for his role in the resistance against Hitler. He had lost his pulpit, his seminary, his freedom — and soon, his life. Yet the camp doctor who watched Bonhoeffer prepare that morning later wrote that he had never seen a man go to his death so entirely at peace. Bonhoeffer knelt in prayer, then walked steadily to the gallows. His last recorded words to a fellow prisoner were simply: "This is the end — for me, the beginning of life."

Bonhoeffer had fought the good fight. When it would have been safer to remain silent, he spoke. When the German church capitulated to Nazi ideology, he resisted. When escape to safety in America was offered, he returned to Germany, writing to Reinhold Niebuhr, "I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people."

Like the Apostle Paul writing from his own Roman prison, Bonhoeffer could say with absolute certainty that the Lord had stood at his side. He did not cling to this life because he trusted the One who held the next. The crown of righteousness awaited — and he walked toward it without flinching.