Pastors Against Hitler: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Church Struggle in Nazi Germany

How Much of an Impact Can One Person Make?

Can one man make a difference in a nation that denies its citizens basic rights, makes war against its neighbors, uses its power to destroy the Jewish race, tries to control the message of the Christian church, and kills Christian leaders who resist? All of these events occurred in the nation of Germany, beginning with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.

In order to conform the Protestant Church to the racial ideals of National Socialism, Hitler led a campaign to nazify the Protestant Church in Germany. Shockingly, there was no great outcry on behalf of the Jews or against the nazification of the Protestant Church. But that does not mean no one stood on behalf of the Jews or for the sanctity of the German Protestant Church. Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of those men who stood. He, along with Martin Niemoeller, Karl Barth, and a few others resisted Hitler’s efforts at nazification of the German Protestant Church with both the written and spoken word … and their efforts at resistance were not without cost.