Dietrich Bonhoeffer is, deservedly, one of the most well-known resistance figures of the Second World War. One of the few Germans to speak out against Hitler and the Nazis at the height of their power, he preached against the persecution of the Jews and condemned the Nazi euthanasia program. He became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, a faction of German Protestants committed to resisting Hitler’s takeover and the consolidation of the German Evangelical Church that emerged in the 1930s.
Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943 and, after being incarcerated at Tegel Prison for over a year, he was sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp. Although the historical record is inconclusive about his involvement, Bonhoeffer was accused of being part of the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. He was hanged on 9 April 1945, as the Third Reich collapsed. Both his imprisonment and execution are portrayed in the final scenes of Bonhoeffer, the new biopic by Angel Studios.
Predictably, Bonhoeffer’s portrayal in the film has triggered a vigorous historical debate. The docudrama is compelling, although extensive creative liberties were taken with regard to his involvement in the July 20 plot (the subtitle refers to him incorrectly as an “assassin”), and the nuances of Bonhoeffer’s theological views—and the tensions between his pacifism and his resistance activities—are left entirely unexplored. Some reviews, such as Joel Looper’s in First Things, have been scorching, and fair enough: the “based on a true story” disclaimer was definitely warranted.
The film has given Bonhoeffer scholars cause once again to accuse conservatives of ‘hijacking’ Bonhoeffer; many insist that, in his bestselling biography, Eric Metaxas portrayed Bonhoeffer as an American evangelical rather than the complex German theologian that he was. And indeed, Bonhoeffer’s theological views were, in many instances, far from orthodox. But it must be pointed out that it isn’t just conservatives who wish to claim Bonhoeffer. I suspect Bonhoeffer would be appalled to see how progressives are using his name, as well.
Take Angela Denker’s review for Slate.com, titled “I’m Pretty Sure Dietrich Bonhoeffer Would Have Hated Bonhoeffer.” Denker bemoans the pain of watching “the right slowly claim one of your lifelong heroes” while vigorously straw-manning American evangelicals. Denker—a female pastor—claims that a Bonhoeffer relative told her that the famous pastor would be “turning in his grave” to see his words being used to, for example, oppose “women’s reproductive rights.” But Bonhoeffer rather unambiguously referred to abortion as “murder”:
Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And this is nothing but murder.
A great many different motives may lead to an action of this kind; indeed in cases where it is an act of despair, performed in circumstances of extreme human or economic destitution and misery, the guilt may often lie rather with the community than with the individual. Precisely in this connection money may conceal many a wanton deed, while the poor man’s more reluctant lapse may far more easily be disclosed. All these considerations must no doubt have a quite decisive influence on our personal and pastoral attitude towards the person concerned, but they cannot in any way alter the fact of murder.
Who, exactly, is recruiting who? Pro-lifers do not need to ‘recruit’ Bonhoeffer—he identified abortion as murder before we were born and was also a rigorous opponent of all forms of euthanasia. Bonhoeffer’s views certainly defy the simplistic political categorizations to which we are accustomed, but it is absolutely fair to point out that he would be “turning in his grave” to see his name used to defend a procedure he referred to as “murder,” considering that he was willing to risk death and face execution in opposition to a regime built on murder.
