Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin- Great Thanksgiving Weekend Movie: Review

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin- Great Thanksgiving Weekend Movie: Review – In Theaters Now

This is the second movie our staff has viewed by Angel Studios, and it’s every bit as incredible as the first (Cabrini review here). You can also learn more about the Nazis and how they were able to get ordinary people to go along with their plan. You can also learn about Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who rescued more Jews from concentration camps than anyone, including Schindler.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a German pastor living and working in Berlin. He watches as the German Lutheran Church is literally taken over by the Fuerher.

In the start of the movie, we witness his brother’s departure for the military during the first World War. His brother doesn’t survive his journey.

Years later, we see the preacher in the pulpit, who is a colleague of Bonhoeffer, declare Hitler as the savior of Germany.

This does not sit well with the protagonist, and he says as much to the pastor who preached the sermon. He reminds him of the importance of focusing on Jesus, not on a human man or Hitler. As the movie continues, we learn about the Mein Kampf book which all of the churches were now expected to display instead of bibles. Basically, the Nazi party took over the church in Germany. Any priest who did not fall in line was immediately removed from society and usually killed.

The hero of this story would not take this new development idly, but he also didn’t want to die if he could avoid it. As a cursory Wikipedia glance will show you, he was eventually executed, so being a biography, this isn’t really a spoiler because it’s a real life story. It is, however, upon the actions he took in his life and the strength of his faith, convictions, and morality that this film focuses.

Contrary to the understanding of many, morality is a universal concept, and one’s religion is not important to having a moral code. For many, their ethics and morality come from their faith, but this is not necessary.

What’s so interesting about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is that he could not and would not compromise his guiding principles. Discipleship, or being a true disciple of Christ, was the main way he lived his life, and he also tried to pass it on to others as their pastor and teacher.

The movie is set mainly in 1945, with the story jumping back to earlier in his life multiple times. On one occasion, he was transported back to Harlem in New York City where he was friends with a young black man who was also a pastor, but he was part of the Baptist church. We see Dietrich participating wholeheartedly in their religious celebrations, and he was invited to the home of the older pastor for dinner as well. There they discussed what the German Church was like, which was not as emotionally stimulating as the Baptist mass he had just witnessed.

Pastor Bonhoeffer and Baptist pastor friend. Image Credit – Angel Studios

Later during that meal, the head pastor suggests they visit Washington DC together. As stated before, this pastor had an uncompromising ethical sense. This also applied to his total lack of racism.

While they were in DC, his black friend asked him to rent them a room, and then they could both go up. This was probably intended to be a demonstration of the racism that was there in that segregated state, but it quickly turned dangerous when the hotel owner pulled out his shotgun and hit Dietrich in the face with it. He had never seen racism or ethnic based hatred before, but he would soon come to know it very well.

As the insidious evil that was the Nazi regime spread across Germany, people began to learn the hatred of ‘the other,’ whether that other was the mentally disabled, Jews, gypsies, or anyone else the Nazis believed were inferior. As we watch the film, you can see the spread of this treacherous, penetrating hatred across Germany and other areas.

During this time, he returns to Germany from America, where he then sees this demonstration of evil. He is taken from Berlin, essentially kidnapped to prevent his being captured by the Nazis, and is brought to his friend’s church outpost where he is asked to become a professor again of the young students.  He had been a professor before the war started as well. He does so joyfully, but this is the beginning of the war which would continue to get worse.

At some point during the war, he learns of the church’s plan to assassinate Hitler. He participates in assisting this effort,  which miserably fails.  There were a number of assassination attempts on Hitler, and an excellent book on the topic is Church of Spies, by.  , which looks at the secret hand of the Catholic Church and its pope in their attempts to kill our unseat Hitler secretly.  To this day, most people are unaware of these plots because, in order to keep their priests safe and alive, they pretended to go along with the Nazis, but this was not the whole story.

Bonhoeffer also is able to find through his foreign connections $100,000 to pay Switzerland to take seven Jews they’ve rescued on the way to a concentration camp. The Swiss border guards make it clear that the Jews (overall and the seven requesting asylum) aren’t welcome there. When the money is brought out, they are accepted into Switzerland. Unfortunately, these two acts (assassination participation and the money laundering) were easily traced back to him.

Bonhoeffer at the Swiss border with the Jews he rescued. Image Credit – Angel Studios

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The movie begins to conclude, and the noose starts to tighten around him. The pastor he was friends with, Pastor Niemoffer, finally has had enough, and preaches the truth from the pulpit, going so far as to tell the German soldiers in attendance that they aren’t welcome there, knowing full well that this means his death. That night, Dietrich is at dinner with this pastor when the Nazis bang on the door. The pastor is taken away, and Dietrich and other members of his friend’s family are able to leave, with orders that they are under house arrest.

Pastor Niemoller as he is taken away by Nazis. Image Credit – Angel Studios

Shortly after this, he escapes to America, but soon thereafter he returns to Germany. It will be his end to do so, and he knows and accepts his fate. Literally two weeks before the war ends, he is executed in front of his family. He accepts his sentence patiently, knowing it will save his family to do so. Escaping would mean their death, and when that opportunity is offered, he rejects it.

Although murdered by the Nazis, he is still a hero to the Jews and other downtrodden people. We know so much about his life because he wrote enough to fill 34 volumes, as we are told at the end. His life should be an inspiration to all who feel that they cannot be silent in the face of evil.

This movie is highly recommended, and I give it 5 stars!

Banner Image: Bonhoeffer poster. Image Credit – Angel Studios