values - Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) (2 videos)

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer was most likely the first victim of Nazi censorship. On February 1, 1933, just a couple of days after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of the German Republic…

Two days after Hitler was installed as Chancellor, Bonhoeffer delivered a radio address attacking Hitler, in which he warned Germany against slipping into an idolatrous cult of the Führer (leader), who could very well turn out to be Verführer (mis-leader, or seducer)."
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

In a radio address titled “The Younger Generation’s Altered view of the Concept of the Führer,” Bonhoeffer warned that if a leader surrenders to the wishes of his followers, “then the image of the Leader (Führer) will gradually become the image of the misleader (Verführer).” Although his microphone was mysteriously switched off before is unmistakable evidence of the clarity with which Bonhoeffer viewed the Nazi threat (Stephen R. Haynes and Lori Brandt Hale, Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians, 29.)"
source: http://bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/dietrich-bonhoeffers-radio-address-on-february-1-1933/

"Human persons ~ especially young people ~ will have the need to appoint a Führer to lead them until they feel themselves sufficiently mature, strong, and responsible to fulfill in their own persons he claim that they make of this authority. The führer must be responsibly aware of this lear limit to his own authority. If he understands his function otherwise than in keeping with the nature of the matter, he will fail to inform clearly those who he leads about the limitation of his task and about the responsibility which is genuinely incumbent upon this task. Those who he leads will always want him to embody their idol. But if he lets himself be carried away by the people, and accepts this expectation, the image of the Führer will slip over into the image of the seducer /Verführer/."
-- excerpt from Bonhoeffer's radio broadcast, February 1, 1933
source: Google Books: 'Dietrich Bonhoeffer: a life in pictures' by Renate Bethge, Christian Gremmels

.. from the 2003 film, 'Bonhoeffer', an excerpt of narration: "The church has three possible ways it can act against the state.  First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate.  Second, it can aid the victims of the state action.  The church has the unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society even if they do not belong to the Christian society.  The third possibility is not just [to] bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself."
source: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/bonhoeffer/particulars.shtml

posted on Youtube by OmniChristianVids2 on May 29, 2010 — Mike Huckabee talks to author Eric Metaxas about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Pastor who stood up to Hitler's evil against the Jews at the cost of his own life. To see OmniChristianVids2's Huckabee Youtube playlist, visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/OmniChristianVids2#g/c/4E351D461EAD6DBD

posted on Youtube by firstrunfeaturesnyc on April 30, 2007 re the film 'Bonhoeffer', A Film by Martin Doblmeier, available for purchase at http://firstrunfeatures.com/bonhoefferdvd.html

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the first, and strongest, voices of resistance to Adolf Hitler. An acclaimed preacher, pacifist and author, Bonhoeffer came to the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on a teaching fellowship. When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1932 he had a new awareness of racial prejudice and challenged Christian churches to stand with the Jews in their moment of need. Bonhoeffer eventually joined the unsuccessful plots to assassinate Hitler and was executed three weeks before the end of the war

A comment quote: "God bless Bonhoeffer for his bravery. He did what all Christians should have done-resisted the idolatry and evils of the third reich. Let this be a lesson for all of us."

The Nazi regime executed Bonhoeffer by hanging him on April 9, 1945, just three weeks before Berlin fell. He is commemorated as a martyr by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Church of England and the Church in Wales.

related:
http://www.bonhoeffer.com
http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/heroe30a.htm
http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2009/10/07/12256/bonhoeffer_lectures_will_examine_political_violence_and_cycles_of_never_again

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