Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in the Nazi concentration camp of Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, just two weeks before the U.S. military came to liberate it.
John W. de Gruchy describes the lead-up to that day in his Editor’s Introduction to Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 8):
On October 8 [of 1944], Bonhoeffer was taken to the cellar of the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, where he stayed until February 7, 1945. From then on, all correspondence came to an end, and contact between Bonhoeffer and the family and [Eberhard] Bethge was broken. From there Bonhoeffer was taken first to Buchenwald and then, via the village of Schönberg in Bavaria, to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he arrived on April 8. That evening he was tried by a hastily rigged court and condemned to death. Early the next morning Bonhoeffer was executed along with several other coconspirators.
He was hanged April 9. His family would not learn about it for several months.
The July before he had written to his trusted friend (and later biographer) Eberhard Bethge, one day after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. He wrote:
How should one become arrogant over successes or shaken by one’s failures when one shares in God’s suffering in the life of this world? You understand what I mean even when I put it so briefly. I am grateful that I have been allowed this insight, and I know that it is only on the path that I have finally taken that I was able to learn this. So I am thinking gratefully and with peace of mind about past as well as present things. …
May God lead us kindly through these times, but above all, may God lead us to himself.
His final recorded words before his hanging–appropriate in this Lenten season that is about to give way to Easter–were:
This is the end–for me the beginning of life.
This post is part of “Tuesdays in Lent with Bonhoeffer.” See other gathered posts here.
Words on the Word 
Love the inspiration and happiness radiating on your blog, Thank you friend 🙂
Thanks!
I’m looking for the source of a quote I’ve heard attributed to D. Bonhoeffer: “I used to be a bearer of the Gospel, now it bears me!” I like the quote, but cannot find its author. Does anyone know? Kindly share with me if you know. THANK YOU.
Rev. Charles Updike
I’ve never heard that quote before–not sure it’s Bonhoeffer, but I don’t have any leads one way or the other. Thanks for stopping by the site!