The Movie Bonhoeffer (A Review)

Last week my wife and I went to see the Bonhoeffer movie with some friends. I had read several reviews and was looking forward to critiquing the merits of the film for myself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has had a profound influence on my life since I first read his book The Cost of Discipleship in college. During my years in ministry I continued to read his published works, as well as books others had written about him. His concept of “religionless Christianity” fascinates and challenges me—in other words, Jesus without religion! He remains one of my spiritual guides on how God’s people are to faithfully live in the world.

The movie Bonhoeffer has been attacked by some progressive theologians as an attempt to paper over Bonhoeffer’s moral struggle with the rightness or wrongness of his conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. They accuse the movie of portraying Bonhoeffer as a right-wing activist who felt moral clarity in his decision to rid the German nation of Hitler.

If the objective of the movie was to show the horrors of racism, antisemitism, and Christian nationalism, I think the film accomplished its goal. On the other hand, the real Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s personal struggle with the rectitude of his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler is, admittedly, tempered. I did not feel, however, the movie’s neglect of exploring Bonhoeffer’s conflicted conscience over what action he should take was a betrayal of the man. Bonhoeffer the movie succeeded in opening eyes to the dangers of Christian nationalism, and its accompanying evils, when the German church had lost touch with the Jesus of Scripture. For me, this was the essential message of the movie, and this historically accurate connection to the real Bonhoeffer made the price of admission more than worth it.

It is true that the real Bonhoeffer struggled with his part in the conspiracy against Hitler. He believed Hitler to be an evil leader, but he also was aware of passages in Scripture that acknowledged that all government authority had been established by God (Rom. 13:1). If he was part of a plot to kill Germany’s Fuhrer, would he be acting contrary to God’s will? Bonhoeffer did not have moral clarity as to what he should do. In fact, the real Bonhoeffer believed that moral clarity was always an illusion due to humanity’s sinful nature.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1924

In the movie this spiritual struggle is not clearly presented, and that is an unfortunate weakness, but, in my opinion, it does not invalidate the movie. The criminal actions of the Nazis in the film are clearly portrayed, and any viewer with a moral conscience would readily identify with Bonhoeffer’s outrage. It would have been unthinkable for Bonhoeffer not to have taken action.  With fear and trembling—not moral certitude—he joined the conspiracy, and when told that his involvement would mean getting his hands dirty, the movie Bonhoeffer replied, “All I have are dirty hands.” In admitting that he would get his hands dirty, Bonhoeffer understood that he would stand guilty before God regardless of his actions, hardly the response of a man who had moral clarity.

In a further defense of the movie, there is a scene where Martin Niemoller, a German pastor and theologian, delivers a scathing sermon against the Nazis with several party members present. Niemoller explains to his congregation that for too long he has stood idly by and done nothing to protect the weak and innocent from Nazi brutality. The courage that Niemoller displays in the presence of uniformed Nazis is breathtaking. The movie shows Bonhoeffer listening intently to this sermon. I can’t help but wonder if this is the movie’s way of showing what finally drove Bonhoeffer to act.

Martin Niemoller

Knowing the dangers of Christian Nationalism in our own country, my radar was sensitive to any ideological propaganda the movie might try to thrust upon an unsuspecting audience. While the movie did take some liberties with the historical record of Bonhoeffer’s life—his part in the conspiracy, for instance, was minor, while the movie showed him playing a major role. Moreover, he was not terribly mistreated in the concentration camp as the movie depicts. He was allowed writing material, books to read, food parcels, and visitors—I found, on the whole, the story to be a meaningful attempt to capture the difficult faith decisions faced by Bonhoeffer.

The German atrocities committed during the 12 year reign of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945 are well documented, with the brutal murders of millions upon millions of people. It is almost incomprehensible that a cultured and highly educated people like the Germans could be guilty of such savagery. But under the bewitching spell of Hitler the German nation lost its way—and its soul.

Adolf Hitler / Archive Photos / Getty Images

As a side note to the movie, Judge Otto Thorbeck, who sentenced Bonhoeffer to death just days before the war ended, received the same kind of religious and educational training as Bonhoeffer. Both of these men read the same books, attended the Lutheran church, and grew up in an enlightened country, yet one supported Nazi tyranny and the other opposed it. We need to remember that espousing the Christian faith does not necessarily mean that it has taken root in a person’s heart. Throughout the 2,000 years of Christendom, evil has often lurked behind the mask of Christianity.

When Bonhoeffer visited the United States in the 1930s, he was taken aback by our country’s overt racism, as the movie correctly shows. He found the treatment of Black people deplorable. He recognized that only a thin line separated what was happening in Germany with the Jews from what could happen in America with Black people. Interestingly, from Bonhoeffer’s letters and written articles we learn that he was far more impressed with Black churches in America, with their zeal for God, than he was with White churches, with their tepid theology and preaching. 

The truth of the matter is, the real Bonhoeffer can’t be aligned with either the right-wing or left-wing of our political spectrum. Bonhoeffer was only 27-years-old in 1933 when Hitler came to power. For the remainder of his life (he was executed at age 39) he would grapple with how he could remain faithful to Christ in a supposedly Christian nation that had bowed to a golden idol in the person of Adolf Hitler.  

Everything he wrote from 1933 onward was influenced by National Socialism’s dark shadow on the German church. Most German churches and pastors willingly submitted to the populist movement that swept across Germany in the 1930s. Restoring Germany’s national pride and economic prosperity were more important to the masses than faithfully following Jesus Christ.

As a young pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer viewed what was happening in the German church and grew perplexed and alarmed. If the church doesn’t stand up for the weak, the marginalized, the minorities, and the poor, then what good is it? In a letter dated 1942 he asked the question: “Are we [the church] still of any use?”

Bonhoeffer’s question is timeless, and one we must continually ask ourselves—is the church of any use today?