by Alex Rankin

Landon Middle School, Topeka, Kansas
Junior Division Historical Paper, National History Day 2006 Competition

“Daring to do what is right, not what fancy may tell you,
valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting—
freedom comes only through deeds, not through
thoughts taking wing.

Faint not nor fear, but go out to the storm and the action,
trusting in God whose commandment you faithfully follow;
freedom, exultant, will welcome your joy.”
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER penned this poem during his last days, knowing that his death at the hands of the German SS was imminent. He awoke early on the morning of April 9, 1945, inside the walls of Flossenbürg concentration camp, well aware of the fate which awaited him. Guards marched to his cell and ordered him to remove his prison garb in one final attempt at humiliation.As SS officers mocked him on his walk to the gallows, Bonhoeffer remained committed to the convictions for which he was about to die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged as a traitor to his country, but loyal to the beliefs he held sacred. An SS doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s execution wrote, “I was most deeply moved by the way this loveable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer…. He climbed to the steps of the gallows, brave and composed…I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”Bonhoeffer took a courageous stand against the madness of the German government, and paid the ultimate price for doing so—death.

 

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