Kneeling on the Floor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew he was going to die. The Nazi prison guards had told him. In hours, he would be hanged for his role in the plot against Hitler.
On April 9, 1945, the prison doctor at Flossenburg watched Bonhoeffer prepare for execution. What he saw astonished him.
"Through the half-open door, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to God," the doctor wrote. "I was deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer."
The Cost of Discipleship
Bonhoeffer had written from prison: "Suffering is the badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master."
He had practiced what he preached. In "The Cost of Discipleship," written before his arrest, Bonhoeffer had warned against "cheap grace"—the grace that demands nothing. Real grace, he argued, costs everything.
Now, facing the gallows, Bonhoeffer proved he meant it.
The Beginning of Life
"This is the end—for me, the beginning of life," were his final words to a fellow prisoner.
The doctor concluded: "In the almost 50 years that I have worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."
