The Last Words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On April 9, 1945, at Flossenbürg concentration camp, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer knelt in prayer before his executioners. He had been arrested two years earlier for his role in the resistance against Hitler. Fellow prisoners later recalled that he went to the gallows with a quiet composure that stunned even the guards. His final recorded words, sent through a fellow prisoner to his friend Bishop George Bell, were simply: "This is the end — for me, the beginning of life."…