The Pastor Who Knelt at the Gallows

On April 9, 1945, just two weeks before Allied forces liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was led to the gallows. The camp doctor who witnessed the execution later wrote that in nearly fifty years of medical practice, he had never seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God. Bonhoeffer knelt on the floor of his cell and prayed, then walked calmly to the scaffold.…