(interference on radio) - [Man] That the guts
of the German Army have been largely torn out. (speaking in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) - [Man] With my blessing,
we shall prevail, over the unholy
forces of our enemy. ♪ Baby won't you
please come home ♪ 'cause your Mama's all alone ♪ I have tried in vain ♪ Never know more
to call your name ♪ When you left
you broke my heart ♪ 'cause I never
thought we'd part ♪ Now every moment of the day ♪ You can hear me say ♪ Baby come on home
I need your loving ♪ Baby ♪ Please ♪ Come on home (typewriter keys clicking) - [Man Voiceover] If
newspaper was my wife, radio became my mistress. But don't blame me for my
infidelity to the facts. My work in newspapers
gave me the permission to transcend the truth. My name is Sefton Delmer and
I was the first newspaper man to interview Hitler in 1932. At first I thought he
was a harmless crackpot but eventually I saw
him for what he was. An aggressive threat to
Europe, perhaps even the world. After I got kicked out
of Germany, in '41, Churchill and the War Cabinet
got me thinking about creating a fake radio program to
help bring down Hitler. Naturally I loved the idea. (gentle piano music) I assembled a team to
create these so-called black propaganda broadcasts. My good friend Ian
Fleming joined to help me with the script writing. Agnes Bernelle, a
young German refugee and talented actress,
became our radio star Vicky. Approximately 80% of our
scripts were real news. The other 20% were
carefully concocted lies. Agnes would read these
scripts over the radio. Using the most powerful
transmitter in Europe we could broadcast
signals into Germany, tricking the enemy into
thinking they were listening to real German radio stations. The goal of our black propaganda was to turn the German
people against the Nazis. To demoralize the German
soldiers and oh, most of all, to give the Germans something Hitler didn't want them to have. Jazz. - You were right about her. Radio doesn't do her justice. - Otto my friend you should've
seen her in Fine and Dandy at the Seville Theater. - [Otto] I can only imagine-- - Delmer do you want to work or just tell jokes
with your friend? - Oh I'm sorry but
this is his first taste of black propaganda. - It's much nicer
than I expected. - And you are? - Ah forgive me
this is Otto John, one of the July 20th fellas
who managed to escape. He may join us as an
expert on the Resistance. - Agnes Bernelle, sideshow
in Delmer's circus. - I must say it is a
pleasure to meet the girl who once instructed all
good German citizens to send their morning
urine to the Fuhrer in a small bottle. - I heard it took three
weeks to flush those things through the German
postal system. - That was one of
my better ideas. Fleming, Ian Fleming, Special Assistant to the
Director of Intelligence, His Majesty's Navy. - Please to meet you. - You know, when
this war is over, I'm going to write the spy
novel to end all spy novels. And you're going to be
in every one of them. - Well that's if the
doodlebug rockets don't get us first. Tom are we actually going
to do this thing tonight? - Mm hmm. - [Agnes] Where's Howard I
thought he was going to play General Beck? - He had to cancel. Something about wanting
to write the script. But I think my
German will hold up. - Okay well I'm
ready when you are, this song's just about over. - [Otto] So, this
is your war of wits. - Total war. I must warn you. In my unit we're up to
all kinds of dirty tricks. The dirtier the better. Lies, treachery, everything. No holds barred. If you're at all squeamish about what you may be
called upon to do against your fellow Germans, you're no good to us. What do you say? (tense music) - Mr Delmer, my friends
have given us their lives to rid Germany of this Satan. Whatever you ask of me, whatever quickens
the defeat of Hitler, I consider it a
continuation of the work of my countrymen. Otherwise, those who died in
Valkyrie were the lucky ones. And those still alive in
Germany will have hell to pay. - [Delmer] The
German underground made an assassination
attempt on the Fuhrer, at least their 20th, led by Colonel Stauffenberg
called Operation Valkyrie. But the bomb's explosion
didn't kill the madman, only perforating his eardrum
and singeing his pants. An indignity that made him
as furious as death itself. - 120 people were either
executed or took their own lives in order not to be
tortured by the Gestapo and then betray names
of their friends. (shouting in foreign language) - [Delmer] Soon all those
involved found themselves in the crosshairs of
the German Gestapo in Freisler's People's Court. - Even though the Gestapo
was rather dimwitted it did not take too much
creativity to figure out the Resistance was primarily
the old upper class. When you look at the
list of those hung, you have all the names
that made Prussia great. Moltke, Schwerin,
Schulenburg, Yorck, and so on. - [Delmer] After the
initial executions, the dragnet expanded to
included anyone suspected of being involved in the
assassination attempt. This included theologian and
pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German who was a
nuisance to the Nazi Party and had been for years
speaking out actively against the Fuhrer. Such boldness had landed
him in Tegel Prison. - [Bonhoeffer Voiceover]
I'm still discovering right up to this moment that it is only by living
completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this worldiness I
mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems,
successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In doing so we throw
ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously not
our own sufferings but those of God in the world. - The time in Tegel Prison
after the failure of the coup, it's from this moment on
when he has to reckon with his own death. And he's enamored with this
figure of Moses on Mount Nebo. Moses, who gets to look
into the Promised Land but will not enter it, that's Bonhoeffer
and the conspirators. - [Bonhoeffer Voiceover]
Grant me to witness, through the veil of
death, my people, at their high triumphant feast. I fail and sink
into thine eternity but see my people
marching forward, free. Stay, hold my nervous hands
that fall on my staff. Thou faithful God,
prepare me for my grave. - Some of the records will
say that he with others pretty much felt
their fate was sealed and that it was over. That there lives
would likely end. But you know as the weeks
went on I'm not so sure that if I was in his place
or any of us would know that that's truly a possibility, but I think they
had also seen enough serendipitous stuff
happen, I would still guess that they thought
there was a slim chance that somebody might
intervene and they could see the next month and
years of their life. (speaking in foreign language) - [Delmer] The Allies were
pushing their way across France towards Germany. Our radio broadcasts were
of course already there, serving up a daily delicious
blend of fact and fiction, to whoever might be listening. By 1944 I had long since
traded decency for deception, throwing myself
completely into the work of crushing Nazi Germany. How many listeners believed
our black propaganda, we never knew, but enough
successful reports came in to make me hope there were many. It was hard work,
but also quite fun. (upbeat music) - You do know that nobody will
be able to see your lipstick on the radio. - I know, but you will. - There's wine on the Rhine. Two barrels have broken
and lost their spirits. - Is that code? - Just as we hope, we
lured them over the Alps with the false
coordinates we broadcast and they ran out of fuel. (laughing) - What do you know your black
propaganda actually works. - Recently we even had the
SS arresting each other. - Mostly we just keep those
faithful German soldiers worried sick that their wives
aren't quite so faithful. - And if those soldiers die,
Sefton sends cheery letters to their families to make them
think they're still alive. - Why? - Spreads rumors, breaks morale. - Second one in sixth months. - [Fleming] What about me? - I think the coordinates
were Sefton's idea. If I remember correctly
you were busy creating sexist names for your
future spy novels. - Now what shall
we report today? - I have an idea. - Let's hear it. - We finally announce
the formal agreement between the German
Resistance and the Allies. - Ian-- - It's time. - You keep pitching that. - Save it for your book Ian. Nobody wants more spies
and double agents. - We have Otto now. - He's here for the details. - Yeah then why-- - Every German resistor
is seen by the Allies as a spy pretending
to be anti-Nazi. Remember the Venlo fiasco? A most unpleasant introduction
to the German Resistance. - That was nearly
five years ago. - Will our audience
really believe that high-ranking Germans
would turn against Hitler? - But they have. We have. My brother Hans and I were
recruited into the Resistance by Klaus Bonhoeffer. The entire Bonhoeffer
family was very anti-Nazi, even before the
start of the war. - This is good Otto. Tell us more. - We would often meet
at the Bonhoeffer home in order to discuss plans
to eliminate Hitler. We were involved in the
attempted coup in 1938. This was a plan
organized by Hans Oster and there were top
generals supporting us. Even the Berlin Chief of Police. Our plan was to wait for
Hitler's order to attack Czechoslovakia and then
with lightning speed seize him in the Chancellery. Professor Bonhoeffer, Head of Psychiatry
at Berlin University, would then declare him insane. Subsequently he would
be removed from power. - What happened? - The world gave in
to Germany's demands. No shots were fire and
Czechoslovakia was erased from the map. Hitler looked like a statesman. No one would've
supported a coup. Our best chance came in 1943. We disguised a bomb as
two bottles of brandy using a captured
British explosive with
a pencil detonator. After months of preparation
we enacted our plan which we called Operation Flash. We managed to give the
bomb to Colonel Brandt, telling him it was a gift, which he placed
on Hitler's plane. We toasted our luck in
getting the explosive right under the Fuhrer. And later that night we toasted
the detonator that failed. It's as if the Devil
is protecting him. - But who would
believe all this? - Why is that so
hard to believe? That a German might act out
of a sense of conscience, and not simply self-interest. Why have you invited
me here if you believe, as Churchill does, that
there is no such thing as a good German. - That's not what I said. - No but it's what you meant. - Listen-- - Klaus' brother,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, managed to get out
of Germany in 1939. He made it all the
way to New York City. It was his conscience
that made him return. - A pastor, taking part in
the assassination plots. - Because of my job
with the airlines I too could have fled. But I followed Dietrich's lead. We were resistors,
for God and country, before Hitler was
losing the war. When we had something to lose. (tense music) - My apologies. Churchill dismissed the German
resistors at Valkyrie as an internal disease, but it was
clear that the German pastor with others was
inspired into action by a deep Christian conviction. But who was Dietrich? One of eight children,
he got his PhD at 21. A man of intellect,
but a man of the world who loved to travel. Cuba, North Africa, Mexico, he loved the bullfights
of Barcelona. He had lived in
America for a year, much of his time in Harlem. - Bonhoeffer loves life
and he savors life. One time when Karl
Barth sent a cigar by way of Eberhard Bethge
to Bonhoeffer in prison, Bonhoeffer responds,
this is a sacrament. This is a kind of
savoring of life. - [Delmer] This likable
misfit was also part of a highly educated and
well-connected family. (crowds chanting) When Hitler came
into power in 1933, Germans were ready for
something more than the chaos of Weimar and humiliation
of World War One but it seems the Bonhoeffer
family was one of the few who didn't think this was
the rebirth of Germany. - The interesting part
of the Bonhoeffer House in Charlottenburg, during
those years I think was the coming together of
so many important people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the
confessing church pastor and in some ways was
a fly on the wall because gathering there
would be his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnányi, who
some would claim was the intellectual head of
the July 20th plot. Rüdiger Schleicher and
his brother-in-law, and his brother Klaus
had key parts to play in that plot as it unfolded
and I'm sure they found in the house on the
Marienburger Allee, a safe place of trusted people. - It turns out that
several in that family, especially Hans von
Dohnányi was high placed in the military counter
intelligence, the Abwehr. So the Bonhoeffer family
had access to information about the medical experiments, later on about the
concentration camps, so Dietrich Bonhoeffer
understood the degrees of hell in that land. - Oster and Canaris, at
the recommendation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's
brother-in-law,
Hans von Dohnányi, recommended that Dietrich
Bonhoeffer be employed, and used by the Abwehr,
military intelligence, because of his ecumenical
contacts and his relations with parts of the world
where they thought the Nazis could use some good
public relations. Even though his past had
shown some resistance to the National
Socialist regime, the argument they used was that
the Abwehr and intelligence uses all kinds of people, not just people who've
been loyal to the Reich. - [Delmer] So Bonhoeffer began
visiting his allied contacts hoping they could convince
Churchill to recognize the Germans plotting
Hitler's assassination. One such trip, in 1942,
took him to Norway under the guise
of official work. But his real mission
was to contact the local resistance movement. Accompanying him was another
agent, Helmut Von Moltke, and their time
together, in many ways, brought the ethical challenges
of the Resistance into focus. - The two went together,
they came to Sassnitz on the Isle of Rugen and
there was ice on the sea and the ferry boat wouldn't go. So they had the
night in the hotel and the whole morning for
themselves and they decided they would go to
the Stubbenkammer, the very famous chalk cliffs. And they had four and
a half hours to talk. I have tried for years
to find out what the two have talked about. I was so frustrated in
the end that I thought the beech trees would tell me
what they had talked about. I said this as a joke
to my family members because I wanted to go
there and see the place and we went there and
the beeches didn't, the beech trees didn't
tell me anything. And then we went to
Kreisau in Silesia. And I heard that the
Countess Moltke had said well Bonhoeffer and my husband
couldn't get together because Bonhoeffer was
talking like a scribe in the New Testament,
they are the scribes. And in that moment I knew
what they had talked about because they had talked
about the passage in Bonhoeffer's ethics which
he had just worked out. Namely is it allowed to
kill the head of state. And especially is it
allowed for Christians who follow the commandment
thou shalt not kill. (tense music) - I think it's too easy to
try and force him into saying he was or was not a pacifist or was or was not an assassin. He knew he was living in an
incredibly complex situation. Now he deeply respected
the pacifist position. He wanted to go to India
to learn from Gandhi about non-violent resistance. He knew the cost of
war he'd lost a brother in the First World War. You know what do you do, do
you preserve your innocence and therefore incur the
guilt of doing nothing. - Bonhoeffer says
we live in a country where the head of state orders
the death of innocent people in their thousands day per day. And the only way we can
stop it is that we kill him. And therefore God leaves
us free to do this as he left his son Jesus
free to heal sick people on Sabbath day. And Count Moltke said
you can't compare that. - [Keith Clements] But
he says both militarism and rigid doctrine pacifism don't really deal
with the question of how you act responsibly. You've got to face what
is your duty towards God and the test of that is
what is going to happen to other people. And I think that
question troubled him
during the resistance and he had to counsel
people in the Resistance who were facing that dilemma. - I think when someone asks
what did Bonhoeffer actually do this is what he did. He speaks from his faith about
the context that we are in, then what Christ is
actually calling us to do. Why our faith compels us
to do something different than what Nazi Christianity
is asking of us. - His choice to be part
of the conspiracy I think, in the end, wasn't
actually a choice. He knew that it was necessary. He knew that there were only
a small handful of people who understood. - [Delmer] Back in Tegel
Prison the Nazis moved closer to evidence of
Dietrich's involvement in the assassination plot. Soon Bonhoeffer was forced
into stricter quarters. They transferred
him to the dregs of Prinz Albrecht
Strasse number eight. The hellish prison
in the basement of the Gestapo Headquarters. Later, after surviving
massive Allied bombing, he was transferred to the
Buchenwald Concentration Camp. (tense music) Buchenwald was a
concentration camp and many say the largest. I heard the deaths were
in the tens of thousands. A horror of German proportions. My apologies Otto. On the edge of this death camp
amidst countless atrocities and his chances of
survival were not good. After two years in prison
Bonhoeffer was losing touch with the outside world. There are rumors his
20 year old fiancee even visited Buchenwald
to look for him but was told he wasn't there. On his own Dietrich was trapped with a strange mix of prisoners. If you can believe those
who made it to freedom the stories of his
inmates are even better than I could've written. There was Hugh Falconer, part
of a secret British sabotage and espionage organization. One Doctor Hoven was
supposedly a failed actor who pretended to be a doctor and served as a medical
officer in Buchenwald. Another, Doctor Sigmund Rascher, invented the suicide pill. His real claim to fame was
placing volunteer prisoners in the murderous skyrider,
a pressure chamber which simulated high
altitude oxygen deprivation. I even heard there was
a young woman there. Can you believe that? With 16 or 18 men. Can't be true, but if it is,
she had to be a Gestapo spy. - Payne Best was a
remarkable person. He was an officer in the
British military intelligence who'd been captured
by the Germans and spent the entire rest
of the war in prison camp. He got to know
Bonhoeffer in Buchenwald where they were sharing
the same corridor together. - [Best Voiceover]
Bonhoeffer was all humility and sweetness. He always seemed
to me to diffuse an
atmosphere of happiness of joy in even the
smallest event in life, and of deep gratitude for the
mere fact that he was alive. He was one of the few
men I have ever met to whom his God was real
and ever close to him. - And he wasn't a
religious type at all but he and Bonhoeffer
shared their tobacco, they shared the chess set,
Bonhoeffer loved to play chess and Payne Best gave
him his chess set to amuse himself with in prison. He gave him all sorts of things. He gave him a pair of
golfing shoes I believe which I don't know how Best had
acquired golfing shoes in a Nazi concentration
camp but he did. But this was part of
prison life I think that people shared what little
they had with each other. - Payne Best did not
reckon with his survival. He thought when he was
brought into this cellar in Buchenwald, this will
be my last living place. When the air raids came they
hoped that this would end a war for the Jewish
people who had survived in the concentration camp so
far and for peaceful people all over the world
including Germany. So their own lives were
not as important to them as the end of the war was. Still they all hoped
to get out of prison and to be saved. (downbeat music) - Ah. Dulles or Dullous? - [Delmer] Dulles. - Got it. Who is this man? - OSS Special Assistant
to President Roosevelt. Self-appointed liaison
with the German Resistance and now negotiator and chief
to getting orderly surrender of hundreds of thousands
of German troops in Italy. - Well Mr Dulles
has got some nerve if he's negotiating
anything close to that. - And speaking of
negotiating surrenders Dulles is especially
focused on a love affair with some bird
named Mary Bancroft. - Somebody sounds jealous. - Hey. I've had plenty. - Children we're
about to go on air. Let's maintain a level
of professionalism. All right. Going live, three, two, one. - Great work Agnes. - Are you okay Otto? - I'm fine. - Are you sure? - It's all going to be gone. It's Kaiser Willhelm Church. It's Berlin Palace. Unter den Linden. The bridges. Even the trees of the
Tiergarten are dead. Berlin was the
capital of the world. A magnet for intellectuals. But after this bombing it
will never be the same. - It's true. - And my brother and
Dietrich and Klaus. Somewhere right now. They might be listening
to our program. Believing in their hearts
that they might be rescued. And nothing could be
further from the truth. (mournful music) - [Delmer] Churchill
made it clear there were no lengths
of violence to which
we would not go to beat the life out of Germany. Initially our airstrikes
avoided civilians. Later they became targets. Of course I didn't firebomb
working class neighborhoods in Hamburg or mock the victims
as Hamburger, as some did. But I did wonder what role
our broadcasts were playing and the Allied policy of
unconditional surrender. That policy, called
for by Roosevelt, had doomed Otto's friends'
efforts to negotiate with the Allies. To save Germany from
complete destruction. - The British Foreign
Office just pretended they were ignorant of German
resistance before the war which they were not. They had refused the
conspirators' plea. - What Churchill feared was
that if there was a link between German Resistance
and the British Government, Stalin might say
you are cheating me. - The Russians obviously
were fighting their own war, in their own country
and it would be dreadful if the British had been
thought to be making a separate deal
with the Germans. - The German military
forces were also starting to become more resolved to
fight because of the demand for unconditional surrender
and the amount of casualties in the months after
July 1944 to May of 1945 were disproportionately higher
than the casualties before and that was in part a price for the unconditional surrender. (planes roaring overhead) (static on radio) - [Man] Prisoners of Buchenwald, this is General Patton speaking. We have received your messages and are moving in
your direction. Just hold on. Just hold on. - [Delmer] All in the
Buchenwald Concentration Camp could hear the
approaching sounds of the Allied bombs and planes. It was decided that several
of the VIP prisoners, including Dietrich
and Payne Best, would be transported south
away from the Allied advance. Though the German transportation
system was disintegrating and fuel was in short supply, the Nazi High Command seemed
to have some unknown purpose for these few. - There is the
rumor that Himmler, the leader of the SS, one
of the worst criminals of the Nazi era, he
wanted to have a group of important prisoners to hand
them over to the Allied people and save his own life,
which was a ridiculous idea but this may have
been the reason why the prisoners from Buchenwald
were brought to Schoneberg in Bavaria and most
of them survived. - [Delmer] Concerning their
ultimate destination and fate, the guards were as
befuddled as the prisoners. It was decided they would
stay in a small schoolhouse that had been converted
into a makeshift shelter for prisoners. (talking amongst each other) - I think that when Bonhoeffer
had reached Schoneberg with the others he must have
thought that this was the end of my imprisonment, the
Americans are very close. We'll be freed and
the war will be over, that there will be a new life. (gentle music) - Hope was rising for him. Surely the Gestapo
and the Nazi apparatus was no longer interested
in them way up in Berlin which was being bombed
to pieces at that time. They must've thought
they were safe and Bonhoeffer was not
wanting to be a martyr. He was full of love of life. He was thinking of his
parents, his friends, above all his fiancee Maria. And thinking my goodness
me it's only gonna be a matter of days now
and we'll be free. - [Delmer] Thanks
to prisoner diaries we know it was an exhausted
but increasingly hopeful group that settled in for the night. One memoir was written
by Fey Von Hassell. Her father, a key member
of the Resistance, had been condemned by
Freisler and hanged. These were bittersweet
days for Fey. Her two young sons, wrenched
from her by Nazi caretakers, were still missing. Yet tender feelings toward
a fellow VIP prisoner were growing. His family name, the
blackest in Germany. Stauffenberg. Dietrich was learning Russian
from a young Soviet prisoner who was the nephew of Soviet
Foreign Minister Molotov of Molotov cocktail fame. Another VIP prisoner
was a movie star and popular cabaret
singer, Isa Vermehren. Isa had been entertaining
German troops before her brother
defected from the Abwehr resulting in her arrest. Captain Payne Best,
as imperious as ever, tells of nearly
jumping out of his skin when one of the beds broke. Apparently the beds were made
with flimsy window blinds. Just as everyone in the
room had settled down Best's own bed succumbed, much
to the delight of the others. (laughing) The group knew the
Soviets had secured all of eastern Europe and
were rapidly approaching. To the west they could
occasionally hear the American aircraft. They could almost taste freedom
in the clear Bavarian air. (gentle accordion music) (singing in foreign language) - This is it. My last broadcast. I'm going to miss our
little gang of rascals. Even you Ian. - Aw. - Better to end now than
the war go on forever. - About the finale Sefton. I like your idea but the GS1
went off the air with a bang, with gunfire. Why not also go out with
a bang and this record will do just the trick. Explosions. - Ian this isn't 30
Seconds Over Tokyo. - I've written
something, just hear it. - Look I really
don't have time-- - Take it away sweetie. - What is that sound? Allied bombers are here. The end has come
my loyal listeners. When you hear my voice next,
who knows when that may be, may it be in that eternal
city where death may touch no more.
- We'll go with what's written all right. - But why, bombings are the
reality of what would happen if we were broadcasting
in Germany. - I don't care. I want Vicky to live. Even if our audience
never hears her again I want them to believe
that she was real. So we'll go off quietly,
without any explanation. - You're the boss. - Let's get ready to go live. (mournful music) - [Delmer Voiceover] We did it. We won. So why is it when
I look at myself, all I see is a
flabby faced crook. - Tell me the truth Otto. What do you think
about what we've done? - I. I truly can't say. - I don't envy them,
their situation. But I envy their courage. Their faith. - This was Dietrich's
last Christmas Eve letter, sent before he was
arrested by the Gestapo. "We have been silent
witnesses of evil deeds. "We have been drenched
by many storms. "We have learnt the arts of
equivocation and pretense. "Experience has made
us suspicious of others "and kept us from being
truthful and open. "Intolerable conflicts
have worn us down "and even made us cynical. "Are we still of any use?" - I suppose we must all
live with our doubts. - They spent the
Sunday after Easter in this delightful
little Bavarian village
called Schoneberg and apparently it was
a beautiful spring day. Bonhoeffer was always a
great mediator on scripture and he loved the set text, whichever day of the
Christian year it was and we know that the texts
he preached on that Sunday were from Isaiah and then
from the first letter of Peter and I like to think that
he's probably imagining if I had to preach
a sermon today I'd love to preach
on these texts, and then his fellow
prisoners said come on give us a sermon
Pastor Bonhoeffer. - And he has become friends
on a short-term basis, very short-term with a
Russian atheist, Kokorin and Bonhoeffer says no
I think probably not. He feels that might be pushing
Church on a good atheist and something doesn't
sit well with him on that but then it's
Kokorin who says no, let's have this Church service, but that's kind of
typical of Bonhoeffer both to deeply respect
whom the other is and wait for the
invitation to respond with his own message
of the gospel. - He was oppressed
and he was afflicted yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a
lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before
its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. At a time such as this there
are simply no words to express our sadness, our
loss, and our pain. Our fragile words and
emotions simply cannot capture the gravity of what
has already happened and what we are yet to face. We have worked tirelessly, confronting the
masquerade of evil, that has engulfed our
world, always with the hope of restoring the good. But now our hands are tied and our destinies are fixed. - And one of the English
prisoners who was with him, Hugh Falconer, said that
he captured the thoughts of everyone there. He said we were full of hope,
we were full of anxiety too. We want to be back with our
families, our loved ones. What we can really rely on
though is that God is with us and our salvation
is certain in him. That's what we've got
to put our hope in. - Through the experience
and words of Isaiah a word does come from
beyond to remind us that God himself was
bruised for our inequities and wounded for
our transgressions. God has always shared in the
pain of his broken creation. - [Clement] And also that other
remarkable English prisoner called Captain Payne Best, he
says that Bonhoeffer sort of expressed the spirit
of everyone there. He was able, not just to say
this is what the Bible says, but this is how we are feeling and this is how we can
bring our feelings to God and God can be with us and
speak to us in this situation. - And when we no longer
have the personal strength to hold on to the
promise of God, we can know that he
will hold on to us. Let us join together and sing, Almighty Fortress is our God. ♪ Almighty fortress is our God ♪ A bulwark never failing ♪ Our helper he amid the flood ♪ Of mortal ills prevailing (vehicle engines approaching) - May God in his mercy
lead us through these times. (loud footsteps) But above all, may he
lead us to himself. - Prisoner Bonhoeffer,
come with us. (tense music) - A general found the files
which Dohnányi had kept with all the crimes Hitler
and his gang had committed, made an excerpt from this
and presented it to Hitler. And Hitler got into a
terrible rage and said I want all of them liquidated. When they were looking
for the entire group one person was missing,
namely Dietrich Bonhoeffer. - Can you deliver a
message to George Bell? - Of course. - Tell the Bishop, that I
believe in the principle of our universal
Christian brotherhood which rises above all
national interests and that our victory is certain. - Goodbye my friend. - Farewell. This is the end. But for me the
beginning of life. (tense music) - Terrible as this story is, it was not without
God's command. And Bonhoeffer knew
that himself he says, Hitler cannot kill me. The hour of my death
will be prescribed by the living God himself. And he almost escaped in
Schoneberg with the others. But God allowed him
to become a martyr which made him a much
more important figure for future times. (choral singing) - [Delmer] So Dietrich was
transported to Flossenburg. This was a camp where
Allied prisoners were hanged on Christmas Eve in 1944,
with lights on the trees in holiday glee. Another group slaughtered
on Easter morning, as if the life of Christ was
used as a calendar for cruelty. There was no escape
for the thousands that met their end there. - He knew what was
in store for him and he and I think it was five, six other of the conspirators
were, that night, put in front of a
court-martial by the SS. - It was a farce. The verdict had been
pronounced by Hitler already. There was a court-martial
that didn't even meet the standards of
a court-martial. There was no real proceeding. There was no evidence. There were no witnesses and
apparently the whole thing happened in a matter
of two or three hours. The SS people just tried to
keep up the semblance of justice in order not to be
convicted for unjust murder. - Prisoner Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
born February 4th 1906, and today's date. Must keep the records in order. Thank you for arriving early. Punctual. Must be German. Clothes. Well prisoner Bonhoeffer I have some good and
bad news for you. The bad news is, it's
damn cold out there, and you'll be
wearing only glasses. Oops, we need those too. And wouldn't you know it the
crematorium's out of order but the good news is Herbert
has a nice fire going just steps from the gallow. Best get going. Stay ahead of the shepherds. Happy journey gallow bird. (dogs barking) (loud heart beating) (choral singing) - When the tyrant
executes the martyr, the tyrant's power ends
because he can't do any more than that but the power
of the martyr begins because his witness
goes on forever. And I always think
of that remark when I think of these resistors. They were the people who
won the battle of faith and courage and conviction
and human dignity and it's to them that
we now look today. - [Agnes] Dear Sefton, I
am writing to communicate a disturbing discovery. I was recently informed
by some German escapees that civilians during
the war were hanged, simply for listening to
our radio broadcasts. Were you aware such
actions took place? Please reply, Agnes. - [Radio] The stirring
victory keeps Chelsea at the top of division one. This is the BBC World
Service, the six o'clock news read by Nigel Smythers. We deviate from our regular
broadcast to take you to the Holy Trinity
Church in London for the memorial service of
Dietrich and Klaus Bonhoeffer. The next voice you
hear will be that Bishop George Bell. (organ music) - It was in May 1942 that I
had my last sight of Dietrich in Stockholm when
altogether unexpected he came from Berlin, at
the risk of his life, to give me much information
of the utmost importance about the movement of the
opposition in Germany, to eliminate Hitler and
all his chief colleagues, and to set up a new
government which should undo Hitler's deeds as far
as they could be undone, and to seek peace
with the Allies. Very moving was our talk. Very moving our farewell. And now Dietrich has gone. He died with his brother
Klaus as a hostage. Our debt to them, and to all
others similarly murdered, is immense. His death is a death for
Germany, indeed for Europe too. He made the sacrifice
of human prospects, of home, friends and career, because he believed in God's
vocation for his country and refused to follow
those false leaders who were the servants
of the Devil. He was inspired by his
faith in the living God and by his devotion
to truth and honor. As one of a noble company of
martyrs of different traditions he represents both the
resistance of the believing soul in the name of God, to
the assault of evil, and also the moral
and political revolt of the human conscience,
against injustice and cruelty. To our Earthly view,
Dietrich is dead. Deep and unfathomable
as our sorrow seems, let us comfort one
another with these words. For him and Klaus, and for
the countless multitudes of their fellow victims through
these terrible years of war there is the resurrection
from the dead, the hope of a new life. The blood of the martyrs
is the seed of the Church. ♪ For all the saints who
from their labors rest ♪ Who thee by faith
before the world confess ♪ Thy name O Jesus
be forever blest ♪ Alleluia (bell chiming) (mournful music)
