When tyrants or dictators come to power in countries around the world, how do we stop them from turning the places we call home into Satan’s residence? In WWII, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill refused to acknowledge the possibility that a German resistance existed in the Third Reich. They believed that Adolf Hitler had total control over the entire German population, that no one was trying to stop the rise of this evil dictator, and that every German was as evil as he was. Could both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill have been wrong about their resistance beliefs? The Allies supported other countries and their resistance groups. Is the biggest flaw in leaders’ minds and the minds of their countrymen while wars are occurring that no one is allowed to change their viewpoints once the truth is realized about people and situations? Americans held strong prejudices against German and Japanese people during WWII because their countries were at war with the Allies. If we cannot truly re-evaluate our views as the truth becomes evident, then America needs to re-evaluate its values today because there have been attacks on Asian people all over the country since COVID began. Some people think the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory and then carried it around the world.
As the war continued for Germany, a German resistance began to grow among the former aristocracy and some of the military leaders, and it was those people who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler several times. The most famous attempt was Operation Valkyrie on July 20, 1944. It has been recorded that Winston Churchill feared the German resistance because he did not want this group to interfere with the alliance with Russia and Joseph Stalin. The British did, however, form a Black propaganda unit, under the direction of Sefton Delmer, to send misinformation to the German people to influence them to overthrow the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler. 80% of the information was real; 20% was a pure concoction of lies. This propaganda gave the German population hope, while it instilled in the common German soldier a fear that his wife would be unfaithful to him the longer the war went on. For most Germans, destruction of other people’s lives and homes was considered part of the regime’s thirst for new lands, but as the issue of the Jewish genocide became known, many Germans turned against Hitler. Once Berlin became a major Allied bombing target and many civilians were killed, the true German Christian finally started fighting back against the evil fanaticism of the man they never really understood.
By the war’s end, Sefton Delmar felt that he had accomplished a good thing for the Allies, but he never truly felt he was given the proper acclaim. Through the Black propaganda, he tried to give hope to the German people while thoroughly opposing the Nazi regime and the rise of its evil leader, Adolf Hitler. After all, his work was done in secrecy with five other people: Agnes Bernelle of theatrical background, Otto John of the future West German intelligence, George Bell of the future refugee crisis program, Ian Fleming of James Bond fame, and Sigismund Payne Best of the carrier pigeon program from WWI. Delmer continued as a journalist for the English Daily Express after the war.
One of the Germans who fought back was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister, who believed it was his duty to fight for his faith. Bonhoeffer’s family became involved in the resistance after Hitler broke Czechoslovakia apart in 1938. He believed that it was his Christian duty to fight for God and his country; Hitler was not the angel of Germany but the Satan. Bonhoeffer got involved with German intelligence so that he he could help the resistance carry out its most important task: to rid Germany of Hitler. He believed that our faith compels us to act against anything that helps Satan live in our world. Hope and anxiety co-exist in our world now and will continue in the future; God is here for us, and He shares our pain. If we allow Him into our hearts, God, who leads us from above, will always lead us back to Him.
For his beliefs and for trying to rebuild the German Lutheran church unencumbered by the Nazi regime, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned in two concentration camps, Buchenwald and Flossenburg. In both camps, he was considered to be a model prisoner, and he always remained true to his belief that God was real and near to him, even behind the cold prison walls and hateful torture. Hitler’s man in charge of the Jewish genocide, Heinrich Himmler, tried to use Bonhoeffer as a pawn in trade for his own life at the end of the war, but his life was claimed by the Nuremberg trials. Many of Hitler’s henchmen were hung or died in prison after the trials, and their power and that of the Nazi regime was finally ended. Bonhoeffer was hung in the Flossenburg courtyard, days before the Allies found the camp. but he became a martyr for humanity, love, and the Christian faith. Many Germans cried when they heard the news of his death, but as in life, Dietrich’s blood became the seed of the living church and an acknowledgment that every man must stand up against evil and hatred.
Bonhoeffer remains today on the edge of controversy between his theological and philosophical ideas, but he will always be known as a prisoner of his conscience. According to the Ten Commandments, we should not kill, but is it ever all right to kill a fanatical leader who destroys his country and kills thousands of people on a daily basis? Dietrich’s father, Karl, lost two sons and two son-in-laws to the Nazis. In analyzing Hitler’s appeal to the German nation, he said, “We should have done more. The German people went insane over evil, but slowly, they began to return to their Christian beliefs.” Who are we today? Do we support immoral leaders to do the work of Satan or do we fight for our Christian faith and its values? The right thing to do is to pray for our world to become a more loving, caring world and that we will hold God in our hearts over any false prophet. My decision is made, and I will not back down. What will you do?
Anna Hartt
