Joseph Kelly

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis on April 9, 1945 at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. A camp doctor who was there gave this eyewitness account: “On the morning of that day between five and six o’clock the prisoners, including Admiral Canaris, General Oster and state attorney Dr. Sack were taken from their cells and the verdicts of the court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer, and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” Bonhoeffer's last recorded words: "This is the end—for me the beginning of life."