Joel Mowbray@joelmowbray
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: There's an old morality question, "If you could have, would you kill baby Hitler?"
No one ever asks about adult Hitler, let alone in 1943.
Tucker condemned attempts to KILL HITLER in the middle of WWII & the Holocaust — because it would be un-Christian.
Again: Tucker said it would have been un-Christian to kill Hitler. In the midst of World War II & the Holocaust.
Specifically, Tucker on Wednesday condemned Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer — for supposedly rejecting Christianity by participating in covert attempts to assassinate Hitler. Tucker held up Bonhoeffer as a cautionary tale of what people today could become if you "start calling people Nazis."
This is the story of the man Tucker views as a cautionary tale:
Bonhoeffer was deeply involved in the German Resistance before and during WW II.
He was the first public critic of Hitler, giving a radio address warning about the emerging cult of the Führer on February 1, 1933, just two days after the Nazis took power. Bonhoeffer also helped found the Confessing Church — directly in response to the Nazi push to control and Aryanize the nation's Protestant churches.
In 1941, he joined the Abwehr (German military intelligence), allowing him to avoid Wehrmacht (military) service.
Crucially, Bonhoeffer used his Abwehr post as a cover for his role in multiple secret plots to overthrow or assassinate Hitler.
Through his official cover, Bonhoeffer was able to travel internationally and act as a courier between the Resistance and foreign contacts, such as the ecumenical movement in Switzerland and Sweden.
Bonhoeffer also was involved in Operation 7, the effort launched by his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi to smuggle seven Jews and their family members to safety in Switzerland.
On April 5, 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo on charges related to Operation 7 — which was deemed to be both treason and an undermining of the war effort, since military intelligence resources were used to save Jews.
At the time of his arrest, the Nazis did not know about the assassination plots, let alone Bonhoeffer's role in them.
After Hitler survived the infamous Operation Valkyrie "briefcase bomb" plot on July 20, 1944 (the subject of the Tom Cruise movie), the Gestapo soon learned of Bonhoeffer’s deep involvement in Abwehr efforts to topple the Nazi regime.
On April 8, 1945, an SS "drumhead court" completed a show trial by sentencing Bonhoeffer to death.
The next day, on April 9, 1945 — just weeks before the European front of the war ended — Bonhoeffer was hanged at the Flossenbürg concentration camp, alongside several "co-conspirators."
Despite Tucker's insinuation that Bonhoeffer had turned away from Christianity, his faith actually strengthened leading up to his execution.
Notes found after the war show that Bonhoeffer prayed daily, wrote meditations on Psalms, and had theological discussions — even with guards.
Bonhoeffer gave sermons, some of which he prepared in solitary confinement, and he held clandestine worship services for his fellow prisoners.
His SS interrogators, in fact, complained that he was “too religious.”
Found in Gestapo notes were these two quotes:
“Bonhoeffer persists in religious delusion.”
“He speaks of Christ as if Christ were alive.”
Bonhoeffer’s burning, intense faith never dwindled, as further evidenced by his final recorded words:
“This is the end—for me, the beginning of life.”
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With the benefit of context regarding Bonhoeffer, here is the full text of what Tucker said:
"Because once you start calling people Nazis, we really have no choice but to start shooting them... to be Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to reach the end of reason, or even Christianity. Bonhoeffer decided that Christianity's not even, he was a Lutheran pastor, Christianity's not enough, we have to kill the guy [Hitler]. I'm not judging Bonhoeffer, who was a great man in some ways. But that's inevitable once we decide that some people are Nazis."
