Dietrich Bonheoffer

On Sunday April 8, 1945, Dietrich Bonheoffer became a martyr, whispering to his fellow prisoners as he left his cell to be hanged on the Flossenburg gallows, “This is the end - for me, the beginning of life.”

Bonheoffer said:

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons

Only he who believes is obedient
and only he who is obedient believes

A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol

(A German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906. He was a brilliant student, earning his doctorate at the age of 21. His dissertation was published in 1931 as "Act and Being." Bonhoeffer was one of the first German Protestants to see the dangers of the Nazi rise to power. He founded a secret seminary to train pastors in an illegal anti-Nazi church he had organized. Though friends had arranged for him to tour the United States, he returned to Germany and became an active member of the resistance. He was implicated in the attempt on Hitler's life by the resistance and hanged in 1945.)