Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theological genius of the 20th century, is now emerging as a martyr as well as a spy -- a war hero who conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Read report here on Foxnews.com.
"On April 9, 1945, 65 years ago today, just a few weeks before an allied offensive brought Germany to its knees and ended World War II in Europe, a young, mild-mannered Lutheran theologian was hanged by the Nazis in Flossenburg Concentration Camp.
"His crime ... conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler," the article relates.
"What is so amazing about the story of Bonhoeffer is that he puts a completely different spin for us as Americans on World War II," says Eric Metaxas, author of "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" (Thomas Nelson, 2010), the first biography in 40 years of this influential Christian. The book is being released on Friday, the anniversary of Bonhoeffer's execution.
"Christians all over the world have read his books," Metaxas says in the article, "but very few people know the full story of his involvement in a plot to kill the head of the German state."
Bonhoeffer is revealed in the book as one of the few German Christians who refused to appease Hitler and his perverted interpretation of Christianity, the article related. Bonhoeffer's staunch resistance to the Third Reich and his push for civil disobedience cost him his life.
He was willing to be involved in a plot to kill Hitler. "He wasn't helpful as a gunman; he was helpful with contacts all around Europe," Metaxas says in the article. "He had the ability because he had ecumenical church contacts to work as a double agent, and that is what he was, he was a double agent."
The plot was discovered, and Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943.
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