On the morning of April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was taken from his cell in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Bavaria by an SS officer (the SS was the elite guard of the Nazi regime). The 39-year-old was hanged — just one month before the end of World War Two when the German Reich finally collapsed.

Bonhoeffer had resisted Adolf Hitler's National Socialist dictatorship not with weapons, but with words, deeds, and unwavering faith. He went from being a preacher to a conspirator.

He is venerated and celebrated around the world — by liberal theologians, human rights activists, democratic activists, left-wing activists, conservatives, but also by right-wing extremists, conspiracy theorists, and Christian nationalist supporters of US President Donald Trump.

But why do so many different groups invoke him? What did Bonhoeffer's thinking and message really stand for?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 in Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) to a wealthy, intellectual family. He graduated from high school at the age of just 17. A career in academia seemed to await him, but the highly gifted young man opted for theology.

One particularly formative experience was his time studying in the US in 1930-31, where the Protestant became acquainted with the African-American civil rights movement. It was there that he realized that faith could not just be a personal conviction — it had to actively oppose injustice.

"Bonhoeffer was convinced that Christians are not only responsible for themselves but also for others and for the world. We live in relationships........

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