On This Day in History: April 9th, 1945
April 9th, 1945 Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, Germany Between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning, several prisoners were taken from their cells and had their sentences read to them. They were sentenced to death. One of the men knelt and prayed fervently before being led to the place of execution. At the gallows, he said another short prayer, then climbed the steps, calmly and courageously. A doctor who witnessed his death said, “In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a person die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” The man’s name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a thirty-nine-year-old German pastor and had been sentenced to death for his role in the German Resistance against the Nazis and the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The day before was Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter. It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s last full day on earth. He and a number of ot...
