Bonhoeffer believed that, historically speaking, it was time for everyone to see these things. The evilness of the Nazis could not be defeated via old-fashioned “ethics,” “rules,” and “principles.” God alone could combat it. Under “normal” circumstances, he said, people are concerned with ideas of right and wrong. They try to do right, as they see it, and try to avoid doing what is wrong. This would never suffice, but at the time of the Nazis, the failure of such a “religious” approach had become more obvious.
