Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

by Eric Metaxas

One of these dignified men was at the center of the crisis that threatened to topple Hitler, and that had Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer wide-eyed with interest. That man was the commander in chief of the army, General Wilhelm von Fritsch. The troubles began when Fritsch made the mistake of trying to talk Hitler out of his war plans. Hitler had no patience for these upper-class cowards. For him the question was not whether Fritsch might have a point, but how to silence such troublemakers. The puffy and pomaded Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring had an idea. Göring had been ogling the top spot in the German military for some time, and he had recently been successful in getting rid of the previous head of the army in an underhanded fashion. That man, Field Marshal Blomberg, was drummed out in a scandal involving his new wife, whom Göring accused of having been a prostitute, which she had been.