Dietrich Bonhoeffer-entirely submissive to the will of God.

The camp doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer's execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Born on feb 4th 1906 at Breslau, Germany to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, who came from a lineage of eminent German families.He was raised in a comfortable and intellectual family and from early age desired to become a theologian .He was a gifted pianist.His father was appointed as professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Berlin when Dietrich was six.They lived in huge comfortable house with several rooms, maids and governess to take care of the house.He was raised in secure family with musical evenings, parties and skits being played at their home.

Dietrich was a keen lover of nature.It was his many memories of Friedrichsbrunn that gave him consolation in the years at Prison.A prayerful person ,he often spent times of quietness and solitude to derive strength from the scriptures.

Later when Germany was invaded during world war 1, Dietrich began to think about death while hearing bullet sounds.He and his sister Sabine used to think about eternity during such times.

When the Nazi regime spread its wings, Bonhoeffer continued preaching from the bible and boldly preached his sermons quoting against the Nazi regime.When even German evangelical church supported Hitlers move as positive Christianity implying that unless God was acting through Hitler for the benefit and progress of the church, thus stating others to support him, Bonhoeffer continued planning against Hitler's regime .He arranged for sending a letter to the then new york Bishop stating the atrocities of the Nazi regime , knowing fully well the dangerous waters he is entering into.
His most quoted verse from bible concerning his bold speeches was from Proverbs-31:8"Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves"
Suggested reading:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Christian, Man for His Times: A Biography
By Eberhard Bethge
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Called by God
By Elizabeth Raum
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's organised underground Theological Seminary of the Confessing Church between 1935-37, a small group spending time in bible study and planning against the regime.
When upon his friends insistence to stay in US, he wrote to his friend
"I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security." [20] He returned to Germany on the last scheduled steamer to cross the Atlantic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoeffer
, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned at Tegel military prison while awaiting trial. In prison he continued the good work.
Bonhoeffer was executed in a brutal way by hanging at dawn on April 9, 1945, without a defense in Flossenbürg concentration camp,just three weeks before the Soviet capture of Berlin . Bonhoeffer was stripped of his clothing and led naked into the execution yard, where he was hanged with thin wire for strangulation.

Bonhoeffer is commemorated as martyr by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Church of England and the Church in Wales.He insisted that the church, like the Christians, "had to share in the sufferings of God at the hands of a godless world" if it were to be a true church of Christ.

"Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace."