Last words of the faithful
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Died 1945 · executed by the Nazi regime
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who opposed the Nazi regime, was executed at Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945, days before its liberation. According to fellow prisoner Payne Best, his last recorded words were, 'This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.'
The last words
The story behind them
Bonhoeffer was a brilliant young theologian who could have stayed safe. He was in America in 1939 and chose to sail back to Germany, saying he would have no right to help rebuild Christian life there after the war if he did not share its trials now. He joined the resistance against Hitler, was arrested, and spent two years in prison writing letters that are still read today, wrestling honestly with faith, suffering, and what it costs to follow Christ in a dark time.
On the ninth of April, 1945, just days before American troops reached the camp, he was hanged. A fellow prisoner, the British officer Payne Best, was with the group as the guards came for him and later reported his parting words: 'This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.' The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote that he had rarely seen a man die so entirely submitted to the will of God. To the regime it was an ending, one more body before the collapse. To Bonhoeffer, it was a door.
To the men who killed him it was an ending. To him it was the beginning of life.
What they died for, you can meet
None of these people died for an idea. They died holding onto a Person, convinced that death was not the end because he had already walked out of a tomb. The Living Bread is a quiet place to meet that same Jesus, read the Gospels for yourself, and ask your honest questions.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- What were Dietrich Bonhoeffer's last words?
- As he was taken to be executed at Flossenburg in April 1945, Bonhoeffer said, according to fellow prisoner Payne Best, 'This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.'
- Who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German pastor and theologian who resisted the Nazi regime and was executed days before the end of World War II. His prison letters and books on discipleship and grace remain widely read.