THE film Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (Cert. 12A), about the German theologian who opposed the Nazi government and was executed only weeks before its surrender, well illustrates the notion that for evil to prosper good people need only do nothing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (played by Jonas Dassler) is a Lutheran minister who could not be accused of that. His despair centres on the State Church, and adherents who strive to maintain personal ethical standards without questioning what is happening socially.
The writer-director Todd Komarnicki’s screenplay asserts that there were enough people begging for bread to believe that Hitler was a prophet. Witnessing the complicity of his Protestant Church, Bonhoeffer was instrumental in forming the Confessing Church, an act that, in effect, drew a target on his chest. But we are left in no doubt regarding his fate, as most of the story is told retrospectively when Dietrich is in prison. We learn of his privileged childhood in a deeply humane family. It remains central to his Christian development as an adult. We see him reading children the Pinocchio story. “It’s difficult to be a real boy,” he tells them. “If you live by love your strings get cut.” This is exactly what happens, Dietrich wielding the scissors himself. “What we need is Christ without religion, not a Church without Christ.”
His theological outlook is sharpened by his time in New York City, finding new joy in the exuberance of the black Abyssinian Church, in Harlem, and nights out at Smalls Paradise Club in Greenwich Village, where he plays piano with Louis Armstrong’s band. Later, the friendship with George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, further strengthens his resolve to oppose Nazism in the name of Jesus, no matter what. He fully realises the cost of discipleship.
Bonhoeffer (Jonas Dassler) in his prison cell in Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin
Up to this point, the film concentrates on the first of the three descriptions of him in the title. Reluctantly, he feels impelled to take up the roles of spy and then assassin. Relinquishing his avowed pacifism, has only dirty hands left. One of his co-conspirators asks whether God will forgive them if they manage to kill Hitler. “Will God forgive us if we don’t?” is Bonhoeffer’s retort.
A significant amount of screen time is devoted to Martin Niemöller (August Diehl), a fellow pastor who at first supported Hitler before recognising how evil he was. We hear Niemöller utter in a sermon his famous words “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out. . .” Inevitably, he pays a heavy price for following his Lord.
Bonhoeffer, despite its 133 minutes, leaves us tantalisingly short of fuller details of its protagonist’s life. The title over-promises; for we see too little of Dietrich as spy or assassin. And, were it not for bons mots pasted on the end credits, we would be left fairly ignorant of the seminal influence of his writings.