Hitler's Secretary and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Is it ever right to do evil to accomplish the will of God?

I don't think so.

Gertraud Traudl Junge was the secretary for Adolf
Hitler during WWII. After the war, Traudl carried a lot
of remorse about her involvement with the Nazi Party.
Shortly before her death in 2002, she recorded her experiences
and regrets on a video interview entitled Blindspot.
Throughout the interview, Traudl recounts her time with
the Nazi party, and especially her time with Adolf Hitler.
As she recounts this sad time, most of her memories come
across more like confession than anything else.
There was one thing in the interview that caught my
attention.

In the interview, Traudl mentions the emotional
effect on Hitler after the assassinate attempt on his
life by a bomb placed in a briefcase at a meeting with his
staff. Dietrich Bonhoefferwas was involved with earlier assassination attempts,
and it was this involvement that led him to give up
his earlier nonresistant stand.

Interestingly, Traudl recounts that after the assasination
bombing failed, Hitler was more convinced than ever
that God was protecting him and his mission. She says that
Hitler personally took Mussolini to the site of the bombing
and boasted of his deliverance with a triumphant
smile. Traudl laments that after the assassination attempt,
all hopes for peace was lost. Hitler was more than ever
convinced with his motto Gott Mit Uns (God with us),
and that it was his job to rid the world of evil.
What if you could kill Hitler? In only a few decades
after WWII, the question has become almost proverbial
in nonresistance debates. Here we see a perfect example
that when human means are used to accomplish a spiritual
end, the result is often devastating. Instead of ridding the
world of Hitler, the assassination attempt only emboldened
him. ~Dean Taylor

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but
the end thereof are the ways of death. (Pr. 16:25)

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Tags:

• Dietrich
• Bonhoeffer
• peace
• nonresistance
• anabaptist
• Traudl
• Junge
• radical
• christianity
• early Church
• radical reformation
• Dean Taylor
• radicalreformation.com

[StPeffie]

Hitler thought God had saved him. It was just luck. Bad and good things happen to everyone at statistically the same rate. If he had died, it would have been a good thing. These days we send drones after our enemies...or Navy Seals.

[Aspertech]

There where millions like her and not all confined to Germany. Hindsight is a wonderful, if not biased, philosopher.

[wnesbitt1]

I've just got to say that the hopes for peace in Europe were effectively lost in 1933 when Hitler was handed power to do virtually what he wanted. The idea that the effects of attempted assassination on a mentally unstable psychopath are what determined the war's course of action, is frankly naively ludicrous.

[wnesbitt1]

Early in the 1930s, Bonhoeffer was already formulating his stand on the Church's relationship with the State; a) the Church should aid the State in the State's attempts to bring godly law and order; b) the Church should warn the State should it fail in this task and c) the Church should work against the State should the State become an agent of lawlessness and disorder in conflict to godly values. That he colluded in killing Hitler sounds, to me, no different from any solider killing his enemy.

[blacsouljah]

Hitler killed a lot of innocent people as a result of this assassination attempt. The European war ended about three weeks after said attempt.

[bobbyearl60]

using your rationale ,we should have let Hitler have his way.Only then would he have realized how wrong he was.Furthermore, I trust Bonhoeffer's judgement more than yours.

[Celestiaetterra]

God raises evil rulers all the time in order to punish evil people. Post WWI Europeans (including the Jews) were evil. Look at who's ruling over you today and consider that they are given to you by God either to do you good or harm as you deserve.

[lokilokd]

It just means they should have planted a bigger bomb....

[mattyoungmattyoung]

If only the Jews had thought of using passive resistance against Hitler...

Grab a book and read how well appeasement worked against Hitler in 1938-39.

[icewaterfall101]

i'm a unicorn. :)