No, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Did Not Try to Kill Adolf Hitler
Dr. Joseph McGarry When people think about the Bonhoeffer’s life and involvement in the resistance, the flow of logic goes something like this: a) Dietrich Bonhoeffer worked for the Abwehr, and was recruited there by his brother in law, Hans von Dohnányi. b) Members of the Abwehr’s leadership (specifically Hans Oster, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and Dohnányi) actively planned attempts on Hitler’s life. c) When the “Zossen files” were discovered in September 1944 (after the failure of the 20 July plot) von Dohnányi was clearly implicated in assassination planning, and the rest of the Abwehr by extension. Therefore, everyone associated with these files was executed for treason against the Reich. Generally, it is then assumed that— because Bonhoeffer was executed with these other people who actively planned Hitler’s assassination—Bonhoeffer himself was actively involved as well. Unfortunately, it is this assumption that scholars have again and again called an overstatement of ...
