I've used this video to expose young adults in our church to great Christians. Bonhoeffer's journey speaks to many issues my students are grappling with: war, political engagement, the role of the church in society. There is great insight as you watch Bonhoeffer keep his focus on Christ and engage with the world around him.

Excellent factual account of Bonhoeffer's life and the significance
of his activities as a scholar, philosopher, leader and in his elected
role as an active anti-Nazi citizen. Ausgezeichnet!

I've always vaguely known who Bonhoeffer was. I once inherited an old, yellowed copy of The Cost of Discipleship that has sat unread on my shelf for several years. Recently though, I happened to hear the interview Martin Doblmeier did on NPR about this film, and shortly thereafter, I had happened upon an excellent essay by Marilynne Robinson on Bonhoeffer in the book I was reading (The Death of Adam). I was intrigued and sought to try to clear up that vague picture of Bonhoeffer that I held by watching this film. So anyway, I'm hardly an expert on Bonhoeffer's life, but from my limited perspective, I can say that this was a good introduction to his story. At the very least, I've been inspired by this film to learn whatever I can about this fascinating man.

The documentary, as others have noted, is a very straightforward narrative retelling of Bonhoeffer's life--his birth and upbringing, the theological experiences that led to his decision to oppose the Nazis, the theology he developed in response to those circumstances, the acts of resistance (participating in the Confessing Church, leading an illegal seminary, and working in the effort to assassinate Hitler). Nothing else but that story is needed for this to be a riveting film. Bonhoeffer's story and person is enough to carry it. The narrative is interspersed with readings from Bonhoeffer's own poetic, theological writings, the beauty of which almost matches that of the life he managed to live.

Two things, particularly, struck me about the documentary. First, Doblmeier was able to interview quite a few people who actually knew Bonhoeffer--his best friend, his would-have-been sister-in-law, several students--along with some key theologians involved with his work. What struck me was how these people, even sixty years after Bonhoeffer's death, remember him so vividly and exhibit such an acute admiration and a palpable passion for Bonhoeffer himself. Thankfully, Doblmeier didn't set out to do hagiography here, and he doesn't. Nevertheless, those interviewed here cannot seem to help conveying the sense that they are in awe of the fact that Bonhoeffer's life touched each of their lives. That veneration they hold is profoundly communicated to the viewer.

Second, I was struck by how Bonhoeffer's theology was informed so by his year-long experience in America. The documentary explains how Bonhoeffer's engagement with the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York taught him about injustice and the responsibilities of the church when faced with it. The lessons learned there influenced Bonhoeffer to speak against the Nazi government and against the parts of the church which was complicit in the Nazi atrocities.

I think it was this American episode that hammered home to me very powerfully a sense of Bonhoeffer's ongoing relevance. I'm not sure that the church has yet learned many of the lessons that the Holocaust should have taught us. As a result, Bonhoeffer's thought and his life, it seems to me, have as much to tell the church today as they did sixty years ago.

Bonhoeffer was a German Christian theologian who worked during WWII in the Resistence against Hitler. He was imprisoned during the last years of the war, and little before the fall of Berlin he was killed. In prison he wrote his famous "Letters", his first book that I read, and which is a must read companion book to this dvd.

This is an excellent documentary, not only about the man, but about the times he lived in, the difficult task of having to decide between doing what God called us (in this case him) to do, or choosing not to get involved in what is going on around us. Bonhoeffer realized that he could not escape the war and go to America, and then expect to have any role in post-war Germany, preaching what people should do.

One of the great things he said was that whenever we read the Bible we should believe that God is speaking to us, right there, and right then. His crime, according to the Nazis, was that he reminded people who their real Fuhrer was: the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bonhoeffer's life is certainly worthy of popular examination. This DVD provides a factual account of many crossroads in his life, but does so with a feel reminiscent of classroom educational films of old. As a "movie" experience, it doesn't exhibit the excellence of, say, Ken Burn's Civil War series. Still, until someone makes a better documentary about Bonhoeffer, this one is the tops and so I give it four stars. I would encourage interested readers to review books by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer to understand more fully the impact that this man had and why many regard him as a modern saint. And, no, I'm not Lutheran. d:c)