36/45
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Against stupidity we have no defense
Tale
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and his fate to save millions of Jews from genocide. Niemoeller’s actor August Diehl previously played a Gestapo SS officer in Nemilosrdni gadovi (2009) and a German citizen who resisted conscription into the German army in Skriveni život (2019).
Reasoning is useless
Neither protest nor force can touch it. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be discredited—indeed, the idiot can retaliate by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can simply be dismissed as trivial exceptions.
As a “docu-allegory,” it’s a solid 7; the historicity is very well woven, and the fictional account of his death is deeply Christian and compelling
But as a biography, the basic errors (referring to the Eastern Front in the years leading up to Barbarossa) and the change of the final scene of his death from Flossenburg with his co-conspirators to a secluded, anonymous farmhouse with a group of random strangers are a bridge too far. Maybe Germany limits this sort of thing, but to me it was a missed opportunity not to use Flossenburg for these critical scenes, just as Sophie Scholl’s Last Days used the guillotine that killed Scholl in the film.
The sequence of quotes at the end is worth sitting through
At times, Bonhoeffer simply doesn’t come across as the learned theologian he was, but more like a Protestant proving ground. That said, it’s a “must watch” if you’re willing to accept major deviations from history and not anticipate a deep theological journey.
And that is a truly timeless message
Bonhoeffer reminds us that every generation faces its evil, that each individual must act or let evil take its course, and that it is Christ who guides that choice.
