Hi there, my name is Ms. Marks and I'm going to be your religious education teacher today.

And today we're going to be looking at the life and rebellion of a man called Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a pacifist Christian thinker around in Germany in the time between World War I and World War II in particular.

Now, at this time, there was the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, and that means that in the lesson we will be discussing some of the horrendous actions that they did, some of the awful things that happened during the Holocaust, as well as discussing some of the discriminatory and prejudice ideas that they may have had.

And so just be aware of that before we start our lesson.

And when you're ready, let's go.

So by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to explain how and why Bonhoeffer rebelled against the authorities of his time.

Let's start with our keywords.

Dilemma, a difficult choice between two or more options when neither is desired.

Holocaust, the systematic persecution and murder of European Jews and other groups by the Nazis.

Martyr, a person who suffers or dies for their beliefs or principles, often seen as a hero or a symbol of a cause.

Pacifist, a person who believes in resolving conflicts without violence and opposes war or the use of force.

Resistance, opposition and disobedience to the Nazi regime.

So in today's lesson, we're going to have three sections.

We're going to look at who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's beliefs, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's rebellion.

So let's start with our first section, who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer? What's the hardest decision you have ever had to make? Have a think about this.

You could talk to the person next to you or you can talk to me.

Sometimes we can be faced with really hard decisions and neither of the outcomes are things that we want and they can be called dilemmas.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer was faced with a great dilemma as part of his story of rebellion where he had to decide between things that he really didn't want either outcome.

He's important for his courageous resistance to the Nazi Party, even at the cost of his own life.

Now, memorials are used in many cultures to show important figures and events from the past that still matter in the present.

Here I have an image of a memorial that's part of Westminster Cathedral, which is in central London, and the memorial's called 20th-Century Martyrs.

So, how can this help us to understand who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was? Because as you can see here, this is Bonhoeffer, along with lots of other sort of famous, important martyrs within Christianity from the 20th century.

So here he is.

The 20th-Century Martyrs Memorial can help us to better understand that Dietrich Bonhoeffer died or suffered for his beliefs.

If he's called a martyr, then we know that that means that he went through some kind of suffering for his belief and for a cause that was really important to him.

We can see that he influenced people beyond his time and place because this is into the 20th century, now, we are still looking at it today in the 21st century.

And he was in Germany at the time of the Nazi Party, and this memorial is in central London.

We can see that he was alive during the 20th century from this memorial because it's called the 20th-Century Martyrs.

And we can see that he was an influential Christian thinker because it's on the side of Westminster Cathedral, which is a really important building within Christianity.

So we can see that he's an influential Christian thinker who must have died or suffered for his beliefs.

Let's do a quick check.

In which city is the 20th-Century Martyrs Memorial? Was it in London in the UK, Washington, USA, or Berlin in Germany? Have a think about your answer.

Pause the video and let's see what you've got.

Well done, yeah, that was in London in the UK.

He was in Germany, but his influence spread and the Martyrs Memorial is in London in Westminster Cathedral.

So Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born and raised in Germany, which we've got circled here in our map of Europe.

And the image on the left shows him here as part of his job that he was doing working with young people within the Christian Church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 to a large, happy, loving, and successful family.

He was one of eight siblings who he stayed close to as he grew up.

Tragically, one of his elder brothers was killed during World War I when Bonhoeffer was 12 years old, and this impacted him greatly as he missed his older brother and he saw the pain it caused his family.

Bonhoeffer was always a deep thinker and declared to his family he was going to study theology when he was only 13 years old.

He not only studied theology, but went on to be a pastor, which is a leader in the type of church that he was in.

He was from the Lutheran Protestant denomination, but he was a firm believer in working across Christian groups together.

After World War I, life in Germany became very hard for many people and he saw this happening around him.

His role as a pastor was to look after and serve communities, and so the poverty and hardship he witnessed impacted his decisions to help people.

As part of his role working as a pastor, he didn't only stay in Germany, he also travelled around the world, and one of the places he visited was New York City in the United States of America.

And he spent some time working with the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Because even though he was from a Lutheran Protestant church, he believed in working with lots of different types of Christians, and so he worked with this Baptist church in New York City.

When Bonhoeffer was in his 20s, he visited other parts of the world, this influenced him too.

He travelled to North Africa and witnessed in Algeria how the Muslim faith of many people there was a whole way of life, and he was impressed by this.

He also visited the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City in 1930.

At this time in the USA, many African Americans faced intense racism due to the policy of segregation.

And the Abyssinian Church was very active in campaigning against this and fighting for racial equality.

Bonhoeffer was inspired by this and kept a close connection with them.

And later Bonhoeffer himself went on to inspire Martin Luther King in the USA.

So, what things could we say have shaped Dietrich Bonhoeffer's worldview when we are learning about who Bonhoeffer is? Well, Sam, Jun, Laura, and Alex are discussing this here.

Sam says, "I think Christian scriptures and thinkers influenced his worldview." So perhaps sections of the Bible, different things that Christian thinkers have written before in the past.

Jun says, "I think the death of his brother influenced his worldview." So if you remember, during World War I, when he's only 12, his brother passes away and then he declares he wants to become a theologian.

So something about that event and seeing the tragedy around it makes him want to seek out this path of working in the church.

Laura says, "I think visiting the Abyssinian Church in New York influenced his worldview." So if you remember, that church was very active in campaigning for racial equality and social justice and standing up for people, it was very active on that in a time where there was great injustice in the United States of America.

And Alex says, "I think the difficulties in Germany after World War I influenced his worldview." So life in Germany was very hard after World War I and there was a lot of poverty and unemployment.

And Bonhoeffer sees this and perhaps thinks about what role religion should have in helping people.

So that has a big influence on his worldview too.

I wonder if you thought of anything else that could have influenced Bonhoeffer's worldview.

Let's do a quick check.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer only worked with Christians from the Lutheran denominations.

That's the type of church he went to.

Did he only work with Christians from that denomination? So, is this statement true or false? Pause the video and have a think and then we'll see what you've written in a moment.

That statement is false, but why? Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed in being ecumenical, which meant he wanted to work with lots of Christians across different denominations.

So yes, he was from the Lutheran denomination, but he worked with lots of different Christians across different groups, for example, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City.

Time for a quick check now to see what we've learned.

Explain who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in three detailed sentences, and you must include the following words, Germany, pastor, and martyr.

And you might like to use the sentence stem, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was.

So pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've written in a moment.

So I asked you to explain who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in three detailed sentences, and your answer may look something like this.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian man who was born and lived in Germany.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor in the Lutheran Church, but worked with Christians across different denominations.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer is remembered as a martyr as he died for his beliefs.

Well done.

So onto our second section now, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's beliefs.

The word pacifism comes from Latin, and we have lots of words in religious education that come from Latin.

And we can see that it has this root pax, which means peace, and ficus, which means making, so making peace.

So pacifism means to find a peaceful solution to a problem and not use force or violence.

Pacifism doesn't mean to ignore a problem or say it's not even a problem, it means to find a peaceful solution, making peace as a way to solve whatever the problem is and not use force or violence.

And a person who believes in pacifism is called a pacifist.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an example of a pacifist Christian thinker.

Here are some of the parts of the Bible which influenced digit Bonhoeffer to be a pacifist.

So Jesus said to turn the other cheek when someone slaps you on one side.

So it's quite a famous part of the Bible where Jesus says, "If someone slaps you on one side, then you turn the other cheek." You don't just sort of slap back in revenge.

Another important passage is that Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.

So not to kind of hate or fight your enemies, but to love them and to pray for them, so to still kind of care for them and want the best for them.

The Bible also tells Christians that all humans are made in the image of God, so every life is precious.

So not just the humans on my team and on my side, but also those who might be against me are still made in the image of God and they're still very precious as a human life.

And also in the Bible, the Ten Commandments include an instruction to not kill.

Sometimes this is translated as murder, sometimes it's translated as kill.

So it can have an influence which translation of the Bible that you're reading as to how you interpret that commandment.

But these are all important pieces of the Bible which Dietrich Bonhoeffer interpreted to mean that he should be pacifist and not be violent towards others.

So let's look at one of those sections in more detail here.

This is taken from the Book of Matthew, which is in the New Testament part of the Bible.

And Matthew is one of the gospels, which means it tells the story about the life of Jesus and the actions that he did.

And this is attributed to Jesus speaking to his followers.

He says, "You've heard it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.

' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Jesus is showing people a new way.

Even those people who are against you, you should still love them and pray for them.

What could it actually mean to love your enemies? Have a think about that and talk to the person next to you or you could talk to me.

How could loving your enemies, so maybe it's to do with wanting the best for them, caring for them, not wanting to harm them, how could that support pacifist views? How could it support the idea that we shouldn't use violence? Have a think about that and talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Yes, so the idea of loving your enemies could mean that you don't want to use violence against them and to hurt them physically and find other ways of solving any kind of issue or problem that you have with them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that this command was something Christians have to struggle with when faced with evil enemies like the Nazi Party.

So your enemy is someone who's going to be against you already, so you're not in agreement, but what do you do when those people really are being evil and doing atrocious acts? How do we show love to them? And should we still remain pacifist? In this text, Jesus is telling his followers to love those they may want to hate, but also giving Christians an action to pray.

So it's not just to do nothing and sort of sit back, it's also to do an action to try and perhaps help to change them or to ask God to help change those people and the actions that they're doing.

Let's do a quick check.

There are different parts of the Bible which can support pacifist ideas.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think.

Yeah, that's true.

There are parts of the Bible that can support pacifist ideas.

It doesn't mean that every Christian who reads the Bible is a pacifist, but as a pacifist, someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer can find many parts of the Bible that seem to support those pacifist ideas.

So we know that Bonhoeffer is writing in that period of time between the two world wars, and he's writing in Germany, so he's watching the rise of the Nazi Party, and there's certain things that are concerning him about what he's seeing about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and particularly, how this connects to his Christian faith.

When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933 in Germany, Bonhoeffer was already speaking out against them.

He gave a radio speech within days of Hitler's appointment as fuhrer, which means the absolute leader of the state, warning he shouldn't be worshipped and that there could be dangerous times ahead.

Hitler and the Nazi Party were a totalitarian regime, meaning they demanded complete obedience to their rules and people who disagreed or resisted were punished.

And Bonhoeffer felt that people were being encouraged to worship Hitler as if he were a God or a Messiah, and he thought that was wrong.

Hitler also started to interfere with church buildings in Germany.

They were encouraged to display Nazi images and logos alongside crosses.

And the Nazi Party was extremely antisemitic and attempted to remove the Old Testament from the Bible due to it being the same scriptures as for Jews.

And the terrible events of the Holocaust, the systematic persecution and murder of over 6 million Jews, as well as Roma people, homosexuals, and other political opponents of the Nazis, went directly against the teachings of the preservation of life and respect for all of God's creation, which was so important to Bonhoeffer.

And the millions of people who were murdered also had all their belongings stolen by the Nazi Party.

So there were lots of parts of the Bible and the Christian faith that Bonhoeffer felt the Nazi Party were going against and trying to encourage Christians to go against, and one section of that is called the Ten Commandments.

And this is found in the Old Testament part of the Bible as an important part of the Torah as well.

And so this lists different rules that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for how people should live.

So let's have a read of them and think about how the Nazi Party might have been going against these rules.

"You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not bow down or worship them.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Honour your mother and father.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

And you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour." So here are the Ten Commandments, which were given to Moses, that form an important part of Jewish and Christian teachings.

And what did the Nazi Party do against these rules? Have a think about that and talk to the person next to you or you can talk to me.

So we can see here with the Ten Commandments that there were many things that the Nazi Party was doing, which were going against some of these important rules.

And for Bonhoeffer, it really started with having no other gods before God.

Well, we can see here there's many examples of how the Nazi Party was going against these different rules.

And for Bonhoeffer, if you remember in 1933 when the Nazi Party came to power, he gave a speech about that concern he had that people were idolising or being encouraged to kind of worship Hitler as the fuhrer and the leader of the party.

And for Bonhoeffer, God was the only person who should be worshipped , and that was a really important part of his Christianity, was that only God should be worshipped and not only a human, and that from that came the other problems that we've got with the Nazi Party and the tragic events of the Holocaust.

And of course, you shall not murder or you shall not kill is a really important one of the Ten Commandments for Bonhoeffer, and this idea of pacifism and not harming another one of God's creation.

And within the Nazi Party, that systematic murder of over 6 million Jews and all the different types of people who were also systematically murdered goes directly against this idea of the preservation of life.

In addition to that, many of the belongings from all the millions of people who were systematically murdered by the Nazi Party were stolen, and they were either reused as part of the Nazi Party or you can still see them today in the different places where people were kept.

And so you can see that even that rule of not stealing was broken by the Nazi Party.

Let's do another check.

What term refers to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews and other people because of a part of their identity by the Nazi Party? Pause the video and have a think.

Yeah, the term is the Holocaust, and that's used to refer to the 6 million Jews that were killed, as well as lots of other different types of people who were exterminated by the Nazi Party during that time period.

Let's do a check on what we've learned so far.

So here are some of the Christian ideas which influenced Dietrich Bonhoeffer's beliefs, as well as some of the Nazi Party actions during his time that went against these.

Match an idea to the action that went against it.

So we've got a Christian idea to only worship God, the Christian idea, do not kill, the Christian idea that all humans are made in the image of God no matter their identities, and the Christian idea to not act out revenge.

And here I've got four different actions that the Nazi Party did, which could be said to go against these.

The persecution of groups of people because of a part of their identity, invading countries and engaging in war, the systematic murder of people, and encouraging people to worship Hitler.

How could you match these up? Pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, let's see how we've matched these up then.

So the Christian idea to only worship God from the Ten Commandments, if you can remember, could be matched up with the Nazi Party encouraging people to sort of worship Hitler or idolise him.

Secondly, the Christian idea, do not kill, taken from the Ten Commandments could be linked to that systematic murder of millions of people, 6 million Jews, as well as other types of people who were exterminated.

The Christian idea that all humans are made in the image of God no matter what their identity is.

And the action of the Nazi Party that could go against this was the persecution of different groups of people because of a part of their identity, whether it's because they were Jewish, Roma, travellers, or political opponents to the Nazi Party.

And fourthly, Christian idea to not act out of revenge.

We could say the Nazi Party went against this by invading countries and engaging in war and not following that sort of pacifist idea of turning the other cheek.

So onto our third section then, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's rebellion.

So we're going to look at something called the Confessing Church movement, which is part of Bonhoeffer's rebellion against the Nazi Party.

Bonhoeffer was not happy with the Nazi Party's involvement in the churches in Germany, and so with other pastors and leaders, he was involved with the Confessing Church's movement.

These were Protestant church groups of members who refused the changes the Nazi Party was trying to bring in.

Bonhoeffer had the opportunity to leave Germany and spread the word about what was happening there, as well as the work of the illegal, underground Confessing Church movement.

And he spent some time as a pastor for two churches in London during this time, and he reflected greatly on what it meant to truly be a disciple of Jesus and developed his ideas around pacifism.

As a pacifist, he learned about the way that Gandhi and others were fighting for justice and equality in India, and he was given the opportunity to go and study with Gandhi on the principles of nonviolent action.

So Bonhoeffer has two options.

He could either study pacifist action with Gandhi in India, so here you've got a picture of Gandhi, and this was a movement that was happening to get independence for India and equality for different people within India, but through using nonviolent action.

So he can go and study with him away from Germany, away from everything that's happening, and learn more about pacifist action with Gandhi in India.

Or he can return to the resistance against the Nazi Party in Germany.

So the Nazi Party's in control, World War II hasn't broken out yet, but he can go back and join the resistance and sort of try and help to stop what's happening in Germany.

What should he do? Have a think about what you think he should do.

Talk to the person next to you or you can talk to me.

Well, Bonhoeffer actually decides to return to Germany.

And it's said that he gets on one of the last ships that travels back to Germany before World War II breaks out.

So he is there witnessing what's happening.

He still wants to get the word out there to other people about what's happening, but wants to use whatever he can to try and save some lives and be part of the resistance against the Nazi Party and what's happening in Germany.

In Germany, Bonhoeffer learned more about the evil actions of the Nazi Party and he helped to get dozens of Jews out of the country to safety, for which he's posthumously awarded the title, righteous among the nations, by Jews.

And he is actually recognised in Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Memorial in Israel, for the actions he did to save the lives of Jews and helping them get out of Germany to safety.

Bonhoeffer felt it was his Christian duty to support and help as many people as he could, particularly those Jews, because Jesus was Jewish and he felt he needed to help preserve life as much as he could.

And he was also working as part of the resistance along with his brothers and other church leaders.

So if you remember, he was from a big family with lots of siblings, and many of those were also part of the resistance, and he was helping them to work against the Nazi Party from within Germany, as well as lots of other church leaders that he was working with.

During this time, members of the resistance had a plan to assassinate Hitler, hopefully end the war that had just broken out, and more importantly, end the actions that were happening as part of the Holocaust.

So now we come to Bonhoeffer's dilemma.

At the beginning of this lesson, we thought about the most difficult decision that we've ever had to make, and this is where we come to Bonhoeffer's most difficult decision that he needs to make.

As a pacifist, Bonhoeffer doesn't want to take human life.

All humans are made in the image of God, according to the Bible.

And if you remember, we said that passage about loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, was really important to Bonhoeffer.

He believes very strongly in this, that he shouldn't be taking any human life.

But if Hitler is assassinated, it may end the war more quickly and end the persecution of Jewish people and many others, so that the deaths that are happening could possibly be prevented or stopped.

The Holocaust may be stopped in this way.

What do you think he should do? So this is a dilemma because neither really is an outcome that Bonhoeffer wants to have.

As a pacifist, he doesn't want to take human life, so he doesn't want to kill Hitler because Hitler is a human life, but also wanting to preserve life means that by killing Hitler maybe more lives can be saved.

What do you think he should do with this dilemma? Have a think about your answer.

You can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, Bonhoeffer does decide to help with the assassination attempt.

It doesn't succeed, but he tries.

And here's a photo that was taken soon after the event, showing the aftermath of a bomb that was set off.

It was set off under a table that actually protected Hitler from the table, so it doesn't actually take his life.

But Bonhoeffer did decide to take part in that to at least attempt to try and end Hitler's life and try and bring the war and the Holocaust to an end.

Bonhoeffer decides to help with the assassination plot.

The plot fails and he's arrested and taken to a concentration camp where he's executed weeks before the end of the war.

And over 6,000 Christian Church leaders were killed by the Nazi Party.

So many of them who were involved in attempts like this or other ways of being resisting against the Nazi Party were also killed by the Nazi Party.

So time for a quick check.

Which two statements about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's rebellion are correct? He was awarded the title righteous among the nations for helping save Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

He was the only pastor or priest who was killed by the Nazi Party during the Holocaust, and he had a dilemma over remaining a pacifist or trying to assassinate Hitler for the sake of others' lives.

Which two are correct? Pause the video and have a think.

Yeah, that's correct.

A and C are the correct ones because 6,000 different Christian Church leaders were actually killed during the time of the Holocaust by the Nazi Party.

So having thought about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his rebellion against the political authority of his time, do we think he was right to rebel in this way? Sam and Jun are going to discuss that with us now.

Jun says, "He was wrong because plotting to kill someone is not a pacifist action, and it got him killed." So for Jun, he thinks that Bonhoeffer taking part in the assassination plot for Hitler went against his kind of core teaching of being a pacifist.

And actually it didn't work, it got him killed in the end as well, just before the end of World War II.

However, Sam says, "He was right because he had a chance to try and stop Hitler and the Nazi Party." And we know the horrific, horrendous things that were happening through the work of Hitler and the Nazi Party, so it was right for him to try and stop this in any way that he could.

Do you agree with Jun or Sam or do you have a different view? Pause the video and have a think.

You could talk to the person next to you or to me.

So, what is the most important factor to you in your decision? Are there things that have influenced you to either agree with Jun or Sam or hold a different view? Perhaps there's ways that you view the world which influence whether you think it would ever be right to try and assassinate a leader like Hitler or not.

So time for another check then.

Which of these events in the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's rebellion came first? Is it A, the plot to kill Hitler, B, the Abyssinian Church visit and work that he did in New York City, or is it C, spreading the word in the UK when he was working with two Christian churches in London? Pause the video and have a think.

Yes, correct, it's B, when he was with the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City.

This was the group of people who were doing many things to stand up for social justice and against the racial inequality that people were facing in America under the policy of segregation.

So time for a practise task now.

Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer right to challenge the political authorities of his time? Give a viewpoint in response to this question and a reason why someone might hold it.

You might like to use one of these sentence stems. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right.

District Bonhoeffer was not right.

It is unclear if District Bonhoeffer was right or not.

And this doesn't have to be your personal view, it's just a view that someone could hold on this question.

Pause the video and have a go, and then we'll see what you've written.

Well done, that was some really good work there.

So I asked you to give one viewpoint in response to this question with a reason why someone might hold it.

Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer right to challenge the political authorities of his time? Your answer might look like one of the following.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to challenge the political authorities of his time because his Christian faith influenced him to be part of the resistance against the Nazi Party.

Or you might have written, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not right to challenge the political authorities of his time 'cause his challenge led to his death and he could have had a longer impact for good had he survived.

So well done for some fantastic work today on this topic.

And I wonder what you would've decided if you were faced with some of those dilemmas and decisions that Bonhoeffer was.

Let's summarise what we've learned so far.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who worked with different Christian denominations.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed in pacifist ideas, but these were challenged when he faced the evils of the Nazi Party in Germany.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer worked to save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust and was an important member of the resistance against the Nazi Party.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer took part in an attempt to assassinate Hitler for which he was arrested and executed.

And there are different perspectives on whether Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to challenge the authorities of his time in the way that he did.

So well done again for today's hard work and I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.