BONHOEFFER, DIETRICH (1906–1945), Lutheran pastor, theologian, and martyr. The sixth of eight children, Bonhoeffer was raised in Berlin in the upper-middle-class family of a leading neurologist. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Berlin. A student of Adolf von Harnack, Bonhoeffer was deeply influenced by the writings of the young Karl Barth. From 1930 to 1931, he studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York with Reinhold Niebuhr. He then returned to Berlin, teaching theology and becoming student chaplain and youth secretary in the ecumenical movement.

As early as 1933 Bonhoeffer was struggling against the Nazification of the churches and against the persecution of the Jews. Disappointed by the churches' nonaction against Nazism, he accepted a pastorate for Germans in London. However, when the Confessing church (i.e., Christians who resisted Nazi domination) founded its own seminaries, he returned to Germany to prepare candidates for ordination, a...