By Douglas J. Lanzo
Copyright 2024

Dedicated to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

First published in Literary Yard (November 9, 2025 Issue)

Commanded not to
speak in public,
cut off while on the air,
banned from Nazi streets
deep in the Führer’s lair;

one man risked it all:
his family, name and life —
to save his Fatherland,
from Holocaust and strife;

preaching love of Jews
at home and while abroad,
exposing Hitler’s lies
as anti-Christian fraud.

His seminary closed,
he traveled to Harlem —
moved by the spirit there —
uplifting all of them;

until he felt called back
to war-torn Germany,
where he would do God’s will:
resist — rather than flee.

Sworn to secrecy,
he joined an Abwehr plot
to take the Führer’s life
by plane bomb on the spot.

Engaged when the plot hatched,
he never saw the day,
when he would stride the aisle,
with love leading the way.

Arrested and confined,
tortured, questioned for years —
he stood strong in his faith,
despite the pain and tears.

Not one month ‘til the day
the Allies won the War,
Bonhoeffer led a service  
within his cell block’s doors.

Approached by Nazi guards,
transported to a camp,
he was sentenced to death,
then taken up a ramp…
to a waiting noose,
to be cut like a knife,
where in his words, his end —
would be, “the beginning of life.”