Tucker Carlson recently claimed that Dietrich Bonhoeffer decided “Christianity is not enough” when he took part in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Was Tucker right? Glenn Beck, who has studied Bonhoeffer in-depth, dives into the full story of Bonhoeffer and his struggle with these same questions…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I'll bring this up. Tucker did a podcast yesterday, that I listened to, or a couple of days. Whatever. You know, I listened to it yesterday.

And -- and the reason why I listened to it is because so many friends are like, he's talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Glenn. Blah, blah, blah.

And I don't want to get into -- I'm not going to talk about personalities. I just want to talk about facts. You draw your own conclusion about who you listen to. And you can listen to them or not listen to them. That's fine. But let's make sure we correct facts and not make it about personalities.

Okay. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the greatest men to ever live. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a Christian pastor. And let me set it up this way. When the Third Reich grew, and the Weimar republic collapsed, there was this -- there was this -- this movement in Christianity that happened quickly. Within the first year of the end of the Weimar and the beginning of the Nazi regime, within a year, 60 percent of the churches ridded themselves of everything Jewish. Okay? Now, that's hard to do when your main hero figure is a Jew! And the entire history, that said, hey. He's coming, is also written by Jews! Okay?

It's the Old Testament. And, by the way, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were Jews too! So it's hard to rinse the Jew out of the Judeo-Christian world. But somehow or another, they did it. Sixty percent. Okay?

They've gotten rid of, including many churches, already had gone for it and gotten rid of the Old Testament. That is something that Hitler's people were really pushing for: Get rid of the Old Testament. Well, you have nothing left, if you don't have the Old Testament with the New Testament!

So the world had gone insane. The Christian world had gone insane. Within six months, many, if not most of the churches had replaced the picture of Christ on the altar, with a picture of Adolf Hitler. So he changed the fabric of Christianity, entirely. And he was going after any pastor, priest, anybody, who was preaching something different. Okay? There were a couple of pastors. One played along with it at first. Pastor Niemöller. And he was like, "At first they came for this, and I didn't say anything, and then they came for this."

He didn't say anything at first. Then he -- then he got in -- and he's like, oh, I should do it. But he was praised in the end, for his unwavering faith. He actually stood.

And he actually -- he was -- one of the guys who preached that the Nazis were not to blame alone. They played their role.

But may I quote, would the Nazis been able to do what they would have done, if church members would have been truly faithful Christians. The answer is, no!

Truly faithful.

Now, Tucker said yesterday, that he doesn't think that Bonhoeffer was -- I don't remember the exact lines. I'll probably get it wrong.

Do we have it?

Okay. Go ahead and play it.

VOICE: We really have no choice, but to start shooting them. To be Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And sort of reach the end of reason or even Christianity.

Bonhoeffer decided, Christianity is -- he's a Lutheran pastor.

Christianity is not enough. We have to kill the guy. Not judging Bonhoeffer. He was a great man in some ways.

But, I mean, that's inevitable, once we decide that people are Nazis.

GLENN: Okay. So his point here, he's making about, we have to stop calling people Nazis.

And he's absolutely right. You have to stop calling people Nazis or shooting against them. Exactly right, unless they're actual Nazis. You know what I mean?

I mean, there's a difference between saying, hey. We should not call people Nazis, who are not Nazis, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer shouldn't have called Hitler a Nazi. He was the Nazi.

He's the idyllic Nazi. He's the king of all Nazis. He's a Nazi!

So when it is a Nazi, I think you can call people Nazis.

But, yeah. That does require you then to make a choice.

And that's where Bonhoeffer found himself.

This guy was an amazing man. He was a pacifist. He did not believe in war. He did not believe in killing. He -- and that's how he skated for a long time. Because he was saying, quiet. Quiet. Quiet.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Do not involve yourself in this. God does not want us to kill each other. He was a huge pacifist. His story goes back and forth. You have to read the Bonhoeffer book by Eric Metaxas.

But he goes back and forth. He comes to the United States. He sees faith in action, actually in Harlan. And kind of has this renewed kind of faith experience. He goes back to Germany. He's there for a while.

He knows now that Hitler is -- because he's helping Jews escape. And he knows Hitler is on it!

And he's going to -- he's closing in on him. He's going to get him. He leaves. He comes to the United States. He's here, and he starts feeling guilty. Like, I can't leave my own country. I have to stand! I can't leave and hide!

I've got to stand. So he goes back to Germany. I think on the last vote, that is going into Germany, and he gets to Germany. And he starts plotting Valkyrie. He's part of Project Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is the Tom Cruise movie you've seen, von Stauffenberg, a huge German hero, who was not a Nazi, but he was a German soldier who decided, "Oh, this has got to stop."

And they planned with a lot of people who said, "We've got to stop Hitler." Because look at what he's doing. He's destroying everything, and he's killing millions. And it's got to stop.

And Bonhoeffer, when he got back, he was wrestling with his pacifism. He was a pacifist. A strong one. He really believed that God said, no. No, fighting.

No war. Nothing.

You're not allowed to kill.

But the evil that he saw was so overwhelming, that he started questioning everything that he believed.

And ins class, because he would -- he was teaching these young pastors coming up. In his class, he started saying things to the class members, so if a pacifist saw something that was so evil, you needed to stop it, would it be okay?

And then they would argue. And the class didn't have any idea. He was working it out with the class in his own head.

He was working it out.

How do I work this.

How can I -- am I a Christian. If I do this.

He got to the point to where he said, if you knew of a pacifist, that you respected. And they did get involved in that. Would you still be their friend?

Would you still respect them?

Are they still Christians?

Okay. He's looking to work this out. And he struggled with it.
Hitler grabs him. Puts him in -- in prison.

He's in prison for a long time.

And the only reason why he survived as long as he did, he came from a very famous family.

And so Hitler really didn't feel like he had the juice to kill him. Without causing him other problems.

But he escaped for a while. And he was in prison. He wrote some beautiful stuff.

One of the most beautiful homilies on marriage, that I've ever read, is from him.

He was a guy who didn't get married.

He was going to get married.

But knew what was going to happen to him. But didn't want to endanger her, so he didn't get married. So he didn't know anything about marriage, except what he had read. What he thought about and read in Scriptures. And he writes this beautiful homily, because he's supposed to give the sermon at his sister's wedding. The Nazis won't let him out to do it. He writes it. It's read at her wedding. It's absolutely beautiful. And deep, deep, deep.

He's in prison for a while. He's now -- it's -- it's, you know, coming up to April 1945. Hitler dies in April 1945.

And everything is falling apart. And so the Nazis start kind of cleaning up the death camps. And they start transferring people. And -- and Bonhoeffer is supposed to be let free. And he gets on to this bus, you know, driven by the Nazis. And he's being transferred to where he will be released. Well, on the way, the tire goes out, and they don't have a spare. And so they're sitting on the edge of the road, and they got all these prisoners.

And these -- this other bus is coming. The other direction. And they're like, "Hey, where are you going?"

They said, "Well, we're going to this camp." Great. Will you just take these prisoners with you? Here's the paperwork and everything else.

Here's the prisoners. You just take them with you. So all the prisoners, who were there, including Bonhoeffer, who was supposed to be released, go to this other death camp. And now he's sitting there on this death camp and waiting for death.

And not supposed to be.

And in that, he is preaching Christ to the guy who did all of the experiments, on the Jews, you know, freezing them. Bringing them up, at high altitude. Until their his pop. All the horrible experiments.

Everything that is now in every hospital in the world.

The book about hypothermia and everything else.

It's the number one book on what the human body can do and how you fix things.

Number one.

It's in every hospital.

Every doctor has it. That was written by that Nazi.

He released it, without Hitler's permission. Because he thought it was such a gift to the world. And he went to prison. Because Hitler said, we're not trying to save the world. We're saving German soldiers.

Puts him in prison. The guy is a vile guy, as you can imagine. He's in, I think a French spy. This woman, she's a double agent. So they're in this cell, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And he's preaching to them. And they're just vile with each other, in front of him!

He keeps his cool. Keeps who he is.

Comes up to -- a couple of weeks before Hitler is going to kill himself. And they come, and they're going to execute everybody in that cell. So they go out, and the only reason why we know how Dietrich Bonhoeffer died and when he died is because of the way he acted. He went out. They took him out to the would see. And they had built a hanging platform. And one by one, they brought him up. Put the noose around their neck. Trapdoor. They died! Cut them down. Next one. Bring them up. Put the noose around their neck. Trap terror. Opens. They die!

Bonhoeffer, when he comes up, he comes up to the platform, and the guy who is putting the noose around his neck, he says, something like, thank you for your kindness.

Okay?

And the guy is like, what know.

Everybody else is freaking out. Everybody else is, you know.

And he says, "Thank you for your kindness."

He tightens the noose. Pulls the trapdoor. Dead.

He remembers that one guy. And remembers, that was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I don't know if he knew who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was at the time.

But he knew him, because of that "thank you." He died like a very valiant man. Okay?

In a way, I don't know if I could. What is the difference between when you confront evil, when you see evil. I mean, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the guy who said, "Silence in the face of evil is evil itself."

God will not hold us blameless.

Not to act is to act. Okay?

That comes from a deep, deep spiritual place.

What is the difference between that and Thomas Jefferson? Saying, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God?"

Do you, as a Christian have a responsibility to kill Hitler, if you had the opportunity with not Baby Hitler. Baby Hitler hasn't committed any crime. You're seeing this death machine. And you've tried everything you can to stop it.

Do you have a responsibility as a Christian to stop the evil? I think you do! I think silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

Not to act, is to act. You know, for -- for evil to happen, it's -- it will happen when good men do nothing!

We know that. We have a responsibility to act. But we have a responsibility to do everything Christ-like that we can, first. But you get into this place, to where, you know, whoa unto those who call evil good and good evil.

Everybody starts to confuse the language. Right?

And that's what's happening right now. Everybody is calling everybody a fascist or Hitler.

Everybody calls everybody a Nazi. And so there's no meaning on words.

We can't forget what words actually mean or we will wind up calling good evil and evil good!

That's what happened to so many Christians.

They did nothing. They just went along with it. They just played along, and then it became them! Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a great, great man.

A Christian giant!

And a man who fought real evil, and wrestled with it!

We squabble on the internet. And I don't want to add to that.

All I want to do is make sure that we talk about the facts as they are, so we don't lose our way as everything gets jumbled.