Editing Dietrich Bonhoeffer (section)

== Execution ==
[[File:Flossenbürg April 9 1945 Memorial.JPG|thumb|right|upright|Flossenbürg concentration camp, Arrestblock-Hof: Memorial to members of German resistance executed on 9 April 1945]]
Bonhoeffer was sentenced to death on 8 April 1945 by SS judge [[Otto Thorbeck]] at a [[drumhead court-martial]] without witnesses, without any evidence against him, with no records of the proceedings or a defense.<ref name=GermanResistance>{{cite book|year=1996|author=Peter Hoffman|isbn=978-0-7735-1531-4|title=The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press}}</ref> He was executed in [[Flossenbürg concentration camp]] by hanging at dawn on 9 April 1945. Bonhoeffer was stripped of his clothing and led naked into the execution yard where he was hanged with five others: Canaris; General [[Hans Oster]], Canaris's deputy; General [[Karl Sack]], a military jurist; lawyer [[Theodor Strünck]]; and German resistance fighter [[Ludwig Gehre]].

Eberhard Bethge, a student and close friend of Bonhoeffer, writes of a man who saw the execution: <blockquote>I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.<ref name="Eberhard Bethge p. 927" /></blockquote>

This is the historical account of Bonhoeffer's death, which over the decades went unchallenged;<ref name="MetaxasBonhoeffer"/> however, some recent biographers see problems with the story because Bethge's witness, Hermann Fischer-Hüllstrung, was a doctor at Flossenbürg concentration camp.<ref>Little seems to be known about this doctor. A secondary work in German says Fischer-Hüllstrung was tried for killing prisoners by a variety of means and acquitted, but retried later and sentenced to three years in prison. This source does not, however, know the date of Fischer-Hüllstrung's death. {{cite book |year=2014 |first=Thomas O.H. |last=Kaiser |isbn=978-3-7357-6225-2 |title="Von Guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen..." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theologe, Pastor und Dichter in Wiederstand gegen Hitler |trans-title="Wonderfully saved by good forces ...": Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian, pastor and poet in resistance to Hitler |publisher=Books on Demand, Norderstedt |language=de }}<!--The topic of this work is [[de:Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben]]--></ref> J.L.F. Mogensen, a former prisoner at Flossenbürg, cited the length of time it took for the execution to be completed (almost six hours), plus departures from camp procedure that may not have been allowed to prisoners so late in the war, as jarring inconsistencies. Considering that the sentences had been confirmed at the highest levels of Nazi government, by individuals with a pattern of torturing prisoners who dared to challenge the regime, Craig J. Slane posits that "the physical details of Bonhoeffer's death may have been much more difficult than we earlier had imagined."<ref>{{cite book|year=2004|author=Craig J. Slane|isbn=978-1-58743-074-9|title=Bonhoeffer as Martyr: Social Responsibility and Modern Christian Commitment|publisher=Brazos Press}}</ref>

Other recent critics of the traditional account are more caustic. It also appears in some instances that "Fischer-Hüllstrung had been given the job of reviving political prisoners after they had been hanged until they were almost dead, in order to prolong the agony of their dying."{{sfn|Schlingensiepen|2010|page=406}} Another critic charges that Fischer-Hüllstrung's "subsequent statement about Bonhoeffer as kneeling in wordy prayer ... belongs to the realm of legend," although without evidence to the contrary.{{sfn|Kaiser|2014|p=311}}

The disposition of Bonhoeffer's remains is not known.{{sfn|Marsh|2014|page=390}} His body may have been cremated outside the camp along with hundreds of other recently executed or dead prisoners,{{sfn|Schlingensiepen|2010|page=378}} or American troops may have placed his body in one of several mass graves in which they interred the unburied dead of the camp.{{sfn|Marsh|2014|page=390}}