70th Anniversary of the martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (theologian - ecumenical professor) -- murdered by Nazi captors

Resistance and Execution (U.S. Holocaust Memorial: Victoria Barnett):
Even before the war, German opponents of Hitler had considered overthrowing the Nazi regime; the first unrealized plan to overthrow Hitler was during the Sudeten crisis in 1938. A successful coup, however, depended upon the support of key German military figures; their readiness to take such risks diminished with the German victories in Poland and on the western front. This was maddening to civilian conspirators like Hans Dohnanyi, who distrusted the military leaders and condemned their reluctance to move decisively against Hitler.
German resistance groups hoped to convince their Allied contacts of their seriousness and win foreign support for the overthrow of the Nazi regime. In October 1940, Dietrich Bonhoeffer began work as an agent for Military Intelligence, supposedly using his ecumenical contacts to help the cause of the Reich.
In reality, he used his contacts to spread information about the resistance movement. In trips to Italy, Switzerland, and Scandinavia in 1941 and 1942, he informed them of resistance activities and tried, in turn, to gain foreign support for the German resistance. . .
The Dohnanyi/Canaris effort, termed “Operation Seven,” eventually spirited fourteen Jews out to Switzerland (eleven had converted to Christianity; three had not).  Bonhoeffer used his ecumenical contacts to arrange visas and sponsors for the group.  At his instigation, one of those rescued was Charlotte Friedenthal, who had worked with Marga Meusel and with the Grüber office.
Friedenthal reached Switzerland in August 1942; the others arrived in September. Dohnanyi’s office immediately began plans for a new rescue attempt; before anything could come of these, the Gestapo traced the vast amounts of money that the conspirators had sent abroad for the emigrants. The arrests of Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer followed in April 1943.
Initially, the Gestapo treated it as a corruption case, accusing Dohnanyi and his colleagues of lining their own pockets. They soon realized, however, that the rescue attempt was the tip of a larger iceberg. Bonhoeffer was charged with conspiring to rescue Jews; of using his travels abroad for non-intelligence matters; and of misusing his intelligence position to keep Confessing Church pastors out of the military and for his own ecumenical work.
The Gestapo report on Bonhoeffer described him as “completely in the opposition.”  Still, even after the failure of the July 20, 1944, attempt to kill Hitler, it was months before the Nazis realized the extent of Bonhoeffer’s involvement in resistance circles.
In October 1944, Bonhoeffer was moved to the dreaded Gestapo prison in Berlin; in February 1945, he was taken to Buchenwald. He was then moved to the Flossenbürg concentration camp where, on April 9, he was hanged, together with Canaris, Oster, and other conspirators. Hans von Dohnanyi and Klaus Bonhoeffer were executed days later.
The SS doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s death later recalled a man “devout . . . brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds . . . I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” Bonhoeffer sent one final message, to George Bell in England: “This is the end, for me the beginning of life.”
http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/dietrich-bonhoeffer/resistance-and-execution