The little boy was pointing at the famed statue of Bonhoeffer, the one that had been raised in Berlin only two years after the Abwehr successfully ended World War Two by assassinating Hitler. Now, sixty-five years later, I was curious to hear how this young father would explain why Dietrich Bonhoeffer holds an honoured place in our history.
“Well, son, that’s a statue of a great man.”
The little boy stopped for a moment, his finger by his mouth, his face a picture of childish confusion.
“But Daddy, how do you know that?”
And now the confusion was on the father’s face. He was grappling with how to explain.
“Well, have you learned about the war in school?”
The boy nodded.
“And you heard how the people who took our country into that war used the fact that we were at war to secretly do many bad things here and in other nearby countries? Well that man was one of the people that stopped those bad men. He was a priest and his wisdom helped to justify what was done.”
I smiled; it was well explained.
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