Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) was a German preacher, Lutheran pastor, and theologian whose ministry centered on resisting Nazi ideology and proclaiming costly discipleship within the Confessing Church. Born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), to Karl Bonhoeffer, a prominent psychiatrist, and Paula von Hase, a teacher, he was the sixth of eight children in a cultured, nominally religious family. He pursued theological education at the University of Tübingen and earned a doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1927, ordained shortly after. Converted in his youth, he began preaching in German-speaking congregations, including a year in Barcelona (1928–1929) and London (1933–1935). Bonhoeffer’s preaching career gained prominence as he opposed the Nazi regime’s influence on the German church, co-founding the Confessing Church in 1934 to uphold biblical fidelity against the pro-Nazi German Christians. He led an underground seminary at Finkenwalde (1935–1937), training pastors in resistance and community life, experiences that fueled his books The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Life Together (1939). His sermons urged radical obedience to Christ amidst persecution, culminating in his involvement in the Abwehr-led plot to assassinate Hitler. Arrested in 1943, he preached to fellow prisoners until his execution by hanging at Flossenbürg concentration camp at age 39, weeks before World War II’s end. Engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer in 1943 but never married, he left a legacy of courage and theological depth through works like Letters and Papers from Prison (1951).