Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pacifist, wrestled with an ethical dilemma. Is it moral to kill someone responsible for mass murder?
He was thinking of Hitler and whether he should participate in the plot to assassinate him, which would have been an act of tyrannicide. While contemplating the proper ethical response, he wrote his seminal unfinished book, “Ethics.”
He believed that in a fallen world where the ambiguity of right and wrong reigns, we may sometimes need to disobey laws, even God’s laws. He suggested that we may need to get our hands dirty by doing what is wrong.
Bonhoeffer never said it was morally right to kill Hitler, but rather that this wrong action was the right thing to do. On behalf of others, he was willing to assume guilt as Jesus did and take responsibility for engaging in a wrong act.
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