Shaun King – The Christian Pastor Who Tried to Kill Adolph Hitler Travel to Berlin Germany
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Hello from Berlin, Germany and Assalamu alaikum.
It is good to see all of you.
I am, it's starting to rain on me
but what I have to tell you and
what I want to show you is so
important.
I have to be at a speaking engagement
in an hour here in Berlin.
I'm walking in the rain in the camera
but I have to show you this and
I could not come to Berlin without showing
you what I'm about to show you, without
telling you the story that I'm about to
tell you.
It's, it's surprisingly bittersweet in so many ways.
I'm walking down an alleyway in a beautiful,
almost stereotypically German neighborhood.
Let me show it to you.
I'm walking down here and I'm walking to
a home of a man who is a
hero to me, a giant.
If I had to, if I had to
name five people that have shaped my entire
life, if I had to name just five,
maybe if I had to name just three,
this man would still be on the list.
There are very few people that have impacted
me more than the man whose story I'm
about to tell you.
And I would, I would be denying myself.
Yes, I am a Muslim.
I, you know, I was on the floor
of the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul and
I said, I relate to this place because
the Hagia Sophia mosque once was a place
for pagans.
Then it became a home to Christians and
then it became a home for Muslims.
I once was a non-believer.
Then I became a Christian for 25 years.
I was a pastor.
I went to seminary and now I'm Muslim,
but you would not know me the way
you know me.
You would not respect me the way you
may respect me.
If not for this man.
I'm standing under a tree for a moment
to, to beat the rain, but I'm going
to have to walk in the rain and
there might even might even be rain on
my lens here in a moment, but I
would rather be soaking wet and tell you
this story than miss this moment.
I don't know if I'll ever be back
here.
Inshallah, I have no idea.
I'm not even going to get to go
inside of the place.
I tried so hard to get inside and
I can't even go inside, but I have
to show it to you.
I am, I'm walking now down a street
that was once marched down by Nazis.
This very street that I'm walking on right
now, the SS, the Nazi military came down
these roadways right here to arrest my hero,
to arrest a man that became a martyr,
to arrest a man that gave his life
for what he believed in.
I'm walking down this street now and it's,
it is profound to know that in this
very place, Nazi soldiers walked where I'm walking,
marched where I'm walking to go to this
home, this beautiful German home in a beautiful
neighborhood in Berlin, right here.
This, sisters and brothers, was the final home
of a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Please, please let me tell you his story.
I can't believe I'm here because for so
many years he seemed unreachable to me.
When I was first a student at Morehouse
College, this was in 1997 when I first
heard this man's name.
When I first got to Morehouse College and
learned a name that was so strange to
my tongue, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I learned that
he was a hero to Dr. Martin Luther
King, who is the giant of our campus
at Morehouse.
He was a graduate of Morehouse College, that
he was a hero to many in the
civil rights movement, and that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose
bedroom was right up here, that this man
was known as a friend of African Americans
in the United States.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sisters and brothers, so much of
who I am is modeled after Malcolm X,
is modeled after Dr. King, and is modeled
after Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Many times when I was a Christian and
thought about leaving the faith, it was his
book on Christian discipleship, but even more than
that, it was his example as a Christian
that caused me to say, okay, this is
a life that I can still consider living,
because I looked around and I would read
the Gospels, but then look at Christians and
not see the parallels, but I would be
reminded of the life that this man led.
When he was just a teenage boy, very
much like me, I became a preacher, a
Christian preacher.
When I was a teenage boy, just 16
and 17 years old, I started preaching, and
then so did he, and his brothers who
were lawyers, he had a brother who actually
died in World War I, his brothers thought
like, okay, we have a brother who is
a genius, and he wants to be a
theologian and a preacher, like what?
His brothers were frustrated with him, and they
were like, Dietrich, what are you, come on,
you could do anything, why would you want
to do something lowly like be a preacher?
You could do so much more, and he
felt it in his heart.
He knew that there was something for him,
and he went to school to learn to
be a preacher, to be a pastor, to
be a theologian.
He was a brilliant man, a genius, a
giant intellectually, and he had a skill that
I have tried to develop and have myself.
To me, the true sign of intelligence is
can you make complicated ideas simple?
So anybody who watches this video, I'm about
to teach you about a German theologian named
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but I want it to be
approachable if a middle school student watches this,
if my mother watches this, if your mother
watches this, I want you to learn something,
and Dietrich Bonhoeffer had that skill of making
complicated ideas simple.
He went to school and got his undergraduate
degree, eventually got his doctorate, became a professor,
and in 1930 moved to the United States.
Let me tell you where this man, this
man who grew up right here in Berlin,
Germany, this man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer moved to Harlem,
New York.
What?
And he went to a Union Theological Seminary,
and when I was, my wife could tell
you, when I was 20 and 21 years
old, I took our family, at that time
it was me, my wife, and our little
baby, I took us in the dead of
winter to Union Theological Seminary right outside of
Harlem in New York because he used to
be there.
I just wanted to be where Dietrich Bonhoeffer
used to be and let me tell you
why.
This man who moved to New York, he
was so irritated, he was actually so irritated
with theology students and other people at the
seminary, but let me tell you who he
loved.
He went to a church that I've preached
at, Abyssinian Baptist Church.
It's the most historic church in Harlem, maybe
the most historic church in New York, one
of the most important black churches in all
the United States.
I've preached there.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer went there and he said, ah,
this is redeeming me being away from Germany.
This is redeeming my time here.
And Dietrich Bonhoeffer immediately, God knit his heart
to black folk in Harlem.
He heard Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., who was
the father of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who
became one of the first black congressmen from
New York and from Harlem.
He heard them preach.
And he became in 1930, not in the
60s.
This is when Dietrich Bonhoeffer moved to Harlem.
Dr. King was one year old.
This was before the civil rights movement.
This man grew a heart for civil rights
and human rights for black people when he
moved to Harlem, went to church in Harlem.
And when he moved back here just two
years later, guess who was rising up to
power?
You know, it's Hitler.
This man moved back home to Germany and
he's starting to see the ascendancy, the rise
of one of the single worst human beings
to ever walk this earth who ordered soldiers
here on this street to come and arrest
Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Dietrich in 1933 did a radio show where
he begins telling people, speaking out against Nazism,
speaking out against Adolf Hitler.
And they literally cut off his radio show
like midstream.
This is in 1933.
This is before the Holocaust.
And what many of us fail to remember
is the Holocaust was not a two-year
or three-year thing.
The persecution of Jews in Germany, right here
in Berlin, started 10 years earlier.
And this man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke out against
it.
And let me tell you, because I only
have a few minutes.
Let me tell you what he did.
He began organizing people behind the scenes to
figure out how can we stop the Nazis?
How can we stop these evil people?
How can we prevent them from doing what
they're doing?
In 1934, 35, 36, 37, he becomes a
thorn in the side of Nazis.
This man's not a Jew.
He's not Jewish, but he knew what he
was witnessing was wrong.
Many of you are not Muslims, but you
care deeply about Palestinians.
That was me just months ago.
You know what's happening in Gaza is an
abomination.
It's an abomination before Allah.
It is a sin.
It is a crime.
The International Court of Justice has said it's
a crime.
This man saw the rise of Nazism and
the persecution of Jews.
He was not a Jew, but he knew
it was wrong.
And let me tell you, in the few
minutes that I have left, while living in
this home, this was his parents' home.
All of his siblings had gotten married.
Even some of his siblings had moved in
with their parents and lived here, but married.
He was the only one that wasn't married.
He had thrown his heart and soul into
his ministry and into figuring out how he
could stop Nazism.
And let me tell you, this is, let
me tell you what he did.
And I have to teach a point that
I think is so relevant for today.
This man, this man here began plotting on
how he could assassinate Adolf Hitler, a Christian
theologian.
Right now, if you go to London, there
is a church called Westminster Abbey.
It is perhaps the most famous church, Protestant
church in all of London, maybe in all
of the UK.
There is a statue of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in
Westminster Abbey because to Christians, he is celebrated,
listen to me, as a martyr.
Because as he began saying, how can we
plot to stop Nazism?
He felt, and many of them felt, we
have to stop Adolf Hitler.
How do we stop him?
We kill him.
A pastor, a theologian that is celebrated.
He's not really celebrated here in Germany.
Let me, let me be very honest.
He's celebrated in the UK.
He's celebrated in the US.
And I do think it's quite ironic that
Christians, Americans, Europeans celebrate a pastor that was
willing to become a martyr in many of
his diary writings and letters that I've read
and treasured.
He said, you know, he said in his
letters, he said, I'm not comparing myself to
early Christian martyrs.
And he said, but it is my belief
that I must become one.
He knew, in fact, that he was basically
on a suicide mission.
And as word leaked that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a
beloved Christian pastor, was plotting to assassinate from
this house, was plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
They came down this street here.
It was his last day of freedom.
They came down this street, burst into this
house, and not only arrested Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but
arrested several of his family members, brother, sister,
and took them all.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in a prison, a jail
here in Berlin without ever being charged for
a year and a half.
And they sent this man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a
Christian pastor, he was a German, in Berlin.
They sent him to a concentration camp.
Listen to me.
I said to you in tears from the
floor of the Hagia Sophia mosque, there is
something that troubles me, but I can't keep
it to myself.
There is something that concerns me because I
learned this beautiful Hadith of our prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him.
And in many ways, it reminds me of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
The words of our prophet, peace be upon
him, the Hadith says, I'm going to preach
it again tonight, says, when you see injustice,
you should try to stop it with your
hands.
And if you fail to stop it with
your hands, then use your words, use your
tongue.
And then it says in this order, and
if you fail to stop that injustice with
your tongue, then you can feel it in
your heart.
Our brother Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he lived it.
He was uncomfortable.
He was a man of words.
He was a man of heart, but he
knew, listen to me, that to be a
man of the book and as Muslims, this
has given me, this has encouraged my heart.
As Muslims, we respect the Bible.
As Muslims, we respect the Torah.
We respect people of those books and those
prophets of the Old and New Testament.
We revere them.
Often we adore them more than Christians or
Jews.
Like they are, like we revere them in
a very special way that you could only
understand if you were a Muslim.
But Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who read those words of
those prophets, he knew that I cannot be
a Christian and simply write about injustice.
I cannot be a Christian and simply speak
about injustice.
I cannot be a Christian and just feel
injustice in my heart.
He said, I have to do something about
it with my hands.
The Hadith actually, it says, use your hands.
If you fail, use your words.
If you fail, use your heart.
And then it has a little phrase that
people throw away that I admonish you, don't
throw it away.
The phrase actually says, use your hands, use
your words, then use your heart.
And it says your heart is the least
of the faith.
It's not useless.
But of the three things I just named,
hands, words, heart, your heart is the least
of these.
Too often I hear us, I'm a part
of us.
Too often I hear us say, it breaks
my heart.
Or I even hear people say, God knows
my heart.
And I have something to say to you
about that.
God does know our heart.
Allah knows our heart.
And that terrifies me.
We say it as a beautiful excuse for
inaction.
God knows my heart as an excuse for
the things we don't do.
But if God sees our heart, God sees
that our inaction is actually most often caused
by cowardice.
How many, how many people that live, that's
a beautiful home.
When I just saw it with you, but
minutes before you saw it, I saw it.
He could have lived comfortably here.
He had job offers all around the world.
People were begging him, please leave there, please.
He got offers to move back to the
United States, offers to flee here and go
to London.
But he knew some injustice must be confronted
sisters and brothers with your hands, with your
body, with your might.
Listen, it's not enough to feel it in
your heart.
It's not enough to make a post on
Instagram or X or, or, or, or, or
tick tock.
No, it's not enough.
This video is not enough.
We must find ways to confront the injustices
of the world.
Like our dear brother, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this man,
if you know me, if you love me
or respect me, then you didn't know it,
but you actually love and respect this man.
He's in me.
He's in my mind.
So many times I have, I've listened.
I can't even tell you how many times
my life has been threatened hundreds and hundreds
of times.
I've received the most horrific death threats.
I've gotten them in the mail.
I've gotten them electronically.
We've had people show up at our home
because of the work I do.
When we were trying to track down the
men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery, God bless his
soul.
God bless his sweet mother, Wanda.
Wanda, I love you sister.
Who's become like family to me and my
dear brother Lee Merritt.
When we were tracking down those bigots who
lynched Ahmaud, do you think I wasn't afraid?
Look, fearless is, fearless is a lie.
Fearlessness is a lie.
You push past it, but it doesn't mean
it's not there.
Like you have to, it's still there.
We knew that we were doing dangerous work,
but we knew those men, we knew those
men had to be caught with our hands.
We had to locate them.
We had to, we had to go and
meet people.
Listen, I've never talked about this publicly.
We begged Donald Trump to prosecute the men
who murdered Ahmaud Arbery.
We begged the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp,
who I have to tell you was so
warm and kind to us and had everything
to do with that man, with those two
men, three men being charged and sentenced and
convicted.
We, we saw the governor of Georgia cry,
tears of frustration and anger over what had
happened, that a, that a black man was
lynched in his state and those men who
lynched him probably voted for Brian Kemp.
Do you think I wasn't afraid doing that
work?
Do you think when bigots showed up at
my house six months later, that I wasn't
worried for my family, for my wife and
for my was, but it was, it was
my inspiration.
Not, not just him, but so many men
and women who in the face of grave
injustice said, I can't stop.
I must act.
I must go.
I must do.
Listen, sisters and brothers, if you're watching this
and you're a Muslim and you're saying, wow,
I never thought I would be learning about
a German Christian theologian who tried to kill
Hitler.
Listen, we all get inspiration from different places.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he inspired me as a
teenager, this man, as a teenager, I began
thinking, wow, he did that.
You can be a Christian and sacrifice your
life in this way.
You can do this.
And let me now make a complicated point
that maybe, maybe only I can make and
get away with.
I, there are privileges I have.
I'm not an Arab American, right?
I'm not.
There are places I can go that other
people can't things I can say.
And I must say them.
Why are Muslim martyrs looked at so very
differently than Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
Just answer me that.
Why is there a statue of my, of
my brother, Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Westminster Abbey?
But when Muslim men put their lives on
the line for their families, for their people,
when my brothers in the West bank, when
my brothers in Gaza, when my brothers in
Yemen put their lives on the line, why
are they demonized?
But this man lionized answer me that.
No, it's no knock on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
I revere this man.
His body was never found.
They took him from this place, threw him
in a jail in Berlin for almost two
years, then sent him to concentration camps.
It's believed that he was tortured and they
hung him by his neck and killed him.
His body was never found.
We don't know if they, if they burned
it.
The camp where he was killed, where this
man who plotted to kill Hitler was killed,
that camp was liberated not long after he
was killed.
And so I ask you, and I want
you to think about it.
Why are Christian, European, white men in particular,
who give their lives confronting injustice, who become
martyrs?
He, he said in his letters, I am
prepared to die.
And he said, if I meet God, I
know the only way I'm getting to heaven
is if there is such a thing called
grace.
He thought, he said, I don't even know
if God approves of what I'm doing, but
I believe it must be done.
He was so brutally honest about it.
And there's a statue, a life-size statue
among saints.
He's treated, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is treated like a
saint.
Now this week, the international, just three days
ago, the international court of justice, the highest
court in the world, said that everything Israel
is doing is criminal.
Everything Israel is doing to the Palestinian people
is illegal.
It said they had not, they have not
committed hundreds, not thousands, not even hundreds of
thousands.
Their, their opinion said that they have committed
millions of crimes from 1967 until this morning,
they've committed millions of crimes against the Palestinian
people.
They illegally stole their, their land, illegally stole
their homes illegally.
This is all in their opinion, all in
the, in the decision that the international court
of justice made saying that it is wrong.
It said that Israel is a criminal apartheid
state.
The walls they've built, the international court of
justice said those walls are illegal.
It said 500,000 Jews have built homes,
500,000 different homes for millions of Jews
have been built on Palestinian land that was
stolen.
The international court of justice said those Palestinian
families must be compensated, must be given reparations.
So why then when our, when our sisters
and brothers because it's not just our Palestinian
brothers that are martyrs, it is our sisters
and brothers, it is men and women, it
is boys and girls who are giving their
lives like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Why are they demonized?
But he is lionized.
We believe any day now that Benjamin Netanyahu,
it is, there is a, there is a
cruel, painful irony about what I'm about to
say.
The Benjamin Netanyahu any day now is going
to be charged by the ICC, the international
criminal court with all kinds of war crimes
and a warrant for his arrest is going
to be issued.
So when our sisters and brothers in Palestine,
in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen,
do everything they can to stop these criminals.
Why are they demonized?
But this man is lionized.
I'll tell you the answer.
There's really just one answer.
It's white supremacy.
It's Islamophobia.
If Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a brown Muslim, he
would not be lionized by these people.
But because he was a white Christian, he
is accepted, not just accepted, he is celebrated
and revered, lifted up almost to sainthood.
I revere him.
Are our sisters and brothers who are fighting
against apartheid and genocide, are they less righteous
than this man?
Are they?
For trying to stop what they're stopping?
I don't think so.
I don't think so at all.
And I just want you to, to consider
this.
It's, I'm flying back to Istanbul tomorrow.
It's closed.
Today is Sunday, so I can't go in.
I wanted to show you the inside and
what people said when they saw his room.
It's a tiny, simple room.
They said there was a cigarette burn on
the couch that he had left.
He smoked cigarettes and they accidentally burned a
hole in his couch.
It's still there.
He was just a man.
Brothers, you're just a man.
I'm just a man.
Sisters, you're just, just a woman.
But Allah, through our prophet, peace be upon
him, said, use your hands, then your words.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, no.
Then your heart, which is the least of
these.
I love you.
I appreciate you.
Thank you for letting me.
I thank Allah, alhamdulillah, that it did not
rain.
It's supposed to be a thunderstorm any moment
now.
And I thank Allah for keeping the rain
and allowing me to tell you this story
of a man.
If you love me unknowingly, you love this
man who was so brave, so courageous, so
loving that he said, I will give my
life for people that's not even me.
And let me say the hard, complicated thing
that I have to say.
And I'm going to say it again tonight
when I speak here in Berlin.
How cruel is it?
How perverse?
How gross?
How awful is it that this nation, Germany,
where I am right now, that marched, that
soldiers marched down this street and killed my
hero?
What?
Threw him into a concentration camp, stripped him
naked and hung him.
What?
That this nation that rounded up 6 million
Jews, starved them, stole their homes, stole their
land, stole their art, their valuables, their memories,
and forced them into concentration camps and killed
them by the millions.
How gross is it that this nation is
now the only nation in the history of
Earth that oversaw the genocide of the Jews
and is now funding and supporting and defending
genocide on behalf of the Jews?
What is this place?
I will say it tonight, and it's a
hard, it's a hard word.
I think Germany has a bent to genocide.
That it is the only nation that backed,
not just backed, that funded and fueled the
genocide of the Jews and is now literally,
Germany is defending Israel before the International Court
of Justice, saying you don't even have a
right to hold Israel accountable.
Germany, where I am right now, the place
that marched down here and arrested Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
this place, Germany, this place, arms sales have
gone up 1,000 percent to Israel in
the past year, 1,000 percent.
This is a genocidal state.
This state has a strange, a strange bent.
This government, I've met wonderful people.
Last night in Frankfurt, I met wonderful German
men and women.
Tonight in Berlin, we'll meet wonderful German men
and women.
But this government has a weird bent toward
genocide that it seems to not be able
to shake.
It supported the genocide of the Jews so
awful.
And now it is supporting the genocide of
the Palestinian people on behalf of the Jews.
How evil.
One last Hadith.
I could share.
The Hadiths mean so much to me.
And I've been studying them.
And thank you to my imams, Dr. Shadi
and Imam Omar Suleiman.
They've taught me so much.
There's another Hadith where someone asked our prophet,
peace be upon him, what is the greatest
form of struggle before God?
And the prophet, peace be upon him, he's
he told them the story of Hamza.
And he said, the greatest struggle is to
speak truth to tyrants and to give your
life doing so, to speak truth to tyrants
and to give your life doing so.
Listen, if Allah wants to see you and
me speaking truth to tyrants, if that is
the greatest form of struggle before God, then
please, I want a lot to see me
speaking truth to tyrants.
I want a lot to see me and
you using our hands to stop injustice.
Sisters and brothers, I got to go.
I got to call my Uber.
I feel like Allah is saying, Shawn, I
held the rain long enough.
You better go to your event.
I'm almost going to be late.
OK, so I have so many more.
When I get back to Istanbul, I have
something to show you.
I can't wait for you to see it.
It's going to blow your mind.
It's almost it's kind of connected to what
I'm about to to show you.
But I, I have never known how heaven
works, how general works.
I, I pray that one day we will
see martyrs who have given their life facing
injustice.
We will see those martyrs in Jannah, in
heaven.
I can't, I cannot wait.
And it would be an honor if any
of us could call ourselves the same.
Assalamu alaikum.
Hope to see you all soon on the
road around the world.
Thanks for letting me tell you this story.
All right.
Take care, everybody.