The article reviews the nature of Dietrich Bonhoeffer?s commitment to pacifism in view of his role in the coup to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It analyses both the concept of Niebuhrian ?Christian realism? and the Yoderian defense of socially responsible nonviolence.
Finally it shows that the question of continuity in Bonhoeffer?s understanding of Christian discipleship must be treated separately from the question of a theological defense of tyrranicide.