On April 9, 1945, at the Flossenbürg concentration camp, a German pastor and theologian, a German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was executed. His execution came just weeks before the end of World War II in Europe. He was arrested in April 1943 for his involvement in the German resistance.
While imprisoned, his connection to the July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler was uncovered after documents were discovered that linked him to the conspiracy. This led to his court-martial and death sentence. On April 8, 1945, a summary court-martial headed by SS officials convicted Bonhoeffer and several other conspirators of high treason and sentenced them to death. He was hanged the following morning.
Bonhoeffer had studied at the Union Theological Seminary in New York and was introduced to the realities of racism by his African American classmate, Albert Fisher. He attended services at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where he was deeply moved by the sermons and the gospel music. He witnessed firsthand the effects of segregation when he and Fisher were refused service at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. This experience with American racism helped him to more clearly understand the antisemitism that was rising in Germany.
Bonhoeffer was an avowed pacifist who had previously preached non-violence, so his decision to join the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler was a profound moral struggle. He came to believe that in the presence of a genocidal tyrant, a Christian's duty was not to maintain personal purity but to actively intervene to save the lives of others. This was the core of his "ethics of responsibility".
A person must sometimes be willing to "get their hands dirty" and take on guilt for the sake of a greater good. Inaction in the face of tyranny is itself a form of complicity and sin. He believed that merely speaking out was no longer enough; he had to act. He was willing to take on the guilt of killing as a representative for those who were suffering and for a nation that was being led to ruin. He was not justifying the act itself as "good," but rather seeing it as a necessary, tragic, and sinful act for which he hoped for God's grace.
Regardless of what you think of Bonhoeffer's actions, it shows that, in contemplating violence, absolutist morality has no utility. It simply provides the rationale for inaction in the face of tyranny.
In the wake of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, multiple influencers across the anglosphere have been asserting an absolutist moral frame for political action through violence. "It's never right", they assert, as if every situation of violence is equivalent. We know, of course, that it is not. Many jurisdictions around the world provide lenience to someone who kills to stop some sort of horror, such as domestic violence or in self-defence.
In assessing whether violence is morally right, most societies take all factors into consideration and judge and punish accordingly. Morality is, on a practical level, not an absolute, but contingent on all factors.
To assess whether the killing of Charlie Kirk is wrong we need to consider all factors, including whether incitement to gun violence is justification for his killing. Bonhoeffer thought Hitler's death was responsible. Was Charlie Kirk's death 'responsible'?
How absolutism plagues the US
Morality is contingent on circumstances and a society must consider all factors, including the target's actions (like incitement to violence), rather than dismissing all acts of violence as inherently equivalent and wrong.
"A person must sometimes be willing to 'get their hands dirty' and take on guilt for the sake of a greater good. Inaction in the face of tyranny is itself a form of complicity and sin."