View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What happened to Gersdorff after his failed attempt?
(a) He fled to Switzerland.
(b) He lived until 1980.
(c) He was executed with Bonhoeffer and his other co-conspirators.
(d) He was blown up and the incident exposed the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

2. What does Metaxas suggest to be the internal struggle regarding military service that troubled Bonhoeffer?
(a) He was looking for a way to obey his conscience, but would not force others to face consequences for his decisions.
(b) He was looking for a way to avoid military service without being imprisoned.
(c) 4. He did not want to join the military but did not want to be considered a coward.
(d) He did not want to join the military, but he did not want to leave Germany.

3. What statement did Bonhoeffer make in a lecture titled, "The Question of the Boundaries of the Church and Church Union", was criticized by his supporters as being a piece of false doctrine?
(a) "The National Socialists are making Germans the enemies of Christ."
(b) "Whoever knowingly separates himself from the Confessing Church in Germany separates himself from salvation."
(c) "One cannot be both Christian and National Socialist."
(d) "Those who commit themselves to Hitler have removed themselves from the hope of salvation."

4. What does Metaxas claim to have inspired Bonhoeffer and his fellow prisoners to hang on through their imprisonment in Buchenwald?
(a) The hymns that Bonhoeffer gently sang.
(b) The knowledge that any moment might bring their liberation or their deaths.
(c) The willingness of all the prisoners to cooperate to try to find their way of escape.
(d) The presence of Bonhoeffer's quiet courage.

5. What does Metaxas claim that Bonhoeffer saw would destroy Germany after the defeat of France?
(a) He saw that they had become mindlessly controlled by the Nazi view for Germany.
(b) He saw that Germany would be destroyed by success.
(c) He saw that Hitler would be able to lead them to their own destruction.
(d) He saw that now that Germans were turning back history, Germans would be taken by jealousy for each other.

6. Where did Bonhoeffer first meet Eberhard Bethge, according to Metaxas?
(a) During one of the many social engagements at his parents home.
(b) On the peninsula of Zingst.
(c) In Berlin upon his return from England.
(d) During a conference with leaders of the Confessing Church.

7. What does Metaxas detail to have prevented the bomb that Stauffenberg detonated from killing Hitler?
(a) The fuses did not detonate.
(b) A socle.
(c) The Gestapo had Stauffenberg arrested before he could carry out his plot.
(d) Hitler chose to leave the room.

8. To what Biblical prophets did Metaxas compare Bonhoeffer based upon the speech he gave at Fano?
(a) Nehemiah and Jeremiah.
(b) Jeremiah and Jonah.
(c) Daniel and Samuel.
(d) John the Baptist and Elijah.

9. What was Bonhoeffer's next destination after he traveled to Sweden to share information regarding the conspiracy against Hitler with Bishop George Bell, according to Metaxas.
(a) He returned to Berlin to get an update on the Kreisau Circle.
(b) To visit his friend Ruth von Kleist-Retzow.
(c) Norway to lend support to actions taken by Norwegian bishops.
(d) He was ordered to Berlin for a meeting with Theodor Heckel.

10. What does Metaxas report to be the meaning of the officials at Flossenburg telling the prisoners being transferred from Buchenwald that the camp was "too full" to receive them?
(a) The winding down of the war meant the Germans were not wasting resources and time on political executions.
(b) That those prisoners were not marked for death as the only purpose for Flossenburg was to execute prisoners.
(c) The camp had been converted to a receiving center for refugees fleeing allied bombing.
(d) That they were backlogged on executions and they would have to wait in another location until they could be "processed".

11. What does Metaxas cite as the first reason that Bonhoeffer joined the Abwehr?
(a) The Abwehr had become a front organization for helping Jews leave Germany.
(b) The gestapo would be forced to leave him alone and he would have freedom of movement to continue his work as a pastor.
(c) By joining the Abwehr, Bonhoeffer could avoid military service.
(d) Joining the Abwehr put him in touch with the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

12. How does Metaxas explain the Nuremberg laws affected the Jews?
(a) The Nuremberg laws socially isolated the Jews by forbidding non-Jews from socializing with them.
(b) The Nuremberg laws opened the floodgate of emigration of Jews out of Germany.
(c) The Nuremberg laws led directly to the Krystallnacht.
(d) The Nuremberg laws removed German citizenship from the Jews and made them subjects of the German government.

13. What does Metaxas claim to be Bonhoeffer's view of death?
(a) It was his opportunity to enter into the glory of the Lord.
(b) It was a separation that was not requested or welcomed.
(c) It was the "last station on the road to freedom".
(d) It was the only way to see if Christian faith was true.

14. What does Metaxas suggest that Bonhoeffer meant by "religionless Christianity"?
(a) Bonhoeffer felt that his turmoil in prison was proving all his devotion to God to be a sham and he came to the point of renouncing his religion.
(b) Bonhoeffer began to believe that the evils of the Nazis indicated that God was dead.
(c) Bonhoeffer was seeing that it was time to recognize God's authority over the whole world and stop keeping Him in religious corners that we reserve for Him.
(d) Bonhoeffer did not believe that the Nazis were going to be removed from Germany, so Christian churches would cease to exist and Christians were going to have to live out their faith.

15. What dramatic event greeted Bonhoeffer as 1938 was beginning, according to Metaxas?
(a) Gestapo officers arrested him and 30 others during a meeting of the Confessing Church.
(b) He became part of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.
(c) He heard about Kristallnacht.
(d) He helped his sister and her husband leave Germany for Switzerland.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Metaxas claim to be a motivation for Bonhoeffer's letter writing style while he was in prison?

2. What speculation does Metaxas offer for the reason that the British government would not encourage German conspiracies to assassinate Hitler?

3. What relationship did Bonhoeffer have with Maria von Wedemeyer before he had seen her while visiting her grandmother?

4. How did the commissar order revitalize the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler?

5. Who does Metaxas identify as the individual who was largely responsible for helping Bonhoeffer have a purpose for going to America before Germany started a war?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,266 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample