Week 9: Operation 7 and the Conspiracy Deepens

1.Metaxas narrates 'Operation 7' — the effort to smuggle fourteen Jews into neutral Switzerland using the cover of the Abwehr's intelligence operations. The name referred to the original seven intended participants, which eventually grew to fourteen. What does the specificity of this operation — real names, real people, real danger — add to your understanding of Bonhoeffer's resistance compared with his earlier written protests?

2.Bonhoeffer's involvement in Operation 7 was deeply personal — several of the people being rescued were connected to his own extended family and church community. Metaxas suggests this personal connection was a feature, not an anomaly — that genuine moral action typically begins with the face of the particular neighbor, not the abstraction of 'humanity.' Do you agree? How does this shape the way you think about justice and compassion in your own life?

3.During this period, Bonhoeffer traveled to neutral countries — Sweden, Switzerland, Norway — ostensibly on Abwehr business but actually to make contact with Allied representatives and seek international support for a post-Hitler German government. In Sweden, he met his old friend Bishop Bell of Chichester and asked him to carry a message to the British government about the resistance. The British government rebuffed the overture. How do you respond to this moment of the Allies failing to support the German resistance?