Dietrich Bonhoeffer, born in Germany in 1906, was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who became a powerful voice for personal and religious opposition to Hitler's Nazism. Packed with pencil drawings and printed with a custom typeface based on the author's handwriting, The Faithful Spy carries readers straight into the complicated and ominous period between the two World Wars, when many Germans, after the humiliation of the Great War, "were hungry for a vision of triumph, conquest, and rebirth." Author/illustrator John Hendrix masterfully tells the story of Bonhoeffer, one of the first people in Europe to see Hitler's charismatic rise to leadership for what it was: a mad attempt to "grab the reins of power while the great German horse was without a rider."
Hendrix's (Rutherford B., Who Was He?: Poems About Our Presidents; Miracle Man: The Story of Jesus) uncommon style weaves nonstop illustrations with blocks of facts, imagined conversations and direct quotes from a chilling era. He helps readers begin to make sense of the unfathomable: how so many in a country could not only tolerate but rabidly support a man whose operating principles relied on hatred, fear and murder. He also helps readers understand that not all in Hitler's Germany supported the regime; many--even high-ranking officers in the armed forces and officials in the Nazi party--were secretly fighting back from their positions of power.
Readers of this information-dense history/biography will bear an intellectual load but it is lightened by frequent sidebars and captioned illustrations. In the author's note, Hendrix points out how important the telling of this story is: "Despite the lessons learned from the horrors of World War II, recent history has shown humanity has not been permanently vaccinated against tyrants. We never will be." --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor