Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and a participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism. He was involved in plots planned by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in March 1943, imprisoned, and eventually hanged just before the end of the World War II in Europe. The author comments: The three best biographies are simply inadequate as readable introductions to Bonhoeffer: too long, poorly translated, or too skimpy. His extraordinary story deserves an extraordinary telling. Tom Cruise plays the leader of the plot, von Stuaffenberg, in the film "Valkyrie", to be released in 2008.