Ultimate Price

Overview

"This volume presents the deeds and writings of both well-known and lesser-known resisters.  VERDICT A "you-are-there" vividness illuminates the striking bravery of the few in a grim period of world history. Fascinating, gripping reading for church groups, historians, and other interested readers."  --Library Journal

"Anyone wanting to know about the heroes of the Christian resistance to Hitler and the Nazis would do well to pick up Annemarie Kidder's new book.  It's an excellent introduction to the lives of extraordinary people most of us don't know about but should."--Eric Metaxas, author, Bonhoeffer:  Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy


"Across the decades these witnesses challenge each of us to ask:  What am I doing now in the face of injustice?"--Mary Frances Coady, Author, With Bound Hands:  The Life and Selected Prison Letters of Alfred Delp

"There is a great deal of literature dealing with the Holocaust. But information about Christians who resisted the Nazi regime and paid with their lives is one of the lesser-known aspects of this period in history.  Readers will find the portraits of their lives and dedication to their faith inspiring."--Booklist

Through their own words and their stories Ultimate Price highlights the witness of seven men and women compelled by their Christian faith to resist the idolatrous Nazi regime. What were their motives? What convinced them, long before their vindication by history, that they must defend the dignity of human life and the integrity of the gospel, even at the cost of their own lives?

Some of these seven martyrs are well known, others less so. They include Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned and executed for his part in a plot to overthrow Hitler; Jesuit Alfred Delp, executed for his role in the anti-Nazi Kreisau Circle; Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant who refused to take a military oath; Sophie Scholl, a young university student and part of the doomed White Rose conspiracy; hymn writer and novelist Jochen Klepper; Berlins Cathedral provost Bernhard Lichtenberg; and recently beatified Jesuit preacher Rupert Mayer.

In tracing these martyrs journeys, Ultimate Price challenges us to heed our own conscience, examine our own loyalties to kin and country in light of Christs claims, and to take our own stand with those Christ called ""the least of these.""

Annemarie S. Kidder is a German-born theologian, Presbyterian pastor, and associate professor at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Detroit, Michigan. She has translated and edited Karl Rahners The Mystical Way in Everyday Life, and is the editor of Etty Hillesum: Spiritual Writings (both from Orbis).