I recognize the danger of fictionalizing the events of any real man or woman’s life. Inaccuracies of both fact and motive are able to creep in unawares in the format of a story. I found, however, in researching both the period and that region of Germany (now Poland) once known as Pomerania, that Bonhoeffer could not be kept out of the events engulfing the Dortmann estate. Not only was Lebenshaus so close in proximity to Finkenwalde (such was the case even before I had heard of Bonhoeffer’s seminary), but the baron and the young pastor were of such like spiritual outlook and temperament that it seemed impossible they would not be friends. The further along I got in the story and research, the more I found, as described in the introduction, that Bonhoeffer himself was turning out to be the unexpected personality who—unknown even to me as the author!—was proceeding to intrude himself onto the pages at every turn. Indeed, I came to feel, and feel such more strongly than ever, that the saga of brave and committed evangelical believers in Germany during the Second World War cannot in any accurate way be told without the large, looming presence of Dietrich Bonhoeffer playing a pivotal role. I knew about him but scantly when undertaking this project. I find the admiration and honor I feel toward him now to be equal to what I feel toward any other single man of God. It is my conviction we all owe him a tremendous debt for his example, and I have been changed by my encounter in the spirit with this brother who gave his life rather than water down or relinquish what he knew was true. In any event, the conversations between Bonhoeffer and Baron von Dortmann are, of course, fictional, as is Bonhoeffer’s visit to Lebenshaus. All other data—his movements, dates of his brief biography, places, quotes from his writings, dates of his books, facts about the Confessing Church, speeches and articles, etc.—is exactly factual as near as I have been able to determine. Where I have inadvertently erred, either in spirit or in fact, I humbly apologize, both to his memory and to the friends of his still alive today. My intent by including Dietrich Bonhoeffer by name in The Eleventh Hour is only to honor him and give him what I consider his rightful stature in the history of European evangelicalism in this century.