The Abwehr, the military intelligence service of the Wehrmacht, became from the late 1930s onward the institutional host of the most organized and sustained resistance network inside Nazi Germany. Under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and Hans Oster, the Abwehr used its operational cover — foreign travel, secure communications, contact with foreign governments — to plan multiple assassination attempts against Hitler and to coordinate a post-coup political transition. Bonhoeffer was recruited to the conspiracy by his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi in 1940 and served as a courier, using ecumenical church contacts abroad to communicate with Allied governments about the conspirators' intentions. His role violated nearly every principle he had defended publicly: the pacifist participated in a plot to kill, the theologian deceived the state, and the pastor accepted that his actions carried guilt regardless of outcome. The conspiracy was exposed in April 1943, leading to Bonhoeffer's arrest; the July 1944 Valkyrie assassination attempt failed; the conspirators were systematically eliminated over