Terrence Malick's latest film commemorates Franz Jägerstätter

On 9 August 1943 a 36-year-old father of four wrote what he knew would be his last letter to his wife, who was hundreds of miles away.  Later that day, he told her, his fate would be confirmed, and the sentence passed by the court against him would then be “fully enacted”. The crime for which the man had been convicted was “the demoralisation of the armed forces”; he had refused to fight for Hitler. He died on the guillotine in a prison in Brandenburg in Germany a few hours after signing his letter.