Peace Ethic or “Pacifism”?

PEACE ETHIC OR “PACIFISM”?AN ASSESSMENT OF BONHOEFFERTHE ASSASSIN

CLIFFORD GREEN

This book is devoted to the proposition that Bonhoeffer was a consistentpacifist from 1932 onwards, committed to nonviolence and consistentlyopposed to war and killing.1 It argues that he was not personally involved inattempts to kill Hitler, and that his writings do not support such attempts bythe resistance movement.2 In light of this argument, Stanley Hauerwas claimsin his Foreword that the book is “revolutionary” because it provesBonhoeffer’s “commitment to nonviolence.”3

The lead author is Mark Thiessen Nation, professor of theology at EasternMennonite Seminary in Virginia, who has been writing on this topic morethan twenty years. He argues the thesis of the book in the Introduction,Chapter 3, and the Conclusion. In Chapters 1 and 2 Nation also presents adetailed narrative of Bonhoeffer’s life with a special emphasis on his peacewitness, for example, in his addresses at ecumenical conferences and histeaching and sermons. It is a generally reliable overview in concise compasswhich well serves those unfamiliar with this material. In the second half ofthe book, two of his former students analyze Bonhoeffer’s texts with a viewto supporting the main thesis, Daniel Umbel focusing on an early ethicsaddress and especially the book Discipleship (chapters 4–5), and Anthony

Clifford GreenExecutive Director, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, 40 Battery Street, Apt. 202,Boston, MA 02109, USAEmail: [email protected]

1 Bonhoeffer the Assassin? Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking by MarkThiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist, and Daniel P. Umbel, foreword by Stanley Hauerwas,(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), xv + 250 pp.

2 Such as the well-known bomb attack by Count von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, popular-ized in the film Valkyrie.

3 Hauerwas, Bonhoeffer the Assassin?, xiv–xv.

Modern Theology 31:1 January 2015ISSN 0266-7177 (Print)ISSN 1468-0025 (Online)

DOI: 10.1111/moth.12144

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Siegrist concentrating on the Ethics (chapters 6–7).4 These expositions are thestrongest parts of the book. But the problem is that they presuppose thebook’s conceptual frame, and are designed to reinforce it. Hauerwas, further-more, believes that the book will “force a reinterpretation of Bonhoeffer’s lifeand work.”5 That would only be true for misinformed believers in the“myth”—internet surfers or readers of Hollywood-type biographies.

In fact the book is deeply problematic. But one aspect of the argument canbe quickly dispatched: no scholars or careful readers of Bonhoeffer believethat he was an “assassin,” i.e. personally involved in attempts to kill Hitler—that is a straw man.6 Our attention must therefore shift, and focus on twoother aspects of the argument: the historical question of whether Bonhoeffersupported the killing of Hitler as part of the resistance movement’s effort tooverthrow the Nazi regime, create a new government, and sue for peace; andthe ethical question of whether Bonhoeffer was a “pacifist” with an unswerv-ing commitment to nonviolence.

First, one needs to consider the historical aspect of the argument. Nationdoes not trust Eberhard Bethge’s interpretation of Bonhoeffer’s role in theconspiracy against Hitler’s government. In fact, in a lengthy blog defendingthe book, Nation even argues that Bethge, Bonhoeffer’s friend from 1935onwards, his literary executor, and his biographer, “is at the root of the myththat Bonhoeffer was both personally involved [in attempts on Hitler’s life]and changed his theological ethic from what was named in Discipleship, if notto justify his ‘involvement’ at least to make it intelligible.”7 To this I wish firstto make a personal response: during thirty years of regular correspondenceand conversation with Bethge I never once heard him say or imply thatBonhoeffer was personally involved in attempts on Hitler’s life, or wished tobe such an “assassin.” To conclude this from Bethge’s biography is simply amisreading. I must also add: never in the course of those thirty years did Iever hear Bethge question Bonhoeffer’s support for killing Hitler, or contra-dict those who understood this to be true.

Additional evidence from Eberhard Bethge himself (not discussed in thebook, incidentally) comes from an exchange at the American Academy ofReligion in 1977 that should be better known. A paper on “Bonhoeffer andPacifism” had been presented by the pacifist Dale W. Brown. He had arguedthat Bonhoeffer moved from “a more definite pacifist period in themid-thirties” (Discipleship) to “agonized participation in the resistance

4 Daniel Umbel is a Mennonite pastor in West Virginia and Anthony Siegrist is a professor oftheology at Prairie Bible College, Alberta, Canada.

5 Hauerwas, op. cit., xv.6 It is also a wrong framing of the real issue, which is tyrannicide. But the book’s title is

deliberately chosen to put the focus on killing and violence, rather than on a tradition of moralreflection.

7 Mark Nation, “Questioning Eberhard Bethge on Bonhoeffer & the Conspiracy,” page 1,internet blog emailed to the author on December 2, 2013.

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movement which was accompanied by more traditional just war reasoning inthe Ethics.”8 Bethge was one of the respondents, and his remarks were com-mitted to writing in the Bonhoeffer Society Newsletter. Referring to LarryRasmussen, whom Brown had quoted (namely, that the author of Discipleshipcannot be made into “a volunteer for assassinating even Adolf Hitler”9),Bethge responded with indignation: “. . . this kind of thinking—the man ofDiscipleship may be pacifist and he becomes a volunteer for assassinatingAdolf Hitler—for me this is the wrong way of speaking about the wholeproblem, as if Dietrich had moved from a conviction of non-violence to aconviction of using violence; for me this does not at all express what wasgoing on. Another mistaken way of putting it is to make it appear as thoughhe had rejected Discipleship when he became a member of the conspiracy.That’s not at all the case. To a great extent it’s the same theology in Discipleshipwhich made this possible (i.e. joining the resistance). Dietrich did not comefrom pacifism to become a murderer of Adolf Hitler. He encountered theproblem that the murderer had to be stopped; the murderer was murderingsecond-class citizens, the Jews . . . and that had to be stopped. (I’m speakingabout the very end; it was not all the time that the resistance wanted to killHitler.)”10 Thus, Bethge held that there was no fundamental change betweenDiscipleship and Ethics.11 But he also reported Bonhoeffer’s conviction that“the murderer had to be stopped” and links this to the stage when theresistance movement “wanted to kill Hitler.”

Nation accuses Bethge of recording old and fuzzy memories in his biog-raphy published in 1967.12 Rather than credit this, we should consult inde-pendent evidence that was written down by an eyewitness and entered intothe public record in 1942. Missing from Bonhoeffer the Assassin? is a crucialpiece of historical evidence indicating Bonhoeffer’s support for killing Hitleras part of the plan to replace the Nazi regime with a government anxious tomake peace with the Allies; it is probably the earliest contemporary evidencethat we have. During his 1933–35 London pastorate, Bonhoeffer formed anunusually close friendship with George Bell, the Anglican Bishop of Chich-

8 Newsletter, International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, No. 9 (December,1976), 3.

9 Larry L. Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance (1972; Reprint Louisville:Westminster John Knox, 2005), 120; but see especially also 131, note 20, where Rasmussenexplains that by this rhetoric he did not mean “that Bonhoeffer himself actively sought to be theassassin of Hitler.”

10 Newsletter No. 10, 6–7.11 See the recent German dissertation on the relation of these two texts by Florian Schmitz,

summarized in his chapter “Reading Discipleship and Ethics Together: Implications for Ethics andPublic Life,” in Clifford Green and Guy Carter (eds.), Interpreting Bonhoeffer: Historical Perspec-tives, Emerging Issues (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013), 147–153.

12 See Nation et al., Bonhoeffer the Assassin? in his Chapter 3, 92–93. Bethge certainly did notwait two decades before composing any of the biography; and he was, after all, together with,and in contact with, Bonhoeffer virtually all the time from 1935 and even after he was imprisonedin 1943.

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ester. During the war Bell made a visit to Sweden in May, 1942. Learning ofthis, Bonhoeffer met Bell in Sigtuna during a 48-hour visit to Sweden, actingin his capacity as a courier for the resistance movement, arguably his mostimportant activity in support of the planned coup. At great personal risk hegave Bell a list of leading members of the opposition.13 Bell then wrote amemorandum summarizing the views of Bonhoeffer which he delivered toAnthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary.14 The memorandum, based onBonhoeffer’s information,15 conveyed the hope of the German resistance thatthe British government would encourage those planning the coup d’état, andwould “announce now publicly to the world in the clearest terms that onceHitler and the whole regime were overthrown, they were prepared to nego-tiate with a new German government . . . with a view to a peace settlement. . .”16 Bell’s language describing such an “overthrow” is consistent. Hespeaks of the “destruction of the whole Hitler regime (including Himmler,Göring, Goebbels, and the central leaders of the Gestapo, the S.S, and theS.A.),”17 the will of the opposition “to destroy Hitler and his regime”18 andtheir plan for “the complete elimination of Hitler and Himmler and the wholeregime. . . .”19 That this language refers to killing Hitler and the top Nazileadership is plain as day when Bell published an article immediately afterthe war, which begins by saying that his purpose is to “report from personalknowledge an early stage of the plot of July 20th to destroy Hitler.”20 While Bellstates that there are people in the opposition “filled with deep penitence forthe crimes committed in Germany’s name,” certainly a reference toBonhoeffer, never once does he say or imply that his informants oppose thekilling of Hitler. The language of destroy, overthrow, and eliminate is not thelanguage of polite negotiation or diplomacy.21 Anyone who thinks Bell’s

13 For Bell’s Memorandum, see Bonhoeffer, Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 1940–1945 (Minne-apolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition (hereafter DBWE)16:322, which gives names of leading generals, trade union leaders, and the Mayor of Leipzig.

14 Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1965), 1:372–377; DBWE 16:319–324.The Memorandum drew on Bell’s detailed diary notes (DBWE 16:289–305). The entry of May 31,dealing with his conversation with Bonhoeffer, contains the following: “(Hitler always staying inhis post in East Prussia—afraid—will need a Regiment to get rid of him.)”

15 And also that of Dr. Hans Schönfeld, a German Protestant ecumenist working in Geneva,who had independently travelled to Sweden to give Bell information about the conspiracy verysimilar to what Bonhoeffer provided; see Gesammelte Schriften 1:378–381; DBWE 16:306–310.

16 DBWE 16:323–324.17 Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften 1:372; italics mine, in this and the following citations.18 Ibid., 374.19 Ibid., 376.20 Bell, “The Background of the Hitler Plot,” The Contemporary Review, October, 1945.

Reprinted in Bell, The Church and Humanity (1939-1946), Longmans, Green & Co., London,1946, pp. 165–176.

21 The language of “destroy,” “destruction,” “eliminate” and “overthrow” pervades Bell’sarticle, and is still used in a lecture he gave in Bonn in 1957, which also refers to “men who wereon the look-out to attack him,” namely Hitler, just as was done on July 20, 1944 (Bonhoeffer,Gesammelte Schriften 1:399–413).

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language means anything other than killing Hitler must have indulged in aheavy dose of wishful thinking. No appeals to allegedly fuzzy twenty-yearold memories of Bethge can explain away Bell’s eyewitness reports.

What, then, of the ethical question, whether Bonhoeffer had a “commit-ment to nonviolence,” as Hauerwas summarizes the argument? In my writ-ings about Bonhoeffer on peace and his role in the resistance movement, Ihave argued that we should speak of Bonhoeffer’s peace ethic, and not“pacifism,” simply because most people understand a “pacifist” to be personopposed to violence and killing in principle, especially in war.22 Instead,Bonhoeffer rejected an ethic of principles, and built his peace ethic on coredoctrines of his theology. However, the argument of Bonhoeffer the Assassin?precisely aims to prove Bonhoeffer’s “commitment to nonviolence.” Theheart of the book is about not-killing, i.e. nonviolence, i.e. pacifism as sodefined. For the authors, Bonhoeffer must be totally insulated from the killingof Hitler, not only in actual fact, but even from agreeing with it as part of theresistance movement’s coup strategy.

Bonhoeffer’s own writings do not support this interpretation of his “paci-fism.” For example, in his 1937 Finkenwalde lectures on homiletics, headvises his students on “the War Sermon,” which they would be expected topreach on occasions like Memorial Day. Since war contradicts God’s com-mandment, Bonhoeffer asks, what should a Christian do? (This of course wasan existential issue for his students, who were at or near call-up age.) “A finalanswer to the question of whether a Christian should or should not partici-pate must be rejected. Both answers are possible.” The one who answers thecall and joins up is “threatened by militarism.” On the other hand,Bonhoeffer says, one who refuses, because the government is demanding sin,is risking “doctrinaire pacifism.”23

Another example is found in Bonhoeffer’s 1937 lectures on catecheticalinstruction, the section on the Sixth Commandment. Bonhoeffer poses thequestion: “How are Christians to act in war?” His answer: “There is no revealedcommandment of God here. The church can never give its blessing to warand weapons. The Christian can never participate in unjust wars. If theChristian takes up arms, he must daily ask God for forgiveness for this sinand pray for peace.”24 Nation actually quotes this passage, but tries to explainit away: perhaps Bonhoeffer is speaking here “formally on behalf of theLutheran Church and thus not in his own voice.” Or maybe he is trying to get

22 See my article “Pacifism and Tyrannicide: Bonhoeffer’s Christian Peace Ethic,” Studies inChristian Ethics 18.3, (2005), 31–47, and also my “Editor’s Introduction” to Bonhoeffer, Ethics,DBWE 6 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), 11–16.

23 Bonhoeffer, Theological Education at Finkenwalde: 1935–1937 (Minneapolis, MN: FortressPress, 2013), DBWE 14:766.

24 Ibid., DBWE 14:791, Bonhoeffer’s italics.



the students learning the catechism “to at least take the just war traditionseriously as . . . a major step forward.”25

As war nears in 1939, Bonhoeffer writes to Bishop Bell for advice on hisown personal dilemma. For him it is “conscientiously impossible to join in awar under the present circumstances.”26 This is the Bonhoeffer who defendsconscientious objection in his Ethics, written in the midst of the war.27 “Underthe present circumstances” is not a casual or careless phrase; the qualificationis repeated in the letter, with variations like “under the present conditions,”and “under different circumstances.” Such phrases leave open the possibilitythat, under different circumstances, his decision could be different.

These statements simply cannot be accurately summarized or fairly repre-sented as Bonhoeffer’s “commitment to nonviolence.” Just as Bonhoefferconsistently distinguished his Christian peace ethic from secular pacifism, sohe also rejected “doctrinaire pacifism” among Christians.

Also relevant to Bonhoeffer’s ethical attitudes is his lecture on Article XVIof the Augsburg Confession at the Finkenwalde seminary in July 1935. TheConfession’s reference to “just wars” led Bonhoeffer to a discussion oftyrannicide, citing the views of Aquinas, Scottish Calvinists, and others.28 Thestudents’ notes record Bonhoeffer’s first point: “Tyrannicide: Thomas: noright to revolution, but if the tyrant starts a revolution, we must deposehim.”29 Bonhoeffer certainly regarded Hitler as a tyrant, calling him in all butname “the tyrannical despiser of humanity” in his Ethics.30 He also regardedthe Hitler regime as The Revolution of Nihilism, so described in HermannRauschning’s famous 1938 book, a volume that Bonhoeffer promoted. Thefailure of Bonhoeffer the Assassin? to consider this lecture and such relatedfacts as evidence of Bonhoeffer’s ethical thinking is conspicuous. It is alsonoteworthy that these opinions in lectures from 1935 to 1937 coincide exactlywith the time Bonhoeffer was lecturing on and preparing for publication hisbook Discipleship.

Finally we should consider a passage about resisting evil by force. It waswritten while Bonhoeffer was working for the resistance in the Abwehr, justa few months after his meeting with Bishop Bell. In his Christmas 1942 essay“After Ten Years,” written for his resistance friends and colleagues,Bonhoeffer contrasted the insidiousness of stupidity with real evil. He wrotethat, in opposing stupidity, force is as impotent as are facts and reason. Evil,

25 Nation, Bonhoeffer the Assassin?, 92.26 Bonhoeffer, Theological Education Underground: 1937–1940 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress

Press, 2012), DBWE 15:156–157, italics mine.27 Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), DBWE 6:407. On the basis of

the two previous paragraphs, it appears that Bonhoeffer’s position could be summarized fairlyas selective conscientious objection.

28 DBWE 14:338–33929 DBWE 14:338.30 See Ethics, DBWE 6:85–87, on “the tyrannical despiser of humanity.”

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by contrast, can be opposed by force. “Stupidity [Dummheit] is a more dan-gerous enemy of the good than evil [Bosheit]. One may protest against evil; itcan be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force [Gewalt]. . . . Yet, atthis very point,31 it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, notinstruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with thefact that, in most cases, a genuine internal liberation becomes possible onlywhen external liberation has preceded it.”32

This passage has special relevance for Bonhoeffer the Assassin? because MarkNation devotes six pages at the very beginning of the book to a sketch ofHelmuth James von Moltke, a leader of the Kreisau Circle. While his career inresistance was similar to Bonhoeffer’s in several respects, he very stronglyopposed attempts like Stauffenberg’s to kill Hitler. He believed that anotherstab-in-the-back legend was likely to arise from a coup attempt and killingHitler, and that this could only be avoided by a clear military defeat.33 Incontrast, Bonhoeffer saw the removal of Hitler, i.e., tyrannicide and coupd’état, as necessitating force. Whereas Nation employs Moltke as a model ofnonviolent resistance, which he intends to prove true also for Bonhoeffer, thisvery passage about resisting evil by force is precisely the one quoted byMoltke’s translator to explain Bonhoeffer’s difference from Moltke.34 This isnot to say that Bonhoeffer adopted violence as a principle, but rather, that inthe case of Hitler, Nazism, and the Holocaust, he accepted the use of force inopposing evil in its extremity.

The heart of Bonhoeffer the Assassin? reveals a deep irony. The authors havethe commendable goal of presenting Bonhoeffer as an apostle of peace, not anexemplar of violence. But by its single-minded preoccupation with defendingBonhoeffer from any connection whatsoever to attempts to kill Hitler, thebook actually obscures the true nature of Bonhoeffer’s peace ethic. For thatethic does not rest on a foundational commitment to nonviolence, but onseveral interrelated doctrines and convictions in his theology. Understandingthat is where “recovering his call to peacemaking” must begin.35

31 That is, when the psychology of stupidity has been understood.32 Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, DBWE 8:43–44; translation revised, substituting

“evil” for “malice.” As the German editors of this text emphasize, the whole passage connectswith a section of Ethics dealing with stupidity and Hitler: “Like the section on the ‘tyrannicaldespiser of human beings’ in Ethics (DBWE 6:73, ‘He considers the people stupid and theybecome stupid’), the present section employs ‘stupidity’ as a psychological characteristic ofHitler and his followers” (DBWE 8:43, n.18).

33 Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya, 1939–1945, edited and translated by BeataRuhm von Oppen (New York: Knopf, 1990).

34 Von Oppen, Letters to Freya, editor’s introduction, 18.35 I began to explore this in my article “Pacifism and Tyrannicide: Bonhoeffer’s Christian

Peace Ethic,” see note 21 above; see also my review of Larry L. Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer:Reality and Resistance, in Conversations in Religion and Theology 6.2 (2008), 155–165, with a responseby Larry Rasmussen, 165–173, and my review of Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith:Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence, Modern Theology 21.4 (October, 2005), 674–676.



Bonhoeffer the Assassin? opens with a dedication “in memory of FranzHildebrandt (1909–85), Bonhoeffer’s ‘best-informed and most like-mindedfriend’ (Eberhard Bethge).” Hildebrandt, a lifelong pacifist, was indeedBonhoeffer’s closest friend during the decade before he met EberhardBethge. And, Nation writes, “Hildebrandt was perhaps Bonhoeffer’s onlyfriend who agreed with him on all major issues.”36 So the book ends with aquotation from Hildebrandt’s Foreword to Yoder’s pamphlet “Peace withoutEschatology?”37 It is only fitting, then, to conclude with a quotation fromHildebrandt when he was interviewed about Bonhoeffer’s peace ethic: “Itwas never a pacifism unqualified and held-to in principle.”38

36 Bonhoeffer the Assassin?, 52.37 Bonhoeffer the Assassin?, 232.38 Interview with Franz Hildebrandt by James Patrick Kelley, May 25, 1985, Edinburgh,

Scotland. Bagby Videotape Archives of Early Christian Resisters to the Hitler Regime, No. 22-I,24:00. See also Holger Roggelin, Franz Hildebrandt: ein lutherischer Dissenter im Kirchenkampf undExil (Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1999), esp. 264 on the difference of Hildebrandt andBonhoeffer regarding pacifism and the right of resistance. Hildebrandt says he will “stay withGandhi,” then continues: “But ‘appeasement’ is impossible, which most of the modern pacifistsoverlook. . . .” He concludes: “So what remains as a positive political alternative?”

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Documents

Peace Ethic or “Pacifism”?