Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A brief life (1906-1945)

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” (p.99. “The cost of discipleship” Macmillan, 1963)

Family background• Born (a twin) Feb. 4, 1906• Breslau, Germany• Father Professor of Psychiatry

& Neurology moves to Berlin in 1912

• Mother (devoted Christian & teacher of her children)

• Two grandfathers, theologians• Grandmother Julie’s influence• Middle class family

Childhood & youth (1906-1923)

• 6th of 8 children

• Always surrounded by books, music & games (learns piano)

• Baptized in Lutheran church (one of fav. games = “baptisms”)

• Children receive personal bibles at confirmation

• Brother Walter dies on Western front (Dietrich receives his bible)

• Studies at Grunewald Grammar School (love of learning)

• Purchases Meyer’s Origin & Beginnings of Christianity (age 15)

• Studies at Tubingen University

Study of theology (1923-27)

• Historical influence of Tubingen

• Adolph Schlatter (NT Theology)

• “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?”

• 1924: Trip to Rome (& Libya)

• Berlin (Adolph von Harnack)

• Karl Barth (“Lord of our life”)

• Sanctorium Communio dissertation

• 1927: Completes doctorate (by 21)

Travels (1928-32)

• Barcelona (year internship at German church)

• Children & Youth ministry

• “Greetings from the matador”

• Berlin studies (“Act & Being”)

• Union Theo. Seminary (NY)

• Storefront black churches

• Social Gospel Movement

• “Sermon on the Mount”

Developments (1931-32)

• From Theologian to Christian

• Encounter with Barth• The Bonhoeffer Circle –

lectures on ecclesiology• Youth secretary for World

Alliance ecumenical mvmt.• Cambridge & Geneva• “Unity & Peace”• Letter from Klaus, warning

of situation back home

The Nazi Era (1933)• Post WWl & civil unrest• Weimar Republic• Crippling debt & inflation• “Golden era”• Great Depression• National Socialists (Nazi)• Rise of Hitler to power• Chancellor (Jan. 1933)• Reichstag fire• Targetting of Communists &

Jews.• Enabling Act (dictatorial power)

“Into the desert” 1933-34• Deutsche Christen (Voice of Nazi

ideology within Evangelical Church)

• Widespread anti-Semitism

• “Der Fuhrer, der Verfuhrer” radio talk. Cut short.

• Formation of “Confessing Church”

• Trip to Sofia, Bulgaria

• A year in London (aid to refugees)

• Bishop George Bell

• “Peace speech” (Fano, Denmark)

Finkenwalde 1935-37

• Leader of Confessing Church seminary

• Attempt to visit Ghandi

• “Life Together”

• Opposition from Gestapo

• Ministry declared illegal, seminary closed. Moves underground

• 1940 forbidden to speak

Friends• Eberhard Bethge (marries Dietrich’s niece, Renate)

• Later compiled letters

• Franz Hildebrandt (half Jew)

• Gerhard Leibholz (flees to England, helps intelligence)

• Hans von Dohnanyi (key to resistance movement, one of assassination conspirators)

Second trip to America

• Drafted for military service

• Invited to lecture in America

• Goes to NY via London

• Regrets leaving friends after 6 weeks.

• Returns to Germany

• Becomes “V man” (travels for Intelligence Service)

• Visits Switzerland, Norway, Sweden & Italy

A letter to Reinhold Niebuhr

“I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I shall have no right to take part in the restoration of Christian life in Germany after the war unless I share the trials of this time with my people.”

(p.736 Eberhard Bethge “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography”)

Resistance 1940-44• Tension between theological

ethics & plotting against govt.• Ettal Benedictine Abbey, Bavaria• Admiral Wilhelm Canaris

(Head of Counter-Espionage,

Abwehr - yet secretly supported

resistance movement)• “Operation 7” – secret deportation of Jews• Discovered, through financial irregularities

Prison (1943-45)• Tegel military interrogation centre

• Isolated in dirty cell

• Allowed contact with parents & Maria

• Poem: “Who am I”?

• Develops friendship with guards

• Aware of impending attempt on Hitler’s life. Coup fails, July ’44.

• Geheime Staatspolizei (Berlin)

Gestapo “Secret State Police“

• Only 3 letters get out (Jan. ’45)

• Poem: “Powers of Good”

Flossenberg 1945

• Parents attempt to contact• Transferred to Buchenwald

Von Dohnanyi executed• Brother Klaus & brother in law

Rudiger Schleicher shot• April 5 decision to execute

• April 8 transferred to Flossenberg. • Sunday after Easter – preaches for prisoners on

Is. 53:5.• Hanged at dawn, April 9• “This is the end, but for me the beginning of life.”

“I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer . . . kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

(German doctor in Flossenberg)

Bonhoeffer on film

Bonhoeffer in printVolume 1 Sactorum Communio:

A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church.

Volume 2 Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology.

Volume 3 Creation and Fall.

Volume 4 Discipleship.

Volume 5 Life Together and The Prayer book of the Bible: An Introduction to the Psalms.

Volume 6 Ethics.

Volume 7 Fiction from Tegel Prison.

Volume 8 Letters and Papers from Prison.

Volume 9 The Young Bonhoeffer: 1918-1927.

Volume 10 Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928-1931.

Volume 11 Ecumenical, Academic and Pastoral Work: 1931-1932.

Volume 12 Berlin: 1933.

Volume 13 London: 1933-1935.

Volume 14 Theological Education at Finkenwalde: 1935-1937.

Volume 15 Theological Education Underground: 1937-1940.

Volume 16 Conspiracy and Imprisonment: 1940-1945.