His Family and Early Years
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born
on February 6, 1906, as the sixth child (a twin sister, Sabine, was born
minutes later to become the seventh child) of a well-placed Berlin family.
His mother, Paula, was the daughter of Karl-Alfred von Hase, pastor at
the court of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His father, Karl, was a professor
of psychiatric medicine at the University of Berlin, directing the psychiatric
and neurological clinic of the University's Charity Hospital.
Young Bonhoeffer was brought
up with a strong sense of noblesse oblige--a keen awareness that
his privileged birth entailed important responsibilities of care for those
who possessed less of a social advantage than he. This temperament
would clearly show up later in life in his attitude about the self-sacificing
responsibilities of the Christian in the face of the world's needs.
His Early Years as Theology
Student (1923-1931)
Young Bonhoeffer was early recognized
as possessing an exceptional intellect and at age 17 he began his study
of theology at the Universities of Tübingen and Berlin (1923-1927).
Here he came under the decided influence of Adolf von Harnack, Reinhold
Seeberg, and Karl Holl.
Having completed his necessary
theological studies, he was then ordained into the Evangelical (Lutheran)
ministry--and served as a pastor-trainee at a German church in Barcelona,
Spain (1928-1929).
But theology continued to
hold a strong fascination for Bonhoeffer--and he continued his theological
studies as a graduate student at the University of Berlin. At this
point he was coming under the strong influence of the "theology of revelation"
of the Swiss professor Karl Barth--whose writings strongly touched his
own thinking. This is clearly evidenced in his doctoral dissertation
(1930), Sanctorum Communio (The Communion of Saints).
In 1930 he travelled to the
United States to study for a year at Union Theological Seminary in New
York City as an exchange student. Here he not only came to know both
Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, but he became involved with African-American
spirituality in New York's Harlem section.
The Teacher/Pastor
In 1931 he returned to Germany
and at age 27 became a lecturer at the University of Berlin. His
course in systematic theology, in which he focused on the first three chapters
of Genesis, not only attracted a significant student following, but led
to his first book, Creation and Fall. He also agreed to serve
as the pastor to students at a nearby technical school, where he also attracted
a large following.
His Involvement in the Christian
Ecumenical Movement
The early 1930s was a time of
rapidly rising Geman nationalism--aggressive nationalism. But Bonhoeffer's
Christian spirit was clearly heading him in the opposite direction,
toward a position of Christian internationalism or "ecumenism." In
1931 he attended an ecumenical conference in Cambridge, England, and was
appointed a European youth secretary of the World Alliance for Promoting
International Friendship through the Churches. In the years ahead
these contacts would lead him to become very close friends with George
Bell, bishop of Chichester. Indeed his contacts with his international
friends would take on increasingly important political as well as spiritual
dimensions.
He Joins the Anti-Hitler "Confessing
Church"
In quite marked departure from
the rest of the German protestant pastors, Bonhoeffer was not enthusiastic
about Hitler's accession to power in January 1933 as German Chancellor.
In fact he even went on radio two days after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor
to voice his strong opposition to this event. With strong words he
warned the German people of the dangers of giving their souls over to a
man who sought nothing less than total worship from them. Almost
as if in testimony to the truth of his words, German authorities cut off
his microphone before he could finish the last sentences of his address.
Bonhoeffer soon became deeply
involved in the work of the Young Reformers, an anti-Hitler opposition
group within the State Church, a group organized by Pastor Martin Niemöller.
When the State Church voted the "Aryan Paragraph" into its confession (barring
men from the pastorate who were converted Jews, who had Jewish ancestors,
or who were married to Jews), Niemöller, Bonhoeffer, and others formed
a new party within the church, the Pastors' Emergency League. This
would soon develop into the "Confessing Church" a group of German clergy
who stood strongly against the position of the pro-Aryan, pro-Hitler State
Church.
His Sojourn in England (1933-1935)
Bonhoeffer left Germany in 1933
under the cloud of his oppositionist stand and for 18 months pastored two
small German congregations in London. (He was thus not present in
May of 1934 when the Confessing Church passed the famous Barmen Declaration--though
he was solidly in favor of the Declaration). Here he was greatly
sought out as one who could help the rest of the world get some understanding
of what was going on in Germany.
He Returns to Germany to Direct
the New Seminary at Finkenwald
During Bonhoeffer's absence
away in London, German theology students who took a position favorable
to the Confessing Church and in opposition to the State Church had been
finding themselves excluded from theology studies in the German universities.
The idea thus emerged of creating educational institutions for seminarians
within the Confessing Church.
In early 1935, just as he
was making plans for a trip to India to meet Gandhi to study his technique
of satyagraha or passive resistance, Bonhoeffer was persuaded by
friends in the German Confessing Church to return to Germany to offer seminary
training to these young pastors. Returning to Germany in March, Bonhoeffer
took charge of the new seminary (a converted house) at Finkenwald in Northern
Germany--even as he also resumed his teaching duties at the University
of Berlin.
Hitler's Regime Strikes Back
He made no efforts to hide his
adamant opposition to Hitler's New Order. He speculated frequently
about the German future without its Dictator, and in general spoke out
often and strongly against the State Church's support of the Nazis.
He was soon removed from his teaching duties at the University.
Then in 1937 the Gestapo
also closed down the Finkenwald seminary. But Bonhoeffer continued
up until 1940 to direct student training (illegally) by placing students
in work-study internships with pastors sympathetic with the position of
the Confessing Church.
He Challenges the Church to
Seek an Authentic Christian Life
It was during this time of his
deep involvement with the Finkenwald seminary community that he wrote:
Nachfolge
(The Cost of Discipleship) (1937) an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount
in which he attacked the "cheap grace" that was being dispensed by the
State Church, in easy forgiveness of Christians acting in cooperation with
the evil of the Nazi movement
Gemeinsames Leben
(Life Together) (1939) a description of Church as it was meant by Christ
to be: a Christian community that prayed, confessed, learned and suffered
together as an instrument of Divine grace in our troubled world.
In all, Bohnoeffer was haunted
by a fear that he was witnessing in Germany a moral collapse within the
church that would deservedly bring on the wrath of God.
Bonhoeffer's Departure--and
Then Abrupt Return to Germany to Fight the Good Fight
Facing the possibility of being
drafted into the Reich army, Bonhoeffer in early 1939 again left the country,
returning to the United States under the sponsorship of Reinhold Niebuhr.
But he remained in the States only a few weeks before he made the fateful
decision to return to Germany--to become an active part of the illegal
opposition to Hitler, part of a group planning the rebuilding of a reformed,
renewed, rehabilitated post-Hitlerian Germany.
The Reich Tries to Silence Bonhoeffer
But again, remaining outspoken
during a time of ever-tightening dictatorship, it was inevitable that the
Gestapo would move to bar him, in the late summer of 1940, from any further
preaching or making public statements. Soon even his writing was
declared illegal.
Bonhoeffer Joins the
Abwehr
But most interestingly, Bonhoeffer
was extended a job in the Abwehr, the military intelligence agency!
In part this appointment, arranged by his influential brother-in-law, Hans
von Dohnanyi, was designed to give Bonhoeffer an appointment that would
keep him from being drafted into the Reich army. But in part, it
was done by von Dohnanyi with the full knowledge of Bonhoeffer's loyalties--for
many of the leading figures of the Abwehr were actually deeply committed
to an anti-Hitler resistance effort!
The ostensible justification
for such a strange appointment was that Bonhoeffer's experience abroad
would give him deep insight into the political situations in Scandinavia,
England and America--very useful supposedly to the work of the Abwehr.
Actually he was sent on numerous occasions to those countries as a courrier
informing the Allies of the political situation in Germany--as an aid to
the anti-Hitler effort pursued both inside and outside of Germany.
In fact in May of 1942 he
flew to neutral Sweden to convey to his old friend Bishop Bell plans to
be passed on to the British Government for the establishment of a post-Hitlerian
Germany. Unfortunately war passions had been raised to such a fever
pitch that the Allies were no longer interested in a negotiated settlement
of the war with a post-Hitlerian regime. They wanted total surrender
from Germany--and nothing less.
Bonhoeffer's Arrest (1943)
In the meantime the Gestapo
was becoming suspicious of the loyalties of
Abwehr and in April
of 1943 arrested its leaders, including Bonhoeffer.
The Plot to Assassinate Hitler
(July 1944)
When an assassination attempt
was made on Hitler's life the following year in July of 1944 no immediate
connection was made between the imprisoned former members of the Abwehr
and the would-be assassins (the latter were put to death immediately).
Bonhoeffer Is Linked to the
Conspirators--and Executed (April 1945)
Such a connection came to light
the following year (the spring of 1945), when papers were discovered that
linked the imprisoned Abwehr members with the anti-Hitler conspirators.
The papers pointed to a plan formulated in the earlier stage of the effort
to remove Hitler from power, a plot originally to have Hitler arrested
and tried for his crimes against the nation. The plan was part of
the earlier hope to replace Hitler and his men with a German regime that
could bargain an end to the war with Germany's enemies--before the whole
Hitlerian enterprise ended in a dreadful catastrophe.
In any case, as Bonhoeffer's
name was among the Abwehr members mentioned in this earlier plot--Hitler
gave the orders for Bonhoeffer's execution. On April 9, 1945 these
orders were carried out--and Bonhoeffer was hanged in the Flossenbürg
prison.
As a very sad piece of tragedy
or irony, this event occurred even as Hitler's Reich was collapsing rapidly--as
the American armies under Patton were sweeping through Germany, liberating
one prison camp after another. Sadly for for the Christian world,
the Allied liberation of Flossenbürg was however just a few weeks
too late to spare Bonhoeffer.
Thus did Bonhoeffer become
a modern-day Christian martyr who died nobly for his dream of a reformed,
revitalized Christian community. But, as God works such things, the
man who was great in his life became even larger in his death. This was
clearly what Bonhoeffer himself understood from the beginning as the proper
destiny for all Christians.
|
His
Life and Works
His
Major Ideas
Bonhoeffer's Writings
Bonhoeffer's
major works or writings:
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Miles
H. Hodges
