Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in August 1939

Memorial plaque on Bonhoeffer's birthplace, Bartel-Strasse 7 in Breslau

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (born February 4, 1906 in Breslau ; † April 9, 1945 in Flossenbürg concentration camp ) was a Lutheran theologian , a prominent representative of the Confessing Church and involved in the German resistance to National Socialism .

After completing his habilitation at the age of 24 , Bonhoeffer became a private lecturer in Protestant theology in Berlin and youth advisor in the predecessor organization of the World Council of Churches . From April 1933 he took a public position against the National Socialist persecution of Jews and was involved in the church fight against the German Christians and the Aryan paragraph in the Civil Service Act . From 1935 he headed the preachers' seminary of the Confessing Church in Finkenwalde , which, later illegally, existed until 1940. From around 1938 he joined the resistance around Wilhelm Franz Canaris . In 1940 he was banned from speaking and in 1941 he was banned from writing. He was arrested on April 5, 1943 and executed two years later on Adolf Hitler's express orders as one of the last Nazi opponents associated with the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt .

As an independent theologian to his teachers, Bonhoeffer emphasized the presence of Jesus Christ in the worldwide community of Christians , the importance of the Sermon on the Mount and the following of Jesus, and the consistency of faith and action that he exemplified personally, especially during the time of National Socialism . In his prison letters he developed influential, albeit fragmentary, ideas for a future direction of the church towards the outside world in solidarity with the needy and for a non-religious interpretation of the Bible , church tradition and worship .

Live and act

Childhood and Adolescence (1906–1923)

Bust of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, created after his death by his twin sister Sabine Leibholz

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1906 in Breslau, the sixth of eight children, shortly before his twin sister Sabine . His father was the psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Bonhoeffer . His mother Paula Bonhoeffer nee von Hase, a granddaughter of the Protestant theologian Karl von Hase and the painter Stanislaus von Kalckreuth , was a teacher. Bonhoeffer grew up in an upper-class family. The mother taught the children at home for the first few years and provided a Christian upbringing, while the father stayed away from questions of religion. The family rarely attended the service.

In 1912 the family moved to Berlin because their father had accepted a position at the Friedrich Wilhelms University . After describing his twin sister, towards the end of the First World War , Bonhoeffer began to grapple with questions about death and eternity, which arose because of the soldier death of his second oldest brother Walter in April 1918 and the grief of his mother about it.

As a student, Bonhoeffer read Friedrich Schleiermacher's speeches on religion , Friedrich Naumann's letters on religion and dealt with church history. In the Primary, he chose Hebrew as an elective and stated Protestant theology as a career choice. His family was amazed, but supported him in his project. In 1923, at the age of 17, he passed the Abitur at Berlin's Grunewald High School (now the Walther Rathenau School ).

Studies and training (1923–1930)

Bonhoeffer monument in Wroclaw

Bonhoeffer began studying theology in Tübingen and also attended lectures on philosophy . He joined the Igel Tübingen academic association .

After studying in Rome, Bonhoeffer moved to Berlin in 1924 . There he met important representatives of liberal theology, among whom Adolf von Harnack had a not inconsiderable influence. During this time the independent discovery of dialectical theology and especially its main representative Karl Barth fell . From then on, Bonhoeffer always remained connected to Barth and his theology, even if he kept a certain critical distance.

At the age of 21, Dietrich Bonhoeffer received his doctorate summa cum laude in Berlin in 1927 on the basis of the dissertation Sanctorum Communio ("Community of Saints") prepared while studying under Reinhold Seeberg . In addition to Barth, this theological- sociological reflection is influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch . In January 1928 he passed the first theological exam before the Evangelical Consistory of the Berlin-Brandenburg Provincial Church of the Church of the Old Prussian Union .

In 1928 he went to Barcelona on the advice of the Berlin superintendent Max Diestel , who had met him in 1925 when he was preaching and who has promoted him since then, to Barcelona , where he became vicar in the German Protestant parish. After his return to Berlin, Diestel made sure that he did not have to go to the Berlin Cathedral Candidate Foundation as usual . From 1929 Bonhoeffer was an assistant at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin , where he received his habilitation in systematic theology at the age of 24 with the treatise Act and Being on transcendental philosophy and ontology . In 1930 he passed the Second Theological Examination. He had not yet reached the minimum age of 25 years required for ordination . On August 13, 1930, Max Diestel applied for Bonhoeffer's early ordination to the German Evangelical Church Committee , but it was unsuccessful. That is why Diestel advised Bonhoeffer “to look around the world even further”.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent a year at the Union Theological Seminary in New York as a scholarship holder

Bonhoeffer went to the Union Theological Seminary in New York as a scholarship holder for a year . There he got to know practical pastoral work in Harlem's parishes and experienced the consequences of the global economic crisis , which particularly affected African-Americans and farmers. Although he was skeptical of US theology, he was influenced by social gospel . Encouraged by critical questions from the Americans and the strict pacifism of his French fellow student Jean Lasserre , Bonhoeffer, who had been cautious about political issues, began to grapple with the subject of peace .

Lecturer, Pastor and Ecumenism (1931–1933)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer with students (1932)

Torso on the west side of the Berlin Zionskirche in memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Memorial plaque to Dietrich Bonhoeffer next to the entrance of the Berlin Zionskirche

After his return, Bonhoeffer taught as an assistant to the systematic theologian Wilhelm Lütgert at Berlin University. In the winter semester of 1931/1932 he gave his first lecture on the “History of Systematic Theology of the 20th Century” and a seminar on “The Idea of ​​Philosophy and Protestant Theology”. In 1932 a lecture on the “essence of the church” followed, with a clear distinction from Harnack's “essence of Christianity”. In 1933 he read about Christology .

His courses were well attended and, unusual for the students, began with a prayer . Bonhoeffer surprised his listeners, who were moved by the rising National Socialism , with statements about current affairs that were unique among his fellow lecturers. The next war is resolved to outlaw, "out of obedience to God's command, which applies to us today, that war should no longer be because it robs us of Revelation."

Otto Dibelius had a Protestant student community set up at the Technical University of Berlin for the first time in 1931 , and he commissioned Bonhoeffer to lead it. However, it was largely rejected by the students and dissolved in 1933.

Bonhoeffer took over a confirmation group from the Zionskirche in a working-class district in Berlin-Mitte . In the summer of 1931 he and Franz Hildebrandt wrote a new catechism for his confirmands with the title “If you believe, then you have”. In it both spoke out against a holy war and in favor of prayer for peace. In 1932 Bonhoeffer set up a “youth room” for unemployed young people, which in 1933 was dissolved as “communist” by the National Socialists.

On November 15, 1931, Bonhoeffer was ordained a pastor in St. Matthew's Church (Berlin-Tiergarten) . He quickly gained a reputation as a good preacher beyond the congregation. After two unsuccessful attempts to get a pastor's position in the east of Berlin, he took on the role of international youth secretary of the World Ecumenical Association for Church Friendship (WFK) , supported by Max Diestel and Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze . He held one of three newly created youth secretaries positions in the World Federation and was deputy chairman of the German group for as long as possible - until 1942.

During a three-week seminar visit in Bonn, Bonhoeffer first met Karl Barth personally . Both met a few times afterwards and exchanged theological ideas. Mutual sympathy and a fundamental theological and political closeness were combined in their relationship with mutual criticism from the start. This made this connection theologically very fruitful for both of them.

On the weekends, Bonhoeffer often went to a youth hostel in the Brandenburg region to meditate and discuss with his students, and in 1932 bought a hut in Biesenthal on the outskirts of Berlin especially for this purpose . From 1933 onwards, comrades-in-arms in the church struggle and ecumenical delegations emerged from this informal “Bonhoeffer circle” of young theologians.

Church fight (1933–1939)

The year 1933

Contrary to the widespread euphoria among Protestants, Bonhoeffer's family took a very critical view of the Nazis' seizure of power on January 30, 1933. Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law Rüdiger Schleicher expressed her opinion when he said in the evening: "That means war!"

On February 1, 1933, Bonhoeffer gave the radio lecture "Changes in the concept of the Führer". In it he demanded a limitation of the total power of the Chancellery through the rule of law and popular welfare:

“The Führer will have to be responsibly aware of this clear limitation of his authority. If he understands his function differently than it is based on the matter [...] he lets himself be carried away by the led into wanting to represent his idol - and the led will always hope that from him - then the image of the leader slips into that of the seducer, then he acts criminally on the led as on himself. The real leader [...] must lead the led away from the authority of his person to the recognition of the genuine authority of the order and the office ... leaders and office that deify themselves, mock God. "

At this point the radio broadcast was broken off because of the clear criticism of the National Socialist “ Führer principle ” and the Hitler cult.

Through his close friend and fellow pastor Franz Hildebrandt and his brother-in-law Gerhard Leibholz , both of Jewish origin, Bonhoeffer experienced the consequences of the Nazi persecution of Jews from the start. He had already said in a sermon in 1932:

“Then we need not be surprised if times will come again for our church when martyrs' blood will be required. But this blood, if we really still have the courage and the honor and the loyalty to shed it, will not be as innocent and shining as that of the first witnesses. There would be great guilt of our own on our blood: the guilt of the useless servant who is thrown out into the darkness. "

Bonhoeffer immediately tried, through his friend Paul Lehmann in the USA, to inform the Chief Rabbi of New York about the so-called boycott of Jews on April 1, 1933. He began the essay “The Church before the Jewish Question”, added it to the Aryan paragraph passed on April 7, 1933, until April 15, and then presented it to a group of pastors. In June he had the article printed in time for the Nazi regime to censure it. He was the first Protestant theologian alongside Heinrich Vogel (“Cross and Swastika”, April 27, 1933) to address the relationship between Nazi racial ideology and Christianity. He initially followed the Lutheran doctrine of the two empires and granted the state the right to regulate the “ Jewish question ” by law and to “break new ground” without the church interfering. He also took up the traditional anti-Judaist substitution theology :

"The thought has never been lost in the Church of Christ that the 'chosen people' who crucified the Savior of the world must bear the curse of their suffering in the long history of suffering."

But in the supplemented theses he commented on the state policy of harmonization at the time , which abolished the rule of law :

"The state that endangers Christian preaching denies itself."

From this he concluded three ecclesiastical tasks:

"1. The church has to ask the state whether its actions can be accounted for as legitimate state action ... 2. The church is unconditionally obliged to the victims of every social order, even if they do not belong to the Christian community ... 3. If the church does Sees the state exercising too much or too little law and order, it is in a position not only to bind the victims under the wheel, but to fall into the spokes of the wheel itself. "

For the first two tasks, he saw the church in the German state currently being challenged. However , he did not want the individual to decide whether and when a direct church right of resistance against this state was given, but rather an "evangelical council ". Unlike most of the other theologians of the later Confessing Church, who at best defended the membership of the Jewish Christians against state attacks, he made the defense of human rights an obligation for the whole church and advocated all persecuted Judaism from the start . At the time, he still hoped that ecumenism would act together, determined by the creed .

But this council idea was just as alien to his Lutheran listeners as the discipleship of Christ, which might be necessary for political resistance for the Jews, so that some left the room in protest during his lecture. When Bonhoeffer later realized that with these positions he was also remaining isolated in the Confessing Church, he decided on his own responsibility for his individual participation in the non-church, military resistance against the NS regime.

From June 1933 onwards, a majority of German Christians deposed the general superintendents in the Prussian regional church and appointed the state commissioner August Jäger . Hitler appointed Ludwig Müller his “confidante for church questions”, the German Christians tried to make him Reich Bishop. Bonhoeffer now turned all attention to the formation of an effective Protestant opposition. He proposed a funeral strike pending the resignation of the State Commissioner, which no one thought was possible. In occupied Norway , this means actually led to the retraction of state attacks by the Nazi occupiers in 1941.

After the electoral victory of the German Christians with about 70 percent of the votes against the Young Reformation movement in the church elections on July 23, 1933, which were scheduled by the state at short notice, various groups tried to force the new incumbents of their churches to make statements about their beliefs with "confessions". For this purpose, Bonhoeffer, together with the Erlangen theologian Hermann Sasse, was commissioned to formulate a uniform draft confessional throughout the empire. Wilhelm Vischer , then Bethel scholar of the Old Testament, formulated the first draft of the article on the “Jewish question”. The joint draft appeared at the end of August 1933 and was sent to 20 experts by Pastor Bodelschwingh , the recognized director of the Bethel Institute . These defused the text, especially with regard to the church's advocacy for the Jews against the state, to such an extent that Bonhoeffer refused to sign it. Nevertheless, the Bethel Confession was an important step towards founding the Confessing Church in May 1934.

After the introduction of the Aryan paragraph in the Protestant Church at the Old Prussian General Synod on September 6, 1933 in Berlin, Bonhoeffer suggested that the opposition pastors withdraw from the German Evangelical Church , which he now regarded as heresy . At that time, however, he hardly found approval for a split in the church; even Karl Barth saw the possibility of an opposition within the church. As a result, Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller and others founded the Pastors' Emergency League to protect the threatened ministerial brothers of Jewish origin. He wrote the first version of a voluntary commitment for its members, which already included the willingness to be martyred and the claim to sole representation of the “true church”. The Notbund formed the organizational link between the Young Reformation movement, which crumbled after its election defeat, and the now emerging Confessing Church.

Afterwards Bonhoeffer took part in an ecumenical meeting in Sofia , where he informed the foreign representatives comprehensively about the German processes and their background. Before Ludwig Müller was elected Reich Bishop on September 27, 1933, he designed a clearly formulated leaflet “The Aryan Paragraph in the Church”, which he and friends pinned to trees and lanterns as a protest poster at night.

London (1933-1935)

Then Bonhoeffer initially decided to accept an offer for a pastor abroad in London from July 1933. From October 17, 1933 he was parish priest based in the southern London suburb of Forest Hill for two German-speaking parishes, the Lutheran congregation in Forest Hill and the Reformed Church of St. Paul in the east London district of Whitechapel . In a long letter to Karl Barth on October 24th, he justified this with the fact that he could no longer be a Christian in the church controlled by the German Christians, with this view he was increasingly isolated even among friends and wanted to distance himself from the events, in order to be able to intervene all the more concentrated later. Barth replied:

"You should now drop all the most interesting intellectual flourishes and special considerations and consider only the one thing that you are a German, that the house of your church is on fire, that you know enough and, what you know, know enough to say." to be able to help and that you would basically have to return to your post with the next ship! "

- Karl Barth

Bonhoeffer did not do this immediately, but it later moved Barth very much that with this reaction he had influenced Bonhoeffer's decision to return to Germany, which resulted in his turning to the resistance and his martyrdom.

In London he met George Kennedy Allen Bell , the Anglican Bishop of Chichester , who held high offices in the ecumenical movement and was strongly committed to social issues. Bell became one of his closest friends and partners in the church struggle. Franz Hildebrandt also worked with him in London for a few months. Supported by Bonhoeffer's commitment, the English congregations abroad and Bell openly opposed the German Christians and demanded the resignation of Ludwig Müller.

On May 31, 1934, the Confessing Church was founded by an assembly of Protestant Christians unanimously accepting the Barmer Theological Declaration written by Karl Barth after an explanatory speech by Hans Asmussen and electing a Council of Brothers . In the following months, especially the Lutheran churches of Thuringia, Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Saxony and the ecclesiastical provinces in Old Prussia due to their state-church tradition showed not willing to follow the profession of organization and its DC circuit to resolutely resist. After synodal elections, bishops and lawyers who belonged to the German Christians won leadership positions there.

In this situation Bonhoeffer placed all hope in the young ecumenical movement. In the run-up to significant conflicts, he tried to ensure that only supporters of the Barmer Declaration were invited as a German delegation to the World Federation's youth conference on the Danish North Sea island of Fanø in August 1934. He himself appeared there both as a representative of the Confessing Church and as youth secretary. At the morning prayer on August 28, he gave an introductory speech to the General Assembly entitled “The Church and the World of Nations”, which many felt was a sermon for peace. At this point in time, pacifists were already being terrorized by SA troops in Germany and imprisoned in concentration camps. In the following debates, however, it became clear that the delegations from Hungary and Poland , who saw themselves threatened by Germany, did not want to completely rule out war as a national resistance.

Finkenwalde (1935–1937)

Zingsthof

Memorial in Finkenwalde

On April 15, 1935, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany after briefly considering a trip to India to see Mahatma Gandhi . He took on the training of prospective pastors for the Confessing Church in the Zingsthof seminary , which moved to Finkenwalde (now part of Stettin) in Pomerania in June . One of his first students there was Eberhard Bethge , his close friend, later correspondent and biographer. As part of this teaching activity, the book Succession was created , which Karl Barth described after the war as “by far the best that has been written about it”. Here Bonhoeffer developed his idea that the church is not just a community of souls, not just preaching, but above all the real body of Christ on earth. This implies a genuine, living following of Christ, regardless of the cost to the individual (“dear grace”).

In 1937 the Nazi state closed the seminary for preachers, which was now operated illegally and covered by courageous superintendents and pastors as a "collective vicariate". Bonhoeffer was officially active as assistant preacher at Superintendent Eduard Block in Schlawe . With his support, he carried out the camouflaged vicar training for the Confessing Church in Köslin and Groß Schlönwitz , later in Sigurdshof until the Gestapo intervened here in March 1940 . He reflected on his Finkenwalder experiences in his book Living Together .

Resistance to National Socialism (1938–1943)

First contacts (1938–1939)

In 1938 the married couple Gerhard and Sabine Leibholz, Bonhoeffer's twin sister, decided to emigrate to England because of the tightened Jewish legislation. Bonhoeffer used his connections there so that Leibholz could act as an advisor to Bishop George Bell.

First contacts arose with Wilhelm Canaris , Hans Oster , Karl Sack and Ludwig Beck through his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi . During this time Bonhoeffer tried to get the Christian churches in the ecumenical movement to work against the National Socialists' ongoing preparations for war. Because of these activities he got to know high church dignitaries all over Europe. On March 10, 1939 he broke up for talks and a. with George Bell to London, where he again campaigned for recognition of the Confessing Church by the Provisional World Council of Churches. Despite sympathy, he could not achieve anything fundamental and returned to Germany in mid-April. On June 2, he accepted a second invitation to the USA, but on June 20, he turned down the request of his host Smith-Leiper to take up a professorship in Harlem and thus, like many other German intellectuals, to go into American exile because he was his Saw role in the approaching war in the resistance at home. The aggravated situation in Europe did not allow a retreat from the world, but only a life here and there at the same time. This decision, which was extremely difficult for Bonhoeffer himself, was of the greatest importance and had serious consequences for his further thinking and life.

On the return trip he visited his sister and her family in London. Here he learned of the murder of the pastor of the Confessing Church Paul Schneider in Buchenwald concentration camp . He emphasized to his nieces Marianne and Christiane that Schneider was the first martyr of the Evangelical Church in the time of National Socialism , whose name they should remember well. Bonhoeffer came back to Berlin on July 27th, resumed his work in the Sigurdshof in autumn and now looked for contacts with counter-espionage in the Wehrmacht High Command under Admiral Canaris.

Collaboration (from 1940)

After the Gestapo closed the last collective vicariate on the Sigurdshof on March 17, 1940 and on July 14th, the police dissolved a spare time led by Bonhoeffer, he held talks with Hans Oster and Hans von Dohnanyi about an “ indispensable position ” for defense missions. He should use his ecumenical contacts for the conspirators to initiate negotiations with the Allies. Bonhoeffer was not involved in the planning of Hitler attacks, but served as a liaison, officially on behalf of the Abwehr . On August 22, 1940 he was banned from speaking “for the entire Reich territory” because of his disruptive activity, and in March 1941 he was banned from writing.

Several opponents of the Nazi regime met in his parents' house, some of whom had high positions in the Abwehr or the Wehrmacht , who wanted to kill Hitler with an assassination attempt. Bonhoeffer joined this resistance group. The question of tyrannical murder (may a Christian violate the commandment “You shall not murder”?) , To which Bonhoeffer answered with an unequivocal yes for this specific case, is reflected theologically and ethically in his unfinished main work, the ethics , which parallel to his Engagement in the military and political resistance from 1940 until his arrest in April 1943 arose.

Conspiracy (1941–1942)

On October 30th, Bonhoeffer was assigned to the Munich Abwehrstelle, so he was in the service of the Nazi state - with a ban on speaking and, from March 1941, on writing and publication. From November 17th he stayed at the Benedictine monastery in Ettal .

In 1941/1942 he undertook - u. a. with Helmuth von Moltke for the German counterintelligence and at the same time the internal resistance group - trips to Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. In Sigtuna and Stockholm he met George Bell on May 31 / June 1, 1942 and handed him secret documents about the group of resistanceists and their goals for the British government. Linked to this was the request for a public declaration from the Allies to differentiate between Germans and Nazis after the end of the war. However, UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden let Bell know that supporting the resistance or even responding to it was not in Britain's national interest.

Probably for security reasons, Bonhoeffer made hardly any written and only a few verbal statements about his work in the service of the defense. Nonetheless, the theological writings he wrote during this period, especially Ethics , are always to be read as indirect testimonies and reflections of this self-responsible involvement in the dramatic political situation.

At the turn of the year 1942/1943 Bonhoeffer wrote a very personal review of the past ten years, during which his resistance to Nazi terror matured and helped him to gain lasting knowledge about the Christian way of life. He addressed moral courage , honesty and the “view from below” from the perspective of the victims of a violent society. In his consideration of the everyday virtues that can be learned in resistance, it was said:

“One must reckon with the fact that most people only become wise through their own personal experience. […]
Inactive waiting and dull watching are not Christian attitudes. Christians are not first called to action and to compassion by the experiences in their own body, but rather by the experiences of the brothers for whom Christ suffered. "

His individual creed was highlighted:

“I believe that God can and will create good things out of everything, including the worst. For this he needs people who allow all things to be served for the best. I believe that God wants to give us as much resilience as we need in any emergency. But he does not give it in advance so that we do not rely on ourselves but on him alone. In such faith all fear of the future should be overcome. I believe that our mistakes and errors are not in vain either, and that it is no more difficult for God to come to terms with them than with our supposed good deeds. I believe that God is not a timeless fate , but that He waits and answers for sincere prayers and responsible deeds. "

In January 1943, became engaged Bonhoeffer with Maria von Wedemeyer (1924-1977), the daughter of a Pomeranian landowner, sister of a former confirmation and granddaughter of his patron and supporter from the time the preacher seminars and collective vicariates, Ruth von Kleist-Retzow .

Imprisonment and Execution (1943–1945)

Berlin memorial plaque on the Bonhoefferhaus in Marienburger Allee; here he was arrested on April 5, 1943

Bonhoeffer's execution site: the courtyard of the arrest block in the Flossenbürg concentration camp

Bust of Bonhoeffer in the Flossenbürg Memorial Chapel

On March 13 and 21, 1943, members of the group around Canaris, Oster and Klaus Bonhoeffer carried out attacks on Adolf Hitler , which failed. On April 5, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested at the same time as his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi for “ decomposing military strength ” and held in the Wehrmacht remand prison in Tegel. In September 1943 the indictment was finalized by the armed forces judge Manfred Roeder (the indictment was found again in 1991 in the Prague Military History Archive). The planned criminal proceedings against Bonhoeffer before the People's Court were not opened. One reason for this was that senior officials with ties to resistance groups, e.g. B. the then not yet arrested Army Judge Karl Sack , could stop the proceedings.

On July 20, 1944, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg undertook another assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, which just failed. During the intensive interrogations that followed, the Gestapo was unable to prove that Bonhoeffer and other co-conspirators were involved. In the early autumn of 1944, however, the Gestapo happened to find papers in a secret archive of the Abwehr in a Wehrmacht bunker in Zossen, including documents from the coup attempts in which Canaris was involved and some pages from Canaris' diary. The Gestapo also found meticulous records of crimes committed by the Nazi regime there. Dohnanyi had made these reports in order to later educate the population and the Allies about the crimes. These documents were also intended to justify the resistance against Hitler. Dohnanyi had kept the papers in a safe in his office at Abwehr headquarters; little by little he had them taken to the secret archives. This made the evidence against the Abwehr resistance group and above all for Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer indisputable.

On October 8, 1944, the Gestapo transferred him to the basement of their headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8. There, Bonhoeffer, Canaris, Dohnanyi, Gehre, General Oster and Karl Sack, who had meanwhile also been arrested, remained as Hitler’s personal prisoners, without them they have been tried.

Bonhoeffer wrote his last letter to his parents on January 17, 1945. On February 7th, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp , and at the beginning of April 1945 to the Flossenbürg concentration camp . On April 5, 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered the execution of all unexecuted "conspirators" of July 20, 1944, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer's. When he was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp at the beginning of April, he probably suspected that the execution was awaiting him. He asked the British fellow prisoner Payne Best , whom he had met shortly before in Buchenwald, to deliver a few words to his friend George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester. Bell wrote down Bonhoeffer's last message in 1945 as follows:

“Tell him (he said) that for me this is the end but also the beginning. With him I believe in the principle of our Universal Christian brotherhood which rises above all national interests, and that our victory is certain - tell him, too, that I have never forgotten his words at our last meeting. "

“Tell him, he said, that for me this is the end, but also the beginning. With him I believe in the principle of our universal Christian brotherhood, which goes beyond all national interests, and that our victory is certain - tell him also that I never forgot his words at our last meeting. "

In an alleged “court martial” held three days later, Bonhoeffer was sentenced to death by hanging along with Wilhelm Canaris , Hans Oster , Karl Sack and Ludwig Gehre in a short trial on April 8, 1945. The prosecutor was a high functionary in the Reich Security Main Office, the department head and SS standard leader Walter Huppenkothen , who the day before had Hans von Dohnanyi , Dietrich Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law, sentenced to death in another trial . This pseudo-trial against Bonhoeffer and others was chaired by Otto Thorbeck , who was subject to Huppenkothen's authority and who held the position of chief judge at the SS and Police Court in Munich. The assessors were the commandant of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, Max Koegel, and another unknown person. Defense attorneys were absent and no witnesses were heard. The hearing took place without a secretary; a new file was not created. The case files against Bonhoeffer, which were burned in a bomb attack on Berlin, were not available. Since there were no witnesses, Thorbeck and Huppenkothen were able to claim after the end of National Socialism that the trial was run according to the law.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was led to death by hanging at dawn on April 9, 1945 . Those destined for execution had to completely undress and go to the gallows naked. The SS camp doctor Hermann Fischer-Hüllstrung reported on this in writing in 1955:

“Through the half-open door of a room in the barracks building, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling with his Lord God in deep prayer before taking off the prisoner's clothes. I was deeply shocked by the devotional and certain manner of prayer of this extraordinarily sympathetic man. He also offered a short prayer at the place of execution and then, courageously and calmly, climbed the stairs to the gallows. Death occurred after a few seconds. In my almost 50 years of medical activity I have hardly ever seen a man die so devoutly. "

There are considerable doubts about this representation: On the one hand, there are doubts about the person of the reporter, who in reality had the task of resuscitating those strangled to the point of impotence in order to prolong their agony, and on the one hand the legendary one that took place ten years later Above all, stylization probably wanted to cast a positive light on oneself. On the other hand, these exist in view of the documented circumstances such as the six-hour duration of the entire execution process and the nature of the gallows in Flossenbürg, which had no “stairs”.

Legal processing of the prosecution and conviction of Bonhoeffer

On September 15, 1945, Adolf Grimme , who had belonged to the Rote Kapelle , filed a complaint against the Nazi judge Manfred Roeder for his involvement in the proceedings against Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans von Dohnanyi and 49 members of the Rote Kapelle and for the use of extortionate means of coercion. The proceedings, which were initially carried out in Nuremberg and then in Lüneburg, were discontinued - very controversial.

In 1956, the Federal Court of Justice qualified the SS stand trial, which Bonhoeffer had sentenced to death in 1945, as a proper court. The procedure, which another senate of the BGH had regarded in 1952 as an "obvious" sham procedure, was regarded as a regular court procedure. The judgment against Bonhoeffer, Dohnanyi u. a. corresponded to the law at the time and is therefore still valid. This was true until the 1990s, so that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's relatives z. B. no compensation was awarded as victims of the Nazi regime. It was only through the law for the repeal of National Socialist judgments in criminal justice that NS judgments were declared void and Bonhoeffer was formally declared innocent.

Bonhoeffer consciously accepted the consequence of his resistance, death as a lawbreaker within the meaning of the current state law. He did not see himself as “innocent” but took his death out of God's hand as a result of his actions: “He who takes the sword can (will) perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).

theology

Bonhoeffer portrait by Alfred Hrdlicka (1977)

Bonhoeffer's theology was driven by historical circumstances and incorporated influences from dialectical theology, Moravian Pietism, Lutheran tradition, Roman Catholicism and Neoprotestantism, such as Adolf von Harnacks , Martin Kählers , Rudolf Otto or Wilhelm Diltheys . Bonhoeffer combined Old Testament legal thinking and New Testament Christocentrism . The central theme is also the church as the body of Christ , as the congregation of followers of Christ and a community commissioned by God to show solidarity with the world. Bonhoeffer's theology is directed inwards, has mystical traits, but never loses its relation to practice. This broad spectrum invites to very different interpretations of his work and makes Bonhoeffer a key witness of quite different theological schools and schools of thought. That led z. For example, Christians and churches in the GDR gradually opened up to socialism , which ultimately led to the concept of a “ church in socialism ” with reference to Bonhoeffer's theology .

Jesus Christ as the center

The center around which Bonhoeffer's theology develops is Jesus Christ . From this center point, theological reflection, spiritual depth and an ethical sense of responsibility complement and require one another. The spiritual as well as the spiritual perception of the center is the basis of Christian existence. From this center all elements of Bonhoeffer's work receive a unity, and it locks itself into a classification in the classical disciplines of Protestant university theology.

The criticism of religion in the 19th century is present in Bonhoeffer's reflection on Christ as the foundation of the church. In 1928, alluding to Ludwig Feuerbach and Adolf von Harnack, he titled a lecture Jesus Christ and the essence of Christianity . In it he saw knowledge, morality, church and religion as futile ways to God in the sense of Karl Barth's Dialectical Theology . “If man and God are to come together, there is only one way: God's way to man.” In Jesus it becomes clear that God pursues man in an unconditional love that “is stronger than death” (cf. Hld 8, 6  LUT ). Christ cannot be thought of in a being-in-himself, but only in his being-for-me, in mutual personal relationship and only in the community. With reference to the New Testament, Bonhoeffer sees Paul and Luther as an important question of Christology : "Who are you, are you God himself?" The old church, on the other hand, has "in the Scylla of the 'how question'", modern theology confused into the " Charybdis of the 'That Question'". Jesus Christ could only be present as a human being, but only as God "eternally present, eternally simultaneously".

Being a Christian consists in praying and doing what is just among people, because the Incarnation and the Cross establish a comprehensive love for the world. In a letter to Theodor Litt in 1939 it says:

“Just because God became a poor, miserable, unknown, unsuccessful person, and because from now on God wants to be found alone in this poverty, in the cross, that is why we cannot get rid of man and the world, that is why we love the brothers. "

This worldly and church

This Christocentric perspective leads Bonhoeffer in the fragment of his “Ethics” begun in 1940 to reject the thought model of the doctrine of the two kingdoms that had prevailed for centuries : Church here, the world there; here gospel, there law. On the other hand, he states:

“The more exclusively we confess Christ as the Lord, the more the breadth of his dominion is revealed. [...] The world belongs to Christ and only in Christ is it what it is. It therefore needs nothing less than Christ himself. Everything would be corrupted if one wanted to keep Christ for the church while one only grants the world some kind of, perhaps Christian, law. [...] Since God became flesh in Christ and entered the world, we have been forbidden to claim two spaces, two realities: There is only this one world. "

Bonhoeffer, however, emphasized his agreement with Martin Luther : The Christian “duty of obedience binds him until the authorities force him directly to violate the divine commandment.” Luther also made this restriction with reference to Acts 5:29  LUT . Bonhoeffer saw a clear separation between world and congregation, but repeatedly emphasized the congregation's mission to proclaim Christ to the world, who died not only for the congregation but for the whole world: “She [the world] stands with the congregation Life and death fight. Nevertheless, it is the mission and the essence of the community to promise this world its reconciliation with God and to reveal to it the reality of God's love, against which it blindly rages ”, says Bonhoeffer in his ethics and also in his followers :“ It is a small church that he's found, and it's a big church that he's looking for when he looks at the people. Disciples and people, they belong together, the disciples will be his messengers, they will also find hearers and believers here and there. And yet, there will be enmity between them until the end. "

A Christian can thus live in the reality of God and the world at the same time. The present world is freed from its degraded status of the temporary. The "penultimate" is the "shell of the last", the last things show up in history, and this is open to the possibilities of the kingdom of God. If so, the believing person can only come to God through the world, not bypassing the world. Here, too, Bonhoeffer breaks with old theological patterns that disqualify the value of the natural and the independence of this world. In this way Bonhoeffer can also counter the critics like Ludwig Feuerbach , Karl Marx or Sigmund Freud , who criticized the Christian faith as illusionary and put off to an afterlife.

Even if Bonhoeffer considers individual piety and ethical behavior of the individual, he does so against the background of the individual being embedded in the Christian community. For him, theology is thinking in prayer, thinking on his knees within the church. He suffers from the church there and shows solidarity with it. Based on Hegel's phrase "God existing as a church", Bonhoeffer speaks of "Christ existing as a church": God emerges from himself in his revelation, he is not free from people, but free for people. The church is nevertheless a “form of revelation” as well as “a piece of the world” (dissertation Sanctorum Communio ). In 1931 he wrote in his habilitation act and being :

“God is there; ie not in eternal non-objectivity, but - expressed with all provisionality - 'have', tangible in his word in the church. "

Just as “Christ is the human being for others”, Bonhoeffer follows from this: “The church is only church when it is there for others”. In 1944, however, he reproached his church for having "only fought for its self-preservation during these years [...] as if it were an end in itself".

ethics

Since the individual Christian and the community of believers are brought into the world, they cannot avoid decisions in concrete personal and historical situations. Bonhoeffer criticizes the derivation of norms from abstract principles:

“The church must not proclaim principles that are always true, but only commandments that are true today. Because what is 'always' true is not true today. God is 'always' to us, especially 'today' God . "

Only in this way can the fullness of life that Jesus' message promises be opened up. The justification of the sinner by faith alone gives freedom of action. The knowledge of being able to make oneself guilty by doing but also by omitting does not lead to despair only if the believing person and also the community can be certain of God's “ dear grace ”. This does not have to be earned through succession, but it has consequences for the succession. In the succession , completed in 1937, Bonhoeffer sees the collapse of the organized churches as a result of grace acquired too “cheaply” and draws a negative balance of the popular church:

“They gave the preaching and the sacraments cheaply, they baptized, they confirmed, they graduated from a whole people, without being asked and unconditionally. [...] streams of grace were donated without end, but the call to strict following of Christ was heard less often. "

As a young theologian, Bonhoeffer still accepted war as a necessary evil. In the event of a defensive war, in 1929 - contrary to his situation-oriented approach - he invoked an order of creation to resolve the conflict between love for one's neighbor and love of one's enemy:

“God gave me to my mother, my people; what I have, I thank this people; what I am, I am through my people, what I have should also belong to them again, that is divine order, because God created the peoples. "

By 1934, however, he had "turned the theologian towards Christian" (E. Bethge) and towards pacifism. An occupation in 1931 with Psalm 119  LUT , the love song to the law, and the Sermon on the Mount was a key experience for Bonhoeffer. This made obedience and discipleship central personal and theological issues.

During the international youth peace conference in Ciernoborské Kúpele (Czechoslovakia) in 1932, he rejected an explanation from the Sermon on the Mount, as it should not be misunderstood as a law. He also replaced the concept of the order of creation with that of an "order of preservation": orders of the world are only worth preserving if they are able to stop sin and "are able to keep the way for the gospel open." An international order of peace is therefore not a "part of the kingdom of God " , but pragmatic-historically necessary, since the current war includes "the certain self-destruction of both fighters". In order to speak and be heard without a lie, the churches would have to overcome their conflict. They should refuse the “idealization and idolatry” that war “needs in order to be able to live”. Justification of the fight does not mean yes to war:

"Wherever a community of peace endangers or suffocates truth and justice, the peace community must be broken and war declared."

At the youth conference in Fanö in 1934, Bonhoeffer's justification for his peace ethic was, however, clearly more “Christian”: The “God of the Sermon on the Mount” had always judged the violation of the commandment “You shall not kill”. With a view to the armaments efforts of the National Socialists and appeals for disarmament by the League of Nations, he quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “There is no way to peace - peace is the way.” Bonhoeffer pleads for “peace instead of security”, trusting even in the event of a military attack on the God of History and believes in the effect of nonviolent resistance : “Who of us can say that he would know what it could mean for the world when a people - instead of weapon in hand - praying and defenseless and therefore armed with the only good defense and weapons would receive the attacker? ”He no longer sees the change in political conditions as a matter for the world, sees little chance for political reason. Beyond the proclamation of the peace commandment, the churches should therefore immediately begin to implement the peace ethic.

“Only the one great ecumenical council of the Holy Church of Christ from all over the world can say that the world must hear the word of peace grudgingly and that the peoples are happy because this Church of Christ is taking arms out of the hands of its sons in the name of Christ takes and forbids them to go to war and proclaims the peace of Christ over the maddening world ... The hour is hurrying, the world is staring at arms ... the war fanfare can be blown tomorrow - what are we waiting for? Do we want to be complicit, like never before? "

Representative confession of guilt

In Bonhoeffer's ethics there is a substitute confession of guilt based on the Ten Commandments for the failure of the Confessing Church to face the persecution of the Jews since 1933, which the German churches have not repeated after 1945 until today:

“The confession of guilt happens without looking sideways at the accomplices. It is strictly exclusive in that it takes all the blame on itself. [...] There is nothing else that Christ overcomes us more than by unconditionally and completely accepting our guilt, declaring himself guilty of our guilt and letting us go free. A look at this grace of Christ completely frees us from looking at the guilt of others [...] With this confession all the guilt of the world falls on the Church, on Christians, and by not being denied but being made known, the possibility arises of forgiveness.
First of all, it is the very personal guilt of the individual that is recognized here as the poisoning source of the community. […] I am guilty of disorderly desire, I am guilty of cowardly silence where I should have spoken, I am guilty of hypocrisy and untruthfulness in the face of violence, I am guilty of ruthlessness and denial of the poorest of my brothers, I am guilty of unfaithfulness and apostasy from Christ. [...] These many individuals come together in the total I of the Church. In and through them the Church recognizes her guilt.
The church confesses that it has not directed its proclamation openly and clearly enough about the one God who has revealed himself for all time in Jesus Christ and who suffers no other gods beside him. [...] As a result, she has often refused the mercy of the outcast and despised. She was mute where she should have screamed because the blood of the innocent screamed to heaven. [...] The Church confesses that it has seen the arbitrary use of brutal violence, the physical and mental suffering of innocent innocents, oppression, hatred and murder without raising its voice for them, without having found ways to rush to their aid. She is guilty of the lives of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ. [...] The church confesses that it longed for security, rest, peace, property, honor to which it was not entitled, and thus not restrained people's desires, but promoted them. The Church confesses that she has broken all ten commandments, and in them she confesses her apostasy from Christ. […] Through its own silence, the Church has become guilty of the loss of responsible action, of the courage to stand up and of the willingness to suffer for what has been recognized as right. She is guilty of the apostasy of the authorities from Christ.
Is that saying too much? Wasn't the church hindered and bound on all sides? Wasn't all worldly violence against them? Was the church allowed to endanger its last, its services, its community life by taking up the fight against the anti-Christian powers? This is what unbelief speaks ... Free confession of guilt is not something that can be done or not done, but rather the breakthrough of the figure of Jesus Christ in the church, which the church allows itself to happen or it ceases to be the church of Christ . [...] By confessing its guilt, the church does not release people from their own confession of guilt, but rather it calls them into the community of confession of guilt. Only as judged by Christ can apostate humanity exist before Christ. The Church calls all whom she reaches under this judgment. "

"Stations on the way to freedom"

As a reaction to the failed assassination attempt and knowing that his situation was becoming more and more hopeless, Bonhoeffer wrote the poem Stations on the Way to Freedom in August 1944 . In the four stanzas of discipline - deed - suffering - death , it combines practical use ("Do not do anything, but do and dare to do what is right, do not float in the possible, bravely seize the real") with the assumption of powerlessness ("You only touched for a moment blessed is freedom, then you will hand it over to God so that he may gloriously complete it. ")

In a letter of July 21, 1944, Bonhoeffer had already opposed this-sidedness to the pursuit of holiness:

"When one has completely given up making something of oneself - be it a saint or a converted sinner or a cleric (a so-called priestly figure), a righteous or an unjust, a sick or healthy - and this is what I call this-sidedness, namely to live in the abundance of tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities - then one throws oneself completely into God’s arms, then one no longer takes one's own sufferings seriously, but the suffering of God in the world, then one wakes up with Christ in Gethsemane, and I think that's faith, that's metanoia and that's how you become a person, a Christian. "

He did not mean, however, “the flat and banal worldliness of the enlightened, the busy, the lazy or the lascivious, but the deep worldliness, which is full of discipline and in which the knowledge of death and resurrection is always present”.

The sentence of the poem "Not in the flight of thoughts, only freedom is in fact" turned against all Lutheran, pietistic and liturgical withdrawals from political worship, such as the Alpirsbach and Berneuchen movement at that time . Bonhoeffer's only oral sentence aims in the same direction: "Only those who shout for the Jews are allowed to sing in Gregorian."

"From good powers"

→ Main article : Faithfully and quietly surrounded by good powers

In his letter of December 19, 1944 to his fiancée, Bonhoeffer added “a few verses that came to mind over the last few evenings” as “Christmas greetings for you and your parents and siblings”: Surrounded by good powers loyally and quietly .

Letter page with the poem

This personal-biographical poem also referred to his own situation as a prisoner and that of his family against the unspoken background of Nazi rule and the war. His brother Klaus and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher were imprisoned, brother Walter had died, and his twin sister Sabine had gone abroad with her Jewish husband Gerhard Leibholz. At the beginning of the letter, Bonhoeffer wrote:

“I haven't felt alone and abandoned for a moment like this. You and your parents, all of you, the friends and students in the field, you are always very present to me. [...] If the old nursery rhyme of the angels says: 'two who cover me, two who wake me', this preservation in the evening and in the morning by good, invisible forces is something that we adults need no less than today the children."

Religious Christianity

→ Main article : Religious Christianity

Bonhoeffer radicalized the relation of theology to this-sidedness and concrete action while imprisoned in Tegel, documented for the first time in a letter to Eberhard Bethge of April 30, 1944. In it and in other surviving letters he outlined the program of a non-religious interpretation of biblical terms and the worldly speech of God.

According to Bonhoeffer, there is faith in God only in this world. The pure “God of the Beyond” is the essence of “religion”. In his time he sees the importance of such a religion dwindling and analyzing dramatically, the time of inwardness, conscience and classical metaphysics is over. He also observed with his fellow prisoners that, unlike in earlier times, the war did not provoke a great religious reaction, autonomous people no longer teaches how to pray even if need. In general, the history of science and human emancipation has made it dishonest to see God as a stopgap at the limits of knowledge, in human weakness or sin (to be revealed). Bonhoeffer criticizes exploiting these limits in order to fearfully spare space for God. Such a concept of God has become meaningless for the responsible person, and even death and sin are no longer real limits.

Against such a defensive stance within the churches, Bonhoeffer relies on the central message of the gospel and the power of faith , which he distinguishes from religion in the tradition of Karl Barth . “God is beyond in the middle of our life. The church does not stand where human capabilities fail, on the borders, but in the middle of the village. ”He also sees this as a return to the Old Testament , to the belief in a God who is present in history and in a community shows.

In his dissertation in 1930, Bonhoeffer had already diagnosed the bourgeoisie in terms of distance from the church, criticized an empty religiosity within the church and urged it to be more serious. In 1932, after the change of government to Franz von Papen , he said :

“It is not disobedience that we are so unreligious, but that we would really like to be religious ... very reassured when any government proclaims the Christian worldview ... the more pious we are, the less we let ourselves [it] say that God is dangerous, that God does not allow him to be mocked ... "

His response to secularization is a "community-centered, pietistic, personal discipline". He stands in the tradition of piety and ethics in his family environment. His call for a non-religious Christianity is an attempt to bring Christian speech and action into harmony. Beliefs that create identity should remain secret in the sense of an arcane discipline in the background, and he campaigned for a renewal of forms of monastic life. His sentence should be understood in this sense: "Before God and with God we live without God."

Bonhoeffer also goes back to his earlier distinction between “penultimate and last”. Christ came into the world, and so one can only speak worldly, veiled about the ultimate things. From this he develops the idea of ​​a God suffering from the world, who calls on people to participate, which he condenses in a poetic form in his poem Christians and Gentiles . The central idea is that only the compassionate and impotent God can help. Bonhoeffer also emphasizes that there is no resurrection without a cross, and thus opposes “cheap consolation in the hereafter”.

He sees the opportunity to speak of God, church, worship or prayer without religion and worldly, but was no longer able to work out how such a new language and practice of faith could become concrete. After the Second World War, these thoughts sparked heated controversy, including the emergence of a God-is-dead theology . Today Bonhoeffer's prognoses of the death of religion - especially on a global scale - are partly outdated, partly as misunderstood and unfulfilled demands on churches and society.

Unity of thinking, speaking and doing

Bonhoeffer's approach combines teaching and life, thinking, speaking and doing and would thus be suitable to overcome a widespread division between personal piety , community life and university theology. Theology would then lose its apparent objectivity of normative sentences - "unexperienced speaking of foreign experiences" ( Eugen Drewermann ) - and gain a lively subjectivity and direct access to practice.

Reception, effect

Evangelical Church in the Post-War Period

Bonhoeffer statue by Fritz Fleer (1979) at the main church Sankt Petri (Hamburg)

As early as 1945 the Ecumenical Commission for the Pastoration of Prisoners of War in Geneva published a 60-page booklet entitled The Testimony of a Messenger, in memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer . In it, the WCC published the news of Bonhoeffer's murder, which it had learned in May, with a brief résumé. Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft also reported on his encounters with Bonhoeffer in London (1939) and Geneva (1941) and Fabian von Schlabrendorff about the period from late 1944 to early 1945, which they spent together in Gestapo detention. Excerpts from Bonhoeffer's writings and poems are published on a further 40 pages, including the poem Of Good Powers with the title New Year 1945 .

The Berlin-Brandenburg regional church withheld his name in 1945 in the announcement of the pulpit on the first anniversary of July 20, 1944. In addition, the recommendation to the pastors said that Christians could “never approve of the attack, whatever the intention may be. But among those who had to suffer were innumerable who never wanted such an attack. ”Only Paul Schneider was considered a real Christian martyr , who in the concentration camp accused the SS of murder via roll call square and called out a word from the Bible and who - it was believed - would not have exerted any political resistance in the narrower sense of the word.

In 1948, some Bielefeld pastors protested against street names being named after Bonhoeffer, "because we do not want the names of our ministers who were killed for their faith to be placed in line with political martyrs." To which his father Karl Bonhoeffer replied :

“My son would certainly not have wanted streets to be named after him. On the other hand, I am convinced that it would not make sense to distance himself from those who were killed for political reasons with whom he lived for years in prison and concentration camp. "

- Karl Bonhoeffer

Church on the side of the poor

Portraits of modern saints and martyrs in the Roman Catholic Annakirche in Heerlen , Bonhoeffer lower row middle

Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw the church of his time as not ready and not capable of a timely resistance. In his prison letters, he outlined the vision of a future church without state privileges on the side of the poor and persecuted. While this vision was largely ignored in Germany and Central Europe, it has been taken up and partially implemented in the poverty and liberation movements of the ecumenical movement outside Europe: for example in South Africa during the apartheid regime or in the grassroots communities of Brazil and Central America and the liberation theology that arose there . The connection between Bonhoeffer's “ecumenical impetus” and his understanding of this worldly and church beyond “self-rotation” was essential . In particular, the liberation theologians Frei Betto , Gustavo Gutierrez , Jon Sobrino and Franz Hinkelammert received Bonhoeffer's writings. Resistance and Surrender was published in Spanish in 1983 as the first book by the new state publisher of Sandinista Nicaragua .

Ecumenical efforts for peace and justice

Bonhoeffer's temporary proximity to pacifist attitudes had a strong impact on current discussions such as the rearmament of the Federal Republic, the 2nd Gulf War or the Kosovo War . His call to ecumenical peace council motivated crucial to resulting in the peace movement of the 1980s conciliar process .

Honor, memory

Martyrs of the 20th century at Westminster Abbey (west wall; from left to right):
Maximilian Kolbe , Manche Masemola , Janani Luwum , Grand Duchess Elisabeth of Russia , Martin Luther King , Óscar Romero , Dietrich Bonhoeffer , Esther John , Lucian Tapiedi and Wang Zhiming

Bonhoeffer is venerated today by the Evangelical Church in Germany , the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America , the Church of England , the Church in Wales and the Episcopal Church as a martyr and outstanding theologian. His feast day for these churches is April 9th. Dietrich Bonhoeffer also lists the Roman Catholic Church as a martyr in its German Martyrology of the 20th Century .

Several schools, parish halls and churches were named after Bonhoeffer (see Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Schule , Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Kirche ). The Neubrandenburg Clinic was named Dietrich Bonhoeffer Clinic Neubrandenburg on April 9, 2002 . Some evangelical scout tribes (in Bayreuth, Butzbach, Kappeln, Nördlingen and Wolfsburg ) have named themselves after him.

In 1987, in the former home of Karl Bonhoeffer, in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer also lived during his stays in Berlin, the Evangelical Church of Berlin established the Bonhoeffer House as a memorial and meeting place .

In 1950 Berlin named the Bonhoefferufer on the Spree curve behind Charlottenburg Palace after the theologian, Dresden has had Bonhoefferplatz since 1993 , Cologne , Münster , Bochum , Duisburg , Kiel , Göttingen , Erlangen , Karlsruhe and many other cities have Bonhoefferstraße or Bonhoefferweg.

One of the Intercity Express trains ( ICE 4 ), which had been in operation since 2017, was to be named after Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Since April 2019 a plaque in the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial has been commemorating the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Works

Much of Bonhoeffer's published works was compiled from various documents after his death. The new work edition (DBW) made these sources and their origins comprehensively accessible.

• Literature by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Bonhoeffer in Finkenwalde. Letters, sermons, texts from the church struggle against the Nazi regime 1935–1942. Study edition with background documents and explanations, ed. by Karl Martin with the assistance of L.-Maximilian Rathke. Fenestra-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Berlin 2012.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Works. (DBW) 17 volumes and 2 supplementary volumes. Edited by Eberhard Bethge u. a .; Kaiser, Gütersloh 1986–1999.
  This critical complete edition is suitable as a basis for all work on Bonhoeffer.
• Sanctorum Communio. Dissertation. 1927, ISBN 3-579-01871-X .
• Act and being. Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology. Habilitation thesis. 1930, ISBN 3-579-01872-8 .
• The Church before the Jewish Question. 1933. (PDF; 34 kB)
• Succession. 1937, ISBN 3-579-01874-4 ; TB, ISBN 3-579-00455-7 .
• Ethics. 1949, ISBN 3-579-01876-0 ; TB, ISBN 3-579-05161-X .
• Praying and doing what is just. Faith and responsibility in resistance. ISBN 3-7655-1107-2 .
• Creation and fall. Theological interpretation of Genesis 1–3. Evangelischer Verlag A. Lempp, Munich 1937.
• Creation and fall. Temptation. Kaiser, Munich 1968, ISBN 3-579-01873-6 .
• The wisdom of God - Jesus Christ. Edited by Manfred Weber. Kiefel, Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-05606-9 .
• Common life (=  theological existence today , issue 61). Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1939, ISBN 3-579-01875-2 ; TB, ISBN 3-579-00452-2 .
• Resistance and submission. Letters and notes from prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge.
  Collected Works Vol. 8; Kaiser, Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-01878-7 ;
  Selection as paperback edition: Gütersloher Taschenbücher 457; Gütersloher Verlags-Haus, Gütersloh ¹⁷ 2002, ISBN 3-579-00457-3 .
• Bridal letters cell 92. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Maria von Wedemeyer 1943–1945. C. H. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54440-1 .
• The prayer book of the Bible. An Introduction to the Psalms. 10th edition. Hänssler, Neuhausen / Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-7751-0343-0 . First as No. 8 in the series Hinein in die Schrift, MBK-Verlag, Bad Salzuflen 1940.
• Fragments from Tegel. Drama and novel. Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-459-01164-5 .
• Swiss correspondence 1941/42. In conversation with Karl Barth. Kaiser, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-459-01465-2 .
• Christology. Kaiser, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-459-01351-6 .
• Temptation. Edited and ed. by Eberhard Bethge. 3. Edition. Kaiser, Munich 1956.
• The answer to our questions. Thoughts on the Bible. 9th edition. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 978-3-579-02272-7 .
• By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered. Mosaik bei Goldmann, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-442-17163-7 (with a short biography and an afterword by Manfred Weber).

literature

Biographies

• Josef Ackermann : Dietrich Bonhoeffer - freedom has open eyes. A biography. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 3-579-07109-2 .
• Eberhard Bethge : Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Theologian - Christian - Contemporary. A biography. Chr. Kaiser, Munich 1968 / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh, ISBN 3-579-02272-5 .
• Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Rowohlt Picture Monographs, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 978-3-499-50684-0 .
• Renate Bethge : Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A sketch of his life. Gütersloher Verlaghaus, Gütersloh 2004, ISBN 3-579-07100-9 .
• Hans Buchheim :  Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 443 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wolfgang Huber : Dietrich Bonhoeffer. On the way to freedom. CH Beck, Munich 2019.
• Carl-Jürgen Kaltenborn : Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 4th edition, Union Verlag, Berlin (Ost) 1985, DNB 850647339 .
• Georg Kretschmar : Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Heinrich Fries, Georg Kretschmar (Hrsg.): Classics of theology , Volume 2: From Richard Simon to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. C. H. Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-08359-5 , pp. 376-403.
• Wilhelm Landgrebe : Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Risk of succession. 6th edition. Brunnen, Giessen 1986, ISBN 3-7655-3129-4 .
• Charles Marsh: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The transfigured stranger. A biography . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2015. ISBN 978-3-579-07148-0 .
• Eric Metaxas : Bonhoeffer. Pastor, agent, martyr and prophet. SCM Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-7751-5271-6 (American original: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee).
• Ferdinand Schlingensiepen : Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945. A biography. C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53425-2 .
• Christiane Tietz : Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian in the resistance. C. H. Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-64508-2 .
• Ilse Tödt : "Good Powers". Bonhoeffer representations (FEST, Series A, No. 53). Research facility of the Evangelical Study Community, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88257-058-8 .
• Renate Wind : Falling in the spokes of the wheel. The life story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1990, ISBN 3-407-80694-9 . New edition 2001, ISBN 3-407-80733-3 (book for young people).

Individual biographical topics

• Ruth-Alice von Bismarck, Ulrich Kabitz (ed.): Bridal letters, cell 92: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Maria von Wedemeyer 1943–1945. 5th edition. C. H. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-42112-1 .
• Wolfgang Böllmann: "If I had met you ..." Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jochen Klepper in conversation. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-374-02259-6 .
• Sabine Dramm: V-Mann of God and the defense? Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the resistance. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 3-579-07117-3 .
• Elke Endrass: Bonhoeffer and his judges. A process and its aftermath. Kreuz, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-7831-2745-9 .
• Christian Feldmann: We should have screamed. The life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Herder, Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-451-05165-6 .
• Christian Gremmels, Hans Pfeifer: Theology and Biography. For example Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Chr. Kaiser, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-459-01478-4 .
• Sabine Leibholz-Bonhoeffer: Past - experienced - overcome. Fate of the Bonhoeffer family. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1983, ISBN 3-579-03961-X .
• Karl Martin (Ed.): Bonhoeffer in Finkenwalde. Letters, sermons, texts from the church struggle against the Nazi regime 1935–1942. Fenestra-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-9813498-8-7 .
• Katharina D. Oppel : "We only learn our history from the Holy Scriptures". Bible and biography with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Grünewald Verlag, Ostfildern 2017, ISBN 978-3-7867-3103-0 .
• Katharina D. Oppel: I would much rather go to Gandhi right away. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Mahatma Gandhi . Two voices for peace. Patmos, Ostfildern 2017, ISBN 978-3-8436-1005-6 .
• Julius Rieger: Bonhoeffer in England. Lettner, Berlin 1966, DNB 457942738 .
• Hans Jürgen Schultz : “I tried to love.” Portraits. From people who thought peace and made peace: Martin Luther King , Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Schneider , Albert Schweitzer . Quell, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-7918-2020-6 (first edition Partisans of Humanity ).
• Elisabeth Sifton, Fritz Stern: No Ordinary Men, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi in the resistance against Hitler. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65373-5 .
• Renate Wind: Who still has a real longing today? Maria von Wedemeyer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 3-579-07124-6 .
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo book . Pictures of a life. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 3-579-07113-0 .

theology

• Albert Altenähr : Dietrich Bonhoeffer, teacher of prayer. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1976, ISBN 3-429-00443-8 .
• Sabine Bobert -Stützel: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pastoral theology. Theological training in the resistance to the “Third Reich”. Represented on the basis of the Finkenwalder lectures 1935–1937. Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1995, ISBN 3-579-02069-2 . At the same time: Dissertation at the Humboldt University Berlin, 1994 (online: pp.  1–27 , 28–91 , 92–115 , 116–207 , 208–321 , 322–384 ).
• Gottfried Class: The Desperate Access to Life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's understanding of sin in "Creation and Fall". Neukirchener Verlagsgesellschaft, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1994, ISBN 3-7887-1462-X .
• Gerhard Ebeling : The non-religious interpretation of biblical terms. In: Gerhard Ebeling: Word and Faith , Vol. 1. Mohr, Tübingen 1960, DNB 456502181 , pp. 90-160.
• Hans Friedrich Daub : The representation of Jesus Christ. One aspect of the God-human relationship with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8463-5 .
• Sabine Dramm : Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking. Christian Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, ISBN 3-579-05183-0 .
• Ernst Feil : The theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Hermeneutics, Christology, understanding of the world. Christian Kaiser, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-459-01891-7 .
• Georg Huntemann : The other Bonhoeffer. The challenge of modernism. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1989, ISBN 3-417-12570-7 .
• Carl-Jürgen Kaltenborn : Adolf von Harnack as a teacher of Dietrich Bonhoeffers. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1973, DNB 740115596 .
• Rainer Mayer : Christ Reality. Basics, development and consequences of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology. Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-7668-0144-9 .
• Rainer Mayer, Peter Zimmerling (eds.): Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Pray and do what is just. Faith and responsibility in resistance. Brunnen, Giessen 1997, ISBN 3-7655-1107-2 .
• Rainer Mayer, Peter Zimmerling (eds.): Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Person behind walls. Theology and Spirituality in the Prison Years. Brunnen, Giessen 1993, ISBN 3-7655-1021-1 .
• Jörg Martin Meier : Worldliness and arcane discipline with Dietrich Bonhoeffer (=  theological existence today. New series no. 136) Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1966, DNB 457552905 .
• Gerhard Ludwig Müller : Bonhoeffers theology of the sacraments. Knecht, Frankfurt / Main 1979, ISBN 3-7820-0439-6 .
• Hanfried Müller : From the Church to the World. A contribution to the relationship of the Word of God to the “societas” in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological development. 2nd Edition. Koehler and Amelang, Leipzig 1966, DNB 457646861 ; Reich, Hamburg-Bergstedt 1961, DNB 453484719 .
• Andreas Pangritz : Polyphony of Life. On Dietrich Bonhoeffer's “Theology of Music” . 2., revised. Edition. Orient and Occident, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-9806216-2-5 .
• Tiemo R. Peters : The presence of the political in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Christian Kaiser, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-459-01056-8 .
• Albrecht Schönherr , Wolf Krötke (ed.): Bonhoeffer studies. Contributions to the theology and the history of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's impact. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1985, DNB 850989795 ; Kaiser, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-459-01609-4 .
• Tobias Schulte: Without God with God - Hermeneutics of Faith with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Pustet Verlag, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7917-2569-7 .
• Christoph Strohm : Theological ethics in the fight against National Socialism: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's path with the lawyers Hans von Dohnanyi and Gerhard Leibholz in the resistance. In: Heidelberg Studies on Resistance, Persecution of the Jews and Church Struggle in the Third Reich , Volume 1. Chr. Kaiser, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-459-01791-0 . At the same time: Dissertation at the University of Heidelberg, 1987.
• Jürgen Weissbach : Christology and ethics with Dietrich Bonhoeffer (=  Theological existence today. New series No. 131). Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1966, DNB 458601780 .
• Peter Zimmerling: Bonhoeffer as a practical theologian. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-55451-7 .
• Peter Zimmerling: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945): Mystical dimensions of biography and theology . In: ders .: Evangelical mysticism . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-57041-8 , pp. 170-187.

Yearbook

A Dietrich Bonhoeffer Yearbook / Dietrich Bonhoeffer Yearbook has been published every two years since 2003 . Clifford J. Green (Boston), Kirsten Busch Nielsen (Copenhagen) and Christiane Tietz (Zurich) are currently responsible . The yearbook links international Bonhoeffer research and bundles the latest work on the work and the history of its impact. With the publication of new text finds, the yearbook particularly refers to the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke (DBW). An international Bonhoeffer bibliography can be found in each volume. DNB 024737003

Other media

Audio books

• 2009: Falling in the spokes of the wheel. The life story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gütersloher publishing house , read by Matthias Ponnier.
• 2010: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Your light shines in the night. Hänssler publishing house .

Settings and music concepts (selection)

• Siegfried Fietz : Wonderfully secure from good powers (1977), From good powers 2 - Succession (1988), From good powers 3 - Stormy times (1995).
• Peter Janssens : Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a life in the resistance (1995), musical
• Jochen Rieger : Musical encounters with Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2006).

Memorial plaque by Johannes Grützke at the St. Matthew Church (Berlin-Tiergarten)

Movies

• Love is as strong as death, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's world. Director: Gerold Hofmann. Documentary, 30 minutes. 2006.
• Whoever thinks will not flee ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945. Direction: Hellmut Sitó Schlingensiepen and christian.bimm.coers, documentary, 23 minutes. 2005
• Bonhoeffer. Director: Martin Doblmeier. Documentary, English, 93 minutes. 2003.
• Bonhoeffer - The last stage . Director: Eric Till . 2000. VHS, ISBN 3-579-07112-2 ; DVD, ISBN 3-579-07111-4 ; Original: Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace , 88 minutes.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Succession and Cross, Resistance and Gallows. Documentary. 1982.

photos

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer on his 100th birthday - autographs and photographs from the estate in the Berlin State Library

Web links

Commons : Dietrich Bonhoeffer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Dietrich Bonhoeffer  - Quotes

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer Portal of the International Bonhoeffer Society (ibg), German-speaking section, e. V.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, English website of the International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section
• Literature by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer  in the German Digital Library
• Online literature on Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
• Till Becker: Biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffers (with references to the estate). Berlin State Library

Commemoration

• EKD: Falling in the spokes of the wheel . Texts and lectures on the 100th birthday of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Memorial and meeting place Bonhoeffer House Berlin
• International Bonhoeffer Society
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer Association for the Promotion of Christian Responsibility in Church and Society, Wiesbaden

theology

• Renate Bethge: Bonhoeffer's family and their significance for his theology. Lecture at the German Resistance Memorial Center in November 1985 (with an overview of the children and grandchildren of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer; PDF file; 4.3 MB).
• Karl Martin: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's turn from theologian to Christian. Biographical background for Bonhoeffer's ecumenical peace ethics and theology. Lecture at the annual conference of the dbv on May 8, 2004 in Eisenach / Thuringia.

resistance

• Peter Steinbach : Bonhoeffer and the German resistance. In: Grandstand , January 13, 2013 (pdf; 104 kB)
• Paul Gerhard Schoenborn : Dietrich Bonhoeffer's resistance to the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich. ( Memento of January 3, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) 1999; revised version 2006
• Wolf Krötke : Pacifism and resistance with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. On the peace speech at the Fanø Conference 1934 ( Memento from January 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Theodor Ebert : Nonviolent Resistance - Is Nonviolent Action Also Suitable for Resisting Dictatorships? An investigation into the Bonhoeffer case

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pictures from his life , Christian Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-459-01613-2 , p. 181.
2. ↑ Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A biography. Munich 1978, p. 51.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Jean-Loup Seban: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Vol. 1, London / New York 1998.
4. ↑ DBW 10, p. 192.
5. ↑ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted from Heinrich Jürgenbehring: Christ for us today - Dietrich Bonhoeffer read, interpret, think further. Karin Fischer Verlag, Aachen 2009, p. 160.
6. ↑ Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A biography. Munich 1978, p. 282f.
7. ↑ Renate Bethge, Christian Gremmels (ed.): Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Pictures of his life , Gütersloh 2005 ( online at dietrich-bonhoeffer.net ).
8. ↑ Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A biography. Munich 1978, p. 305.
9. ↑ DBW 12, p. 257ff.
10. ↑ Sermon on Col 3,1–4  LUT on June 19, 1932 in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, DBW 11, p. 446.
11. ↑ ^{a b} DBW 12, p. 354.
12. ↑ DBW 12, p. 353.
13. ↑ DBW 13, p. 33.
14. ↑ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Works , Vol. 15: Illegale theologenausbildung. Collective Vicariates 1937–1940 . Edited by Dirk Schulz. Kaiser, Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-01885-X , p. 5.
15. ^ After ten years, in: Resistance and Surrender. Full text
16. ↑ DBW 8 (WE), pp. 33–34.
17. ↑ DBW 8 (WE), p. 30f.
18. ↑ DBW 16, p. 433ff.
19. ↑ The property on today's Niederkirchnerstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg has been part of the Topography of Terror memorial since 2004 .
20. ^ Ingo Müller: The decline of the criminal justice system in the Third Reich. In: Heribert Ostendorf, Uwe Danker (ed.): The Nazi criminal justice and its aftermath. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2003, ISBN 3-8329-0136-1 , p. 20.
21. ^ Payne Best: The Venlo Incident : A True Story of Double-Dealing, Captivity, and a Murderous Nazi Plot. 1950; Reprint: Skyhorse Publishing, London 2010, ISBN 1-60239-946-8 , pp. 171ff.
22. ↑ DBW 16, p. 468; Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A biography. Munich 1978, p. 1037, footnote 54; on wording and translation Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking. Gütersloh 2001, p. 264.
23. ↑ H. Fischer-Hüllstrung: Report from Flossenbürg. Quoted in: Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann: Encounters with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Christian Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1964, p. 192.
24. ↑ Ferdinand Schlingensiepen: Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945. A biography . C. H. Beck, Munich 2005.
25. ^ Heinrich W. Grosse: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his prosecutor Manfred Roeder and the Lüneburg post-war justice system. In: Yearbook of the Society for Church History of Lower Saxony , Volume 93, 1995, pp. 243–244; same: Prosecutor of resistance fighters and apologist for the Nazi regime after 1945 - Judge-Martial Manfred Roeder. (PDF; 133 kB) In: Kritische Justiz 38 (2005), pp. 36–55.
26. ↑ Planet Knowledge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Camouflaged courier of resistance.
27. ^ Judgment of the BGH of June 19, 1956 on opiniojuris.de, accessed on September 17, 2013.
28. ↑ From a Marxist point of view, the Greifswald religious philosopher Gerhard Winter provides information on this in his habilitation thesis Die Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffer - its reception and role in the process of Christians turning to socialism in the GDR , Dissertation B to obtain the academic degree of Doctor of Science (doctor scientiae philosophiae) . Presented to the Senate of the Scientific Council of the University of Education " Liselotte Herrmann " Güstrow by Dr. phil. Gerhard Winter, Greifswald, May 1981. The 15 theses of this dissertation B are available at (online at pkgodzik.de) (PDF; 101 kB).
29. ↑ Sabine Dramm, 2001, p. 63.
30. ↑ DBW 10, p. 315.
31. ↑ DBW 10, p. 320.
32. ↑ DBW 12, p. 295.
33. ↑ DBW 12, pp. 282, 285.
34. ↑ DBW 12, p. 294.
35. ↑ Sabine Dramm, 2001, pp. 63–65.
36. ↑ DBW 15, p. 113.
37. ↑ DBW 6 (E), p. 53.
38. ↑ DBW 16 (conspiracy and detention 1940–1945), p. 521f.
39. ↑ Martin Luther: From secular authorities, how far one owes their obedience. (1523) In: Kurt Aland (Ed.): Luther deutsch. The works of Martin Luther in a new selection for the present , Volume 7. Göttingen 1991 ⁴ ; P. 35.
    Christian Gremmels, Heinrich W. Grosse: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The way to the resistance. 2004 ² , pp. 68-70.
40. ↑ DBW 6 (E), p. 52.
41. ↑ DBW 4 (successor), p. 100.
42. ↑ DBW 2 (AS), p. 85.
43. ↑ DBW 8 (WE), p. 560.
44. ↑ DBW 8 (WE), p. 435.
45. ↑ DBW 11, p. 332.
46. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking. Gütersloh 2001, p. 104f.
47. ↑ DBW 4, p. 36.
48. ^ Lecture Basic Questions of a Christian Ethics , Barcelona, ​​February 8, 1929, DBW 10, p. 337.
49. ^ Karl Martin: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's turn from theologian to Christian. Biographical background for Bonhoeffer's ecumenical peace ethics and theology. ( Memento of July 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Lecture at the annual meeting of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Association, Eisenach, May 8, 2004, main part 1.1.
50. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking. Gütersloh 2001, p. 164ff.
51. ^ Karl Martin: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's turn from theologian to Christian. ( Memento of July 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Eisenach, May 8, 2004, main part 1.3.
52. ↑ DBW 11, p. 337.
53. ↑ DBW 11, pp. 339, 341.
54. ↑ DBW 11, p. 341.
55. ↑ DBW 11, p. 339.
56. ↑ DBW 13, p. 296, cf. DBW 13, p. 296.
57. ^ ^{A b} Karl Martin: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's turn from theologian to Christian. ( Memento of July 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Eisenach, May 8, 2004, main part 1.4.
58. ↑ DBW 13, p. 300. See also DBW 13, p. 296 f.
59. ↑ DBW 13, p. 301.
60. ↑ DBW 6 (E), pp. 126-132.
61. ↑ DBW 8 (WE), pp. 570f. Full text in Helmut Schlier: Spirituality - learn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Johannes Ehmann (ed.): Practical Theology and Regional Church History: Thanks to Walther Eisinger. Münster 2008, p. 61f.
62. ↑ Wolfgang Huber : Dietrich Bonhoeffer - an evangelical saint. Opening lecture at the International Bonhoeffer Congress in Breslau, February 3, 2006. Reference to stations on the way to freedom with Helmut Schlier: Spirituality - learn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Johannes Ehmann (ed.): Practical Theology and Regional Church History: Thanks to Walther Eisinger. Münster 2008, p. 61f.
63. ↑ ^{a b} Resistance and Surrender , p. 402.
64. ↑ Holger Roggelin , Andreas Pangritz: Who sings Gregorian? Thesis and comment. In: Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Jahrbuch  2 (2005/2006), ISBN 3-579-01892-2 , pp. 196-209.
65. ^ Bridal letters, cell 92: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maria von Wedemeyer 1943–1945. P. 208 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
66. ^ Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics , Volume I / 2, § 17.
67. ^ Letter to Eberhard Bethge dated April 30, 1944; in: Resistance and Surrender. 10th edition. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1978, p. 135.
68. ↑ DBW 11, p. 441.
69. ↑ DBW 8, p. 515.
70. ↑ Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A biography. 8th edition, 1994, p. 1042.
71. ^ ^{A b c} Paul Gerhard Schoenborn : Bonhoeffer and the liberation theology of Latin America. In: ders .: Alphabets of Succession. Martyr of the political Christ. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1996, ISBN 3-87294-737-0 , pp. 104-116.
72. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking. Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, p. 178f.
73. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking. Gütersloh 2001, pp. 165, 169.
74. ^ Joachim Schäfer: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints . June 3, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017 . 
75. ^ Andreas Hartong: Ecumenism of Martyrs - Witnesses of Faith from the German Martyrology of the 20th Century. (pdf, 527 kB) Archdiocese of Cologne, March 2, 2016, accessed on November 22, 2018 . 
76. ↑ https://www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenburg-wilmersdorf/ueber-den- Bezirk/freiflaechen/strassen/ artikel.162391.php
77. ↑ Bonhoefferplatz
78. ^ Bahn baptizes new trains: An ICE4 named Einstein. In: Spiegel Online . October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017 . 
79. ↑ Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial Remembers Bonhoeffer. In: Welt Online . April 11, 2019, accessed April 12, 2019 . 
80. ↑ Review by Claudia Keller in the Tagesspiegel from June 23, 2015 [1]
81. ↑ Information at www.bonhoeffer-film.de
82. ↑ Bonhoeffer's path into the opposition was not a matter of course and was not straightforward. Steinbach traces this path and sees the starting point of Bonhoeffer's conscious decision to fight for conscience in “his own, very personal and deeply human failure”.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 6, 2006 .