Though born in the same city, Breslau (modern Wroclaw, Poland), as my mother-in-law, Dietrich Bonhoeffer made his impact in Germany in the capital, Berlin.
His father was a professor of psychiatry there and Bonhoeffer played with the children of famous faculty from Berlin University. He then entered Berlin University and graduated at 21. Next stop was Barcelona, Spain, for early church work, then to the United States for study at Union Theological Seminary. He was not that impressed with the American education of the time, but experienced our country in a Depression as well as being exposed to African-American church life in Harlem. He then returned to Berlin University to be a lecturer until the rise to dominance by the Nazis. At that point he became a sharp critic of the regime, even speaking out against the persecution of the Jews, stating the church must not simply "bandage the victims under the wheel, but jam the spoke in the wheel itself." He gave an anti-Nazi speech over the radio which was interrupted by government agents. He lost his University position and came under scrutiny.
At this point he emerged as a leader within the Confessing Church, which protested the nazification of the German church leadership. He taught at the alternative Finkenwald seminary. In addition he worked with other anti-Nazis in the German Secret Service (Abwehr). This work gave him contact with persons outside Germany and gave him the opportunity to assist some Jews escape Germany.
He wrote two masterful works:
Life Together and
The Cost of Discipleship, and began what he perceived as his life's work,
Ethics. His participation in anti-Hitler efforts was discovered and he was imprisoned for almost two years. With the failure of the so-called "Valkyrie" assassination plot, Bonhoeffer faced a death sentence. On the Sunday after Easter 1945, roughly a month before the fall of Germany, Bonhoeffer was taken away to be hanged. (This year, his death date, April 9, falls in Lent.)
In Ethics, which was never completed, Bonhoeffer wrote of
"Stations on the Way to Freedom: "
Self-discipline: “None learns the secret of freedom save only by way of control”
Action: “Do and dare what is right. ... Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be. ... Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living.”
Suffering: “you yielded your freedom into the hand of God, that he might perfect it in glory.”
Death: “Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action, suffering. Now as we die we see you and know you at last, face to face.”
These ideas are rather consistent with his life witness for Bonhoeffer's last words on April 8 to his co-captives as he was led away from his final worship service were: "This is the end. For me the beginning of life."
Yet, this is no Christian faith absent from the world, as Bonhoeffer writes: “A Christianity which withdraws from the world falls victim to the unnatural and the irrational, to presumption and self-will.”
At the same time, though we operate in the world of governments and powers, we follow until "until government openly denies its divine commission and thereby forfeits its claim."
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