Last week I found out that February 4th was the 120th anniversary of Bonhoeffer’s birth. It was too late to write about him on that date but I didn’t want the occasion to go by without paying tribute to a Christian leader whose life and death inspired me as a teenager and still inspires me today. We have just had a few weeks of constant reminders in the news about public figures who have let themselves and the organisations they belonged to down, by their immoral and predatory behaviour and I find it helpful to turn to look at those who have “run the race” with integrity and faith as a restorative experience in these challenging times.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany, on February 4th, 1906, to a father who was a great doctor, a psychiatrist, teaching at Berlin University. Dietrich studied at the same university and he became known as an accomplished young theologian. After a brief period as pastor in Barcelona and a year of study in New York he started teaching in Berlin, and continued to do this until forbidden to teach by the National- Socialist authorities in 1936. There had been a break from 1933-35 when he took charge of German congregations in London, where he made a strong protest against the taint of the ” German Christians” in the church in Germany. He wrote tracts against compromise in the church struggle in Germany and his famous book ” The Cost of Discipleship” in 1937. He considered pacifism but came to see it as an illegitimate escape from the escalating situation in Germany.
Whilst on a lecture tour in America in 1939, American friends urged him to remain there, but he resolved to return to Germany, feeling no peace about staying in America, and he took one of the last ships sailing back to Germany before the war. His church work was opposed by the Gestapo at every turn. Forbidden to lecture, to write, to make speeches or remain in Berlin, he was eventually arrested in 1943. For the first 18 months of his imprisonment he was able to write to his parents, and later to friends, using code when dealing with matters to do with the resistance movement. He made good friends among the warders and medical orderlies. In September 1944 he was moved to close confinement, but it had been possible to move much of his earlier correspondence to safety, including prayers, poems and reflections. He had an outstanding mind and sensitive heart, and by July 1944 he became convinced that his end was near.
In February 1945 Dietrich’s family found that he had disappeared. It was not until the summer of 1945, some time after the collapse of Germany, that they learned what had happened to him. Bonhoeffer’s last weeks were spent with prisoners from all over Europe. Payne Best, an English officer, wrote of this time, ” Bonhoeffer was all humility and sweetness, he always seemed to me to diffuse an atmosphere of happiness, of joy in every smallest event in life, and of deep gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive. —He was one of the very few men that I have ever met to whom his God was real and close to him. On Sunday April 8th 1945 Pastor Bonhoeffer held a little service and spoke to us in a manner which reached the hearts of all, finding just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment, and the thoughts and resolutions it had brought. He had hardly finished his last prayer when the door opened and two evil looking men in civilian clothes came in and said, ” Pastor Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us”. Those words ” Come with us” for prisoners had come to mean only one thing – the scaffold. We bade him goodbye. – ” This is the end” he said, ” For me the beginning of life” The next day he was hanged at Flossenburg.
Dear Lord. At a time when racism is on the increase, we thank you for the life and witness of this Godly man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was not willing to compromise on his Christian beliefs at a time of great evil. May we learn from his courage. Amen