80: Bonhoeffer

 

80 years ago today (April 9, 1945) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran Pastor and Anti-Nazi Resistance Member, was hanged by the Germans at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp in Germany.

He was 39 years old.

Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1909 in Breslau, Germany (today Wroclaw, Poland.)

He had a Twin Sister, Sabine.

He took Hebrew has an Elective in School.

He studied at both the University of Berlin and Humboldt University (graduating Summa Cum Laude.)

In 1930  Bonhoeffer moved to the United States to with the intent of attending New York City's Union Theological Seminary, but instead  taught Sunday School at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and became aware of the Social Injustices of Black Americans in the US.

He returned to Germany in 1931  where he was a Lecturer in Systematic Theology at the University of Berlin.

At this time he underwent a personal Conversion, as he changed from being a Theologian primarily attracted to the Intellectual Side of Christianity, to being a dedicated man of personal faith, resolved to literally carry out the teachings of Christ, revealed in the Gospels.

Bonhoeffer was ordained a Pastor on November 15, 1931.

In January 1933, two days after Hitler was installed as Chancellor, Bonhoeffer delivered a radio address in which he attacked Hitler and warned Germany against slipping into an idolatrous cult of the Führer (Leader), who could very well turn out to be Verführer (Misleader, Seducer).

In April 1933 Bonhoeffer raised the first Church Resistance to Hitler and the Nazis’ discrimination of the Jews.

In August 1933, Bonhoeffer was deputized by opposition Church Leaders to draft the "Bethel Confession," as a statement of faith in opposition to the Deutsche Christen Movement.

It is notable for affirming God's Fidelity to Jews as His Chosen People, the "Bethel Confession" was eventually so watered down to make it more palatable that ultimately Bonhoeffer refused to sign it.

In September 1933, the Nationalist Church Synod at Wittenberg voluntarily passed a resolution to apply the Aryan Paragraph within the Church, meaning that Pastors and Church Officials of Jewish Descent were to be removed from their posts.

Regarding this as an affront to the principle of Baptism, Martin Niemöller founded the Pfarrernotbund (Pastors' Emergency League). In November, a rally of 20,000 Deutsche Christens demanded the removal of the Jewish Old Testament from the Bible, which was seen by many as heresy, further swelling the ranks of the Pastors Emergency League.

It was the forerunner of the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), which aimed to preserve historical, Biblically based Christian Beliefs and Practices.

Bonhoeffer joined the Confessing Church in opposition to the Nazis.

When Bonhoeffer was offered a Parish Post in eastern Berlin in the autumn of 1933, he refused it in protest at the Nationalist Policy, and he accepted a two-year appointment as a Pastor of two German-speaking Protestant Churches in London: the German Lutheran Church in Dacres Road, Sydenham and the German Reformed Church of St Paul's, Goulston Street, Whitechapel.

In 1935, Bonhoeffer was offered a coveted opportunity to study Non-Violent Resistance under Mahatma Gandhi in his ashram.

However Bonhoeffer decided to return to Germany instead, where he was the head at an Underground Seminary in Finkenwalde for training Confessing Church Pastors.

August 1936, Bonhoeffer's authorization to teach at the University of Berlin was revoked after he was denounced as a "Pacifist and Enemy of the State."

In 1937 the Nazis declared the Confessing Church to be illegal.

Bonhoeffer had just published his best-known Book, The Cost of Discipleship, a study on the Sermon on the Mount in which he attacked "cheap grace" as a cover for ethical laxity against the virtues of "costly grace".

Martin Niemöller was arrested in July 1937 by the Nazis.

Bonhoeffer spent the next two years secretly traveling from one eastern German Village to another to conduct a "Seminary on the run" supervising the continuing education and work of his Students, most of whom were working illegally in small Parishes

In 1938, the Gestapo banned Bonhoeffer from Berlin.

Bonhoeffer's Twin Sister, Sabine, along with her Jewish-classified Husband Gerhard Leibholz and their two Daughters, escaped to England by way of Switzerland in 1938.

In February 1938, Bonhoeffer made an initial contact with Members of the German Resistance when his Brother-in-Law Hans von Dohnányi introduced him to a Group seeking Hitler's overthrow at the Abwehr, the German Military Intelligence Service.

In June 1939 he went back to the United States but returned two weeks later.

Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer was further harassed by the Nazi Authorities as he was forbidden to speak in public and was required regularly to report his activities to the Police.

In 1941, he was forbidden to print or to publish anything.

He then joined the Abwehr to fight the “enemy from the inside.”

It is here that he learned of the Nazis’ Atrocities against the Jews.

Under cover of the Abwehr, Bonhoeffer served as a courier for the German Resistance Movement to reveal its existence and intentions to the Western Allies in hope of garnering their support.

In May 1942 he tried to meet with British Government Officials, but the British Government refused since they believed all Germans to be the enemy.

He also helped German Jews escape the Nazis and flee to Switzerland.

On January 13, 1943 Bonhoeffer had become engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer, the Granddaughter of his close Friend and Finkenwalde Seminary Supporter, Ruth von Kleist Retzow.

On April 5, 1943 Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazis.

For a year and a half, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned at Tegel Prison awaiting trial.

There he continued his work in Religious outreach among his fellow Prisoners and Guards. Sympathetic Guards helped smuggle his letters out of Prison

One of those Guards, a Corporal named Knobloch, even offered to help him escape from the Prison and "disappear" with him, and plans were made for that end; eventually Bonhoeffer declined it, fearing Nazi retribution against his Family, especially his Brother Klaus and Brother-in-Law Dohnányi, who was also imprisoned.

On April 4, 1945, the diaries of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, were discovered, and in a rage upon reading them, Hitler ordered that the other Abwehr Members be executed.

Bonhoeffer was sentenced to death on April 8, 1945 by SS Judge Otto Thorbeck at a drumhead Court-Martial without Witnesses, without any evidence against him, with no records of the proceedings or a Defense.

Bonhoeffer was led away from prison just as he concluded his final Sunday Service and told an English Prisoner, Payne Best: "This is the end—but for me it is the beginning of Life” and sent to the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp.

On April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was stripped of his clothing and led naked into the Execution yard where he was hanged with five others.

His remains were most likely cremated by the Nazis.