"Bonheoffer"

I am a person of faith.  My faith got me through a bad childhood, and has been instrumental in helping me persevere at other difficult times. The faith I am talking about isn't about religion. The faith I refer to is what you've staked your life on, what you believe in.  

I staked my life on three major things: that I could raise my son well; that I could be a good teacher and that I could help other people.  Sometimes things weren't going well but I kept my faith in what I was trying to do.  Many people don’t choose what they will stake their lives on what they will have faith in. It could be circumstances, other people, fear, or just a lack of focus that keeps a person from knowing what they want to do in life. If you are older like me you probably can look back and see where you placed your faith, what you staked your life on. If you are younger, perhaps you are just now deciding where you will place your faith.

My level of faith pales in comparison to the faith of Dietrich Bonheoffer. Who you ask? 

 I once was researching the Catholic Church and Nazi Germany. One of the articles I found mentioned a German theologian: Dietrich Bonheoffer.  He was a Lutheran pastor that that challenged the Nazi’s right from the beginning. I thought that was an awful risky thing to do; so I began to find out about him. His story defines what it means to live your life according to what you believe and how faith helps see you through.  

Bonheoffer (pronounced “bonoffer” (one word) was born in 1906 in Germany. His father Karl was a well-known psychiatrist and the family believed he would become a psychiatrist too but instead at age of 12 he  announced that he wanted to become a theologian and minister. At age 18 he graduated from the University of Berlin (1924) and at age 21 he completed his PhD. His dissertation was on the faith of the Saints. Since at age 21, he wasn't old enough to be ordained, he went to New York City. He had been invited to come over to preach and study by the famous Union Theological Seminary. Union Theological is located in Harlem, New York. While there he attended and taught Sunday School at the mostly all black Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. It was while he was here that he came to his first epiphany.

 He concluded that the churches in the black community were not helping their own poor. In fact he thought that many of them (though well intention-ed) were teaching the downtrodden to accept their miserable lot in life. You know, suffer on earth now but reap rewards in heaven later. He also realized his own Lutheran church in Germany was essentially doing the same thing. He came to believe that being a Christian meant that one should be active in helping the people that suffer most. Churches and church clergy needed to get out of the exclusive world of the theoretical, the intellectual. Essentially he believed the clergy needed to use their faith to change lives not just talk about change. From that point forward he was dedicated to pushing the German Lutheran Church to be more active in bringing about changes for the suffering. 

Before heading back home he visited other churches in other countries.  He came to his second belief. He concluded that helping people was not the job of any one church or faith but all churches and faiths. He embraced the ecumenical doctrine of all churches and faiths joining together to end human suffering.  He was asked to be one of the founders of the World Council of Churches.

When he got back to Germany, he began preaching at a Lutheran Church and lecturing at the University of Berlin.  He continued to preach, teach, and write from 1923-1933.  The lives of all Germans, including Bonhoeffer's) changed radically when Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. Bonheoffer had already been alarmed with Hitler’s militaristic and anti-Semitic rants.  He went on the radio just 2 days after Hitler took power and in his radio address criticized both Hitler and the Nazi’s. He warned Germans to beware of the “der fuhrer”. He told them Hitler was really the “ver fuhrer” a word that meant a mislead er. His was “mysteriously” cut off in the middle of his address. The Nazi’s began to watch him closely.

Bonheoffer did not let up. He continued to criticize and warn in his speeches and sermons. After a while, the Nazi’s denied him access to the radio and soon he was not allowed to give any public speeches outside of his Sunday sermons. Many higher ups in the German Lutheran Church begged him to “lighten” up, to back off his criticisms but he did not. Virtually every other church in Germany one way or another looked the other way regarding Nazi abuses.  The Catholic Church may have been the most egregious example of “getting along” with the Nazi’s (see photo). In fact the Catholic Church signed an accord with Hitler in 1936 that allowed the Catholic Church to stay open both in Germany and the occupied countries as long as the Church expressed no opinions about Nazi decisions and operations. Essentially, the agreement was you stay out of what we do and we’ll leave you to your rituals and robes.  The Catholic Church has always claimed it knew nothing of what was going on. (I ask how is that possible?) Dietrich Bonheoffer made no deals with the Nazi’s.  

Bonheoffer went to England in 1938; partially to escape harassment in Germany but mostly to solicit help for those in Germany being arrested, murdered or deported to “labor camps.  He got sympathetic ears but no offers of help on any meaningful level. Most people had no interest in taking on Herr Hitler. 

He went back to Germany just before Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939. He worked tirelessly to keep his by now all but outlawed church (“Confessional Church”) going but when the war officially started Bonheoffer was once again under duress. This time he was facing conscription into the German Army. The Union Theological Seminary invited him back to NYC. Facing conscription or jail in Germany he made the decision to get out. 

He could have safely ridden out the war in New York BUT he soon regretted his decision to leave his home country. He believed that should be in Germany helping the German people survive what was going on there. He said, "How could I take part in reunifying the Christian Church in Germany after the war was if I had not been there with the people during the dark times"? His faith in what he believed he needed to do took him back home.

 He was not allowed in the city of Berlin at all and was effectively under house arrest.  Not being able to conduct church services he looked in another direction. He joined the Abwehr.  There were two secret organizations in Nazi Germany. The Gestapo was Hitler’s personal secret police. The Abwehr was the Military intelligence gathering branch and Bonheoffer agreed to work for them. Why would he do that? It's because the Abwehr was where officers (like Klaus Von Stauffenberg) were that were trying to assassinate Hitler. The Abwehr came up with a clever plan to protect and use Bonheoffer.  They told the Gestapo that they had recruited Bonheoffer to travel outside the country to do espionage work.  They told the Gestapo that they had appealed to his sense of country and because he was a well-known theologian outside Germany it would work.  The Gestapo knew he did love his country and they knew he would have access to highly placed people so they went along with the idea. Obviously that is not what he was doing. He used the trips to tell other countries about Nazi atrocities and about the Final Solution. Being in Military intelligence he was privy to what the Nazi’s were doing.

The Gestapo hated the Abwehr. They thought they should be doing all the secret work and they thought the officers in the Abwehr too soft for "wet work"! They finally got wind of an Abwehr operation in which 20 Jews were smuggled into Switzerland. Many officers in the Abwehr did risk their lives to disrupt Nazi plans and free Jews. But this time they were caught doing it. The Gestapo raided Abwehr headquarters.  They uncovered some documents that hinted at but didn't state specifically what Bonheoffer was really doing on his trips. Nevertheless he was "detained" Tegel Prison.  They DID NOT uncover any information about the ongoing attempts to assassinate Hitler.

Two guards in particular admired Dietrich Bonheoffer, a soft spoken man of faith and each at separate times offer to help him escape if he would take them with him but he turned down their requests. He believed he needed to help the prisoners keep their faith in their time of troubles.   Finally, when the bomb detonated at the Wolf’s Lair did not kill Hitler, some of the men arrested (during torture) told about how the Abwehr was a base for conspirators. They named names in hopes of being spared but they were not spared.   

Hitler gave the order to kill everyone from the Abwehr whose name had come up in the interrogations.  On April 9, 1945 Bonheoffer and many others were hanged. Germany surrendered May 1^st just 23 days later. One of Bonheoffer’s seminary students was a prisoner at Tegel at that time and he witnessed his execution. By his account, Bonheoffer was composed, and seemed to truly believe God had heard his prayers. His last words were: “This is the end, now my life begins”. He was 39 years old.

Dietrich Bonheoffer redefined the way many Christians view their purpose on this earth. He helped bring Christianity out of the realm of the theoretical.  He believed Christian Churches and clergy must be active in this world, just as Christ was. They must stand up for people. Martin Luther King and Gandhi (to name just two) were big fans of Dietrich Bonheoffer. Needless to say, the Catholic Church was not.  

His religious views aside, what I care most about him was that he lived according to what he staked his life on, his faith.  My faith has never been tested like his was. But that was his time, his place, his life. We can only live the life we are given, in the time and place we are in. What we stake our lives on; where we place our faith defines who we are just as it did him.