Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Matthew Eddy 12th grade

Outline

1. Life
a. Early Childhood
b. Education
c. Later life
2. His contributions
a. Confessing Church
b. The Abwehr
c. His writings
3. Death
a. Arrest
b. Execution
c. His legacy
 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was perhaps the most audacious Christian of the twentieth century. He stood defiant
against Hitler and false teachings in the middle of the world’s vastest conflict ever, World War Two. This was
because he had an ardent fervor for the cause of Christ. He began to serve Christ at the young age of fourteen
when he announced to his family he was going to become a priest.1 By age 21 he had obtained a doctorate in
theology from the University of Berlin. Then to continue his studies he began to travel abroad to widen his
knowledge even more. His travels took him everywhere from visits to Cuba, Mexico, Italy, Libya, Denmark,
and Sweden. And he also lived for a time in Spain, in England, and in the United States.2 This all was to prepare
him for the work he was going to do in Germany. In 1931 he returned to Germany from his travels to find his
home country being torn apart from the inside.3 He knew not what trouble and trials would lay ahead for him,
but he knew one thing. Just like Acts 5:29 says, he knew he must obey God rather than man.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born February 4, 1906 in then Breslau, Germany and now Wroclaw, Poland.4
He was the sixth child of Karl and Julie Bonhoeffer and also has a younger twin sister, Sabin.5 His family would
easily be considered upper class both on his father’s side and his mother’s side. Dietrich’s Mother came from a
line of historians and professors and theologians, and his father came from a line of lawyers and judges and was
a physiatrist.6 His job provided well for his wife and eight children. Two of Dietrich’s older brothers went off to
fight in World War One, but only one brother returned home.7 Walter Bonhoeffer died during the war and it
devastated the whole family. It also had left a lasting mark on Dietrich, and it urged him to choose a different
life path than what all his brothers had done.
Dietrich was homeschooled by his mother at first, but then attended Friedrich Werder School of
grammar.8 He did excellent in school especially in music. He was so masterful at the piano that his family
thought he was a prodigy and would become a famous professional musician.9 However, he shocked his family
when he announced that instead he wanted to become a pastor. Though surprised by this, his parents supported
his decision.10 By age seventeen, he was enrolled in the University of Tubingen, his father’s Alma Mater.11 He
studied abroad while enrolled there. He visited Italy and North Africa, and during both visits he noticed how
much the Catholics and Muslims incorporated their religion into their daily lives compared to “Christians”.12
After spending a year traveling and studying, Dietrich transferred to Berlin University where it became apparent
how brilliant a young man he was. While there he learned of a theory by Karl Barth about how God was not
sitting up in Heaven, far and separated from Creation; but rather that He wanted to be deeply involved in the
everyday lives of people.13 Just like the Catholics and Muslims he saw in Rome and North Africa, this intrigued
Dietrich very much. In 1927 at the age of twenty one, Dietrich graduated with a doctorate in theology summa
cum laude.14
Although done with schooling, Dietrich was not done learning. The next year he went to Spain to be an
assistant pastor of a church. While there he yearned to go visit India and learn about Buddhism from Gandhi.
Even though his grandmother supported him to go to India, he instead returned to Germany. But then he soon

1
www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/dietrich-bonhoeffer.html
2
www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1991/issue32/3202.html
3
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
4
bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/a-short-bio-of-dietrich-bonhoeffer/
5
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1991/issue32/3202.html?start=1
10
bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/a-short-bio-of-dietrich-bonhoeffer/
11
http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
left to go to the United States when in 1930 he was invited to attend the Union Theological Seminary in New
York.15 There he learned from the American culture and the diversity. He saw that even though there was a vast
diversity of the cultures and nationalities represented there, they were still one people, the children of God.16
Once the seminary was over Dietrich had found an opportunity to visit India again. He met the principal of a
college in India and was invited to stay at the college for a while. Dietrich planned to return to Germany, but he
was going to take a longer route across the Pacific and stop in India for a while then return home. However, he
could not afford the trip and headed straight back to Germany.17 This was for the best however because he was
dearly needed in Germany with the turmoil happening in the government at that time.
In his later life, Dietrich Bonhoeffer traveled a bit after his schooling. In his visit to Barcelona, Spain, he
became a fan of the sport bullfighting, despite being a pacifist.18 After a brief visit home, he was traveling again
this time to the United States. While there he helped teach Sunday school at a church in the heart of Harlem.
Also he learned how to drive a car while there, but failed the driver license test three times.19 During these
travels, back home Germany was radically changing in the government. A nationalistic group called the Nazi
Party was gaining power. The war debt after World War one and the recent economic depression left the
German people desperate to recover. It was a perfect combination for a dictatorship to rise to power.
When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1931, he was finally ordained as a minister immediately
began his work to oppose the radicals rising up in the government.20 He spoke out against the Aryan clause
which would prevent Jews from holding office in church or government, but he was outspoken. The struggle
between state controlled church and independent churches had begun. Swastikas were now common to find in
churches. They had become the symbol of hope for the German people, but Bonhoeffer knew better.21 He
argued the only hope people need to trust in is the hope that God gave them through Christ. Still the Nazi Party
grew more prominent. In 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected leader and the Nazi party had taken control of the
government. In the same year, legislation was passed that gave him dictatorship powers. The German church
even submitted to the government and became a State church.22 Bonhoeffer and his fellow supporters knew
something had to be done.
So Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, Karl Barth and others together established the Confessing Church in
23
1933. This church stood in direct opposition to the Reich Church and the government. They fought against the
Arian clause which was in full effect and for the individual freedoms stolen by the government. Unlike the
Reich, the affirmed God as their Supreme authority not the Fuhrer.24 Bonhoeffer left to pastor two churches in
England for a while and soon returned in 1935.25 When he returned though, he found that the Confessing
Church had come under some pressure. This forced him to go underground and begin an illegal seminary to
train pastors for the Confessing Church. After two and a half years though, the Gestapo, the German secret
police, had caught him and forced him to stop the seminary and banned him from speaking publicly. 26
So Bonhoeffer was now without a job in the middle of a great upheaval in Germany with the Nazi Party
growing more audacious every day. The government was heavily oppressing the Confessing Church by

15
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1991/issue32/3202.html?start=1
19
Ibid.
20
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
https://bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/a-short-bio-of-dietrich-bonhoeffer/
24
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
25
https://bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/a-short-bio-of-dietrich-bonhoeffer/
26
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bonhoeffer.html
whatever means possible and had imprisoned over 800 of its members.27 The next year, when Hitler began
annexing Sudetenland and began mobilizing the Germany army for war, Bonhoeffer feared he would be called
for the draft. With the help of Reinhold Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer was able to dodge the draft because he was invited
to lecture in the United States.28 However, Bonhoeffer felt guilty about leaving his fellow Christians behind to
suffer so he soon returned to aid them in their fight.29 When Bonhoeffer arrived back home in 1939, war had
already begun. He had made contacts with officers in the German army who opposed Hitler before his visit to
the United States.30 Now he decided to become a double agent in the German army to aid Jews and others in
whatever way he could. He joined the ranks of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence agency, which had
the highest amount of people opposed to Hitler’s regime.31 As a member of the Abwehr, he made trips to
Switzerland and Norway to negotiate with the Allies for a peaceful treaty after Hitler was removed from power,
but the stubborn Allies pushed for unconditional surrender.32 With no chance for an ante bellum, Bonhoeffer
turned his attention to the underground resistance. The resistance was trying to smuggle out as many Jews as
possible out of Germany before they were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Bonhoeffer helped as much
as he could giving out false papers and IDs to allow the Jews entry into neutral Switzerland were they would be
protected. It was these actions that would eventually lead to his arrest and death.
Bonhoeffer’s time in prison was not wasted though. While at Tegel Military Prison, he wrote the book
33
Ethics. This book was a call to return to Christian ethics like living a life characterized by prayer or living
with our chief desire to please God. In the book, he stresses that man is not allowed to decide what is right and
wrong. Only God is allowed that right.34 Bonhoeffer wrote that "instead of knowing only the God who is good
to him and instead of knowing all things in Him, [man] knows only himself as the origin of good and evil.”35
What Bonhoeffer is addressing here is the problem of evil, and the best way to examine evil is to look at when it
first entered the world. With the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, humanity gained the knowledge of the
existence good and evil, but lacked the knowledge of discerning right and wrong. With that in mind, Bonhoeffer
knew we could never be able to have perfect discernment, so instead he urged the Christian to focus on living in
the will of God instead of trying to figure out what exactly they can and cannot do.36 During World War two,
many ethical and moral questions were being asked in the churches. Why would God allow evil men like Hitler
and Stalin to come to power? Why would He allow millions of people to die by those men’s hands? What about
Christian soldiers fighting on both sides of the war? Bonhoeffer simply did not have an answer. He instead told
others to look to Christ for the hope that He can give the right answers.
Another one of most important works that Bonhoeffer wrote was his Letters and Papers from Prison.
Obviously from the title one can figure out he wrote these correspondences while he was in prison. These letters
complied into one book are considered to be Bonhoeffers finest, most mature work he wrote.37 The introductory
essay “After Ten Years” reveals some of the true horrors of the war and show how evil and corrupt mankind
could be.38 Contemporaries of Bonhoeffer like Ernest Hemingway, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus wrote
about the war with a tone of despondence, yet still Bonhoeffer had a certain optimism about the tragedies

27
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
28
www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bonhoeffer.html
29
www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/dietrich-bonhoeffer.html
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
33
http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/dietrich-bonhoeffer.html
34
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bonhoeffer.html
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.
unfolding around him.39 The differences in the conclusions of the men can be attributed to the worldview which
they had. Bonhoeffer had Christ and therefore something to hope for. While the other men hoped for the end of
the world to come swiftly to end the suffering. In Bonhoeffers life he had been well acquainted with the idea of
death. This allowed him to gain a certain appreciation for the gift of life from God.40 Maybe that is why he
found it so easy to willingly give up his life for Christ.
Bonhoeffer’s most famous work, The Cost of Discipleship, was written earlier in his life. It was first
published in 1939. The main theme of this work was the difference between cheap grace and costly grace. Here
is what Bonhoeffer defined cheap grace as: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting
today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks wares. The sacraments, the
forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the
Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking
questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the
account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing”41 This idea
of cheap grace is basically summed up as asking for forgiveness but without repentance. But those two ideas are
inseparable; you cannot have one without the other. An example of this cheap grace would be like someone
who commits a sin just because they know they can ask for forgiveness later. Still even today, this idea of cheap
grace is deeply rooted in some churches. So we are still facing the troubles that Bonhoeffer was trying to deal
with in his time.
When Bonhoeffer worked in the Abwehr, he aided many Jews in escaping to neutral Switzerland. He
used money to buy fake IDs for the Jews so they could pass through borders. Eventually the Gestapo discovered
documents which linked the escaped Jews back to Bonhoeffer. He was then promptly arrested on April 5, 1943,
and sent to the Tegel Military Prison for conspiracy.42 His case worsened in September 1944 when more
evidence was found incriminating him. This ultimately sealed his fate to be executed. From Tegel he was
transferred to the Gestapos high security prison on Prinz-Albrecht Strause.43 From there he was sent to the
Buchenwald concentration camp and finally Flossenburg concentration camp where he would finally be
executed.44
While imprisoned, Bonhoeffer had a profound effect on everyone he encountered. Many prisoners and
guards would try to find time to talk with him to just get and encouraging word. One of his fellow inmates,
Payne Best, described his as “different, just quite calm and normal, seemingly perfectly at his ease… his soul
really shone in the dark desperation of our prison. He was one of the very few men I have ever met to whom
God was real and ever close to him.”45 Just like Paul and Silas when they were imprisoned, Bonhoeffer used
this experience to bring more glory to God. Even when given a chance to escape with one of the guards, he
instead chose to stay in prison so that he could keep his family safe.46 Finally on April, 9th 1945, at the age of
thirty nine, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging. At the time he was engaged to Maria von Wedemeycr and
was planning to marry her immediately if he was eventually released.47 Unfortunately three weeks after his

39
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bonhoeffer.html
40
Ibid.
41
http://www.crossroad.to/Persecution/Bonhoffer.html
42
http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/kidshurt2much/bkp051702/Mincava/Book1/Dietrich.asp
43
Ibid.
44
http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/dietrich-bonhoeffer.html
45
http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/dietrich-bonhoeffer.html
46
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1991/issue32/3202.html?start=2
47
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/februaryweb-only/33.0a.html
execution, the city where he was executed was liberated.48 Also executed was his brother Klaus and two of his
brothers-in-law for their involvement in the same conspiracy as Bonhoeffer.49
Seventy years after his death, Bonhoeffers has left an impressive legacy behind him. Still today many
people debate over his ideas and philosophy. However there is still a clearly seen theme in his theology. He
stresses that we are still responsible to implement the ideals of the Gospel in everyday life. And also he
emphasizes the importance of Jesus Christ in the Gospel and that we need to strive to be perfect like He was.
Bonhoeffer had to be thinking of Matthew 5:48 when he said that since it says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Some people claim he was a mystic.50 But he wasn’t like the modern
mystics of today who just feel like what they do is right. Bonhoeffer was clearly a man who shared a deep
intimate relationship with God, but he also was a good student of the Bible. Consider the circumstances in
which he lived and wrote in and it makes him seem even more impressive. Some of the hard questions he faced
in his time like “it is possible for plain and simple men to prosper again after the war?” or “Was it ethical to try
to kill Hitler?” or “Is anyone really fighting for what’s right?” had to have kept him up at night sometimes.51 He
certainly could not have endured the burdens and trials throughout his life if he was not as close to God and
grounded in his faith as he was.
Conclusion

So now hopefully one can see how Dietrich Bonhoeffer was perhaps the most audacious Christian of the
twentieth century. The bravery he had to oppose Hitler’s regime and the fervor he had to learn and love Christ
more should inspire Christians all across the world. He truly lived out his idea of costly grace. With how Christ
lived and died for us, it is only logical for Christians to be willing to do the same for Him. As Bonhoeffer
describes it, “[Costly grace] is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which
causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him."52
Bonhoeffer realized that life was only worth living for the will of God and nothing else. Though he was not
perfect and made mistakes, still he is amazing role model for Christians to learn from today.

48
http://bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/a-short-bio-of-dietrich-bonhoeffer/
49
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1991/issue32/3202.html?start=2
50
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bonhoeffer.html
51
Ibid.
52
http://www.crossroad.to/Persecution/Bonhoffer.html