Bonhoeffer, Dietrich b. February 4, 1906; Breslau (Silesia), Prussia d.April 9, 1945; Flossenburg, Bavaria
German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was a Sloane Fellow at Union Theological Seminary in New York from 1930 to 1931. Bonhoeffer was at first not impressed with the state of theology at Union, confiding in a letter about the dismal state of theology in U.S.
seminaries. This negative assessment of American theology was soon countered by his admiration for the manner in which some American Christians wrestled with troubling social ills and especially racial prejudice. During his year at Union, he took Reinhold Niebuhr’s course in applied theology and regularly visited black Baptist churches in Harlem, especially Abyssinian Baptist Church, pas- tored by Adam Clayton Powell Sr. Bonho- effer was deeply grieved by the plight of African Americans in the United States, and it is probable that his months visiting Harlem were formative in setting the terms by which he would oppose the Third Reich.In 1931 he returned to Europe, first taking a pastorate and a university lectureship in Berlin (officially revoked in 1936), but also for brief periods serving congregations in and around London and, after 1935, teaching at illegal German seminaries. An increasingly outspoken critic of the Nazis, Bonhoeffer initially joined the ranks of the Confessing Church and was a signer of the Barmen Declaration (1934), which outlined the spiritual mission of the church in contrast to the views of the Nazi- supporting “German Christians.” As his political safety withered in the tense years of late-1930s Germany, Bonhoeffer considered exile and his American friends encouraged it. Yet after traveling to New York in summer 1939 with teaching positions arranged, he changed his mind and returned to Germany with the intention of living through a difficult period of German history with the Christians of Germany. He would famously insist that “Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants!” Upon his return, he became a civilian member of the Abwehr, a secret service of the German Army.
Bonhoeffer conspired with a select group in the Abwehr to remove Adolf Hitler from power. His English and American theological connections made him a valuable asset in the resistance movement. His arrest in 1943 and execution on April 9, 1945, in Flossenburg shortly before the war’s end have earned him a prominent place in most accounts of twentieth-century Christian martyrs. During his visits to the United States and through later correspondence, Bonhoeffer grew close to Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Lehmann, the Swiss theologian Erwin Sutz, the French Reformed pastor and pacifist Jean Lasserre, and the African American student from Alabama, Franklin Fisher. Despite his affinities with American neo-orthodox and liberal theology, Bonhoeffer’s writings have appealed to a wide spectrum of American Christian readers.R. Bryan Bademan
See also Germans Students at American Universities; Harnack, Mildred Fish
References and Further Reading
Bethge, Eberhard. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Rev. and ed. Victoria J. Barnett. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.
Holland, Scott. “First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin: Bonhoeffer’s New York.” Cross Currents (Fall 2000).
Zerner, Ruth. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
American Experiences: People, Letters, and Papers from Union Seminary.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review (Summer 1976).