#dietrich bonhoeffer

[odinsblog]

In the darkest chapter of German history, during a time when incited mobs threw stones into the windows of innocent shop owners and women and children were cruelly humiliated in the open; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young pastor, began to speak publicly against the atrocities.

After years of trying to change people’s minds, Bonhoeffer came home one evening and his own father had to tell him that two men were waiting in his room to take him away.

In prison, Bonhoeffer began to reflect on how his country of poets and thinkers had turned into a collective of cowards, crooks and criminals. Eventually he concluded that the root of the problem was not malice, but stupidity.

In his famous letters from prison, Bonhoeffer argued that stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice, because while “one may protest against evil; it can be exposed and prevented by the use of force, against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here. Reasons fall on deaf ears.”

Facts that contradict a stupid person’s prejudgment simply need not be believed and when they are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this, the stupid person is self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature.

This much is certain, stupidity is in essence not an intellectual defect but a moral one. There are human beings who are remarkably agile intellectually yet stupid, and others who are intellectually dull yet anything but stupid.

The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or rather, they allow this to happen to them.

People who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals in groups. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.

It becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power, be it of a political or religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. Almost as if this is a sociological-psychological law where the power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.

The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, such as intellect, suddenly fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up an autonomous position.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us from the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.

He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and is abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil – incapable of seeing that it is evil.

Only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then, we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person.

Bonhoeffer died due to his involvement in a plot against Adolf Hitler, at dawn on 9 April 1945 at Flossenbürg concentration camp - just two weeks before soldiers from the United States liberated the camp.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity

[the-mercy-workers]

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community"

[segretecose]

We have to consider that most people learn wisdom only through personal experiences. This explains, first, the astonishing inability of most people to take any kind of preventive action—one always believes that he can evade the danger, until it is too late. Second, it explains people’s dull sensitivity toward the suffering of others; sympathy grows in proportion to the increasing fear of the threatening proximity of disaster. There is some justification in ethics for such an attitude: one does not want to interfere with fate; inner calling and the power to act are given only when things have become serious. No one is responsible for all of the world’s injustice and suffering, nor does one want to establish oneself as the judge of the world. And there is some justification also in psychology: the lack of imagination, sensitivity, and inner alertness is balanced by strong composure, unperturbed energy for work, and great capacity for suffering. From a Christian perspective, none of these justifications can blind us to the fact that what is decisively lacking here is a greatness of heart. Christ withdrew from suffering until his hour had come; then he walked toward it in freedom, took hold, and overcame it. Christ, so the Scripture tells us, experienced in his own body the whole suffering of all humanity as his own—an incomprehensibly lofty thought!—taking it upon himself in freedom. Certainly, we are not Christ, nor are we called to redeem the world through our own deed and our own suffering; we are not to burden ourselves with impossible things and torture ourselves with not being able to bear them. We are not lords but instruments in the hands of the Lord of history; we can truly share only in a limited measure in the suffering of others. We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians it means that we are to take part in Christ’s greatness of heart, in the responsible action that in freedom lays hold of the hour and faces the danger, and in the true sympathy that springs forth not from fear but from Christ’s freeing and redeeming love for all who suffer. Inactive waiting and dully looking on are not Christian responses. Christians are called to action and sympathy not through their own firsthand experiences but by the immediate experience of their brothers, for whose sake Christ suffered.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945), Are We Still of Any Use?, from: Letters and Papers from Prison; An Account at the Turn of the Year 1942-1943

[apilgrimsprogress]

Morning Prayer For Fellow-Prisoners

O God, early in the morning I cry to you. Help me to pray And to concentrate my thoughts on you; I can’t do this alone.

In me there’s darkness, But with you there’s light; I’m lonely, but you don’t leave me;

I’m feeble in heart, but with you there’s help; I’m restless, but with you there’s peace. In me there’s bitterness, but with you there’s patience; I don’t understand your ways, But you know the way for me.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[raluschka]

[greater-than-the-sword]

Plus there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Dietrich Bonhoeffer ever left the camp; let alone

Escaping from a cell after it was bombed by the allies; or getting driven around the countryside before dying at an old church. It seems like all that was made up.

Rather, despite his death being only 3 weeks before the end of the war (and all that stuff about prisoners being moved out of the camps is based in real stories) nonetheless it seems more likely he and his co-conspirators were executed at the camp especially considering his death was PERSONALLY ordered by Hitler himself, which I think the movie could have made more of.

Also, seeing as how the only actual eyewitness account of his death was given by his executioner; and that guy claimed it was a swift and easy death... while being famous for torturing people to death at Hitler's request, let's just say the movie portrayal was... optimistic.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[ragazzoarcano]

“Bisogna trovare, in mezzo ai piccoli pensieri che ci danno fastidio, la strada dei grandi pensieri che ci danno forza.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[roseserpentpress]

Another Bonhoeffer book, for my father for father days, which I finished were last summer but neglected to post until now, whoops. The typesetting was based off the version found in the Internet Archives, and the cover design based off of one of the early editions, except I made the green a lot darker and the lettering gold so in all... Not that similar to that edition ahaha. This shade of green seems to dislike being photographed, but I've done my best to represent it. It's certainly been interesting to use cloth instead of paper, which I'm more used to using, and in the process of typesetting I learned how to use drop caps which I am now very keen on, as well as page footnotes. The end papers are also a homage to the other Bonhoeffer book I've bound for my father, which has the same end papers.

[hicapacity]

A német történelem legsötétebb fejezetében, amikor a felbujtott csőcselék köveket dobált az ártatlan üzlettulajdonosok ablakaiba, nőket és gyerekeket nyíltan aláztak meg kegyetlenül; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, egy fiatal lelkész nyilvánosan felszólalt az atrocitások ellen.

Miután éveken át próbálta megváltoztatni az emberek véleményét, egy este mikor Bonhoeffer hazatért, saját apjának kellett elmondania neki, hogy két férfi várja a szobájában, hogy elvigyék.

A börtönben Bonhoeffer azon kezdett el elmélkedni, hogyan vált a költők és gondolkodók országa gyávák, szélhámosok és bűnözők kollektívájává. Végül arra a következtetésre jutott, hogy a probléma gyökere nem a rosszindulat, hanem az ostobaság.

Bonhoeffer a börtönből írt híres leveleiben azzal érvelt, hogy az ostobaság veszélyesebb ellensége a jónak, mint a rosszindulat, mert míg „tiltakozni lehet a rossz ellen; erőszakkal leleplezhető és megelőzhető, a hülyeséggel szemben védtelenek vagyunk. Sem a tiltakozás, sem az erőszak alkalmazása nem ér semmit. Az érvek süket fülekre találnak.”

Azokat a tényeket, amelyek ellentmondanak egy hülye ember előítéletének, egyszerűen nem hiszi el, és ha megcáfolhatatlanok, akkor lényegtelenként, mellékesként félre teszi őket. A hülye ember önelégült, és könnyen ingerülten támadásba lendülve veszélyessé válik.

Emiatt nagyobb elővigyázatosság szükséges, ha egy ostoba emberrel bánunk, mint amikor egy rosszindulatúval. Ha tudni akarjuk, hogyan lehet felülkerekedni a butaságon, törekednünk kell annak természetének megértésére.

Annyi bizonyos, hogy a hülyeség lényegében nem intellektuális, hanem erkölcsi hiba. Vannak emberek, akik feltűnően mozgékonyak intellektuálisan, de ostobák, és vannak olyanok, akik intellektuálisan unalmasak, de nem hülyék.

Nem annyira az a benyomás alakul ki az emberben, hogy a hülyeség veleszületett hiba, hanem az, hogy bizonyos körülmények között az embereket hülyévé teszik, vagy inkább megengedik, hogy ez megtörténjen.

A magányosan élőknél ez a hiba ritkábban jelentkezik, mint a csoportokban előknél. Ezért úgy tűnik, hogy a hülyeség kevésbé pszichológiai, mint szociológiai probléma.

Nyilvánvalóvá válik, hogy a hatalom minden erős felfutása, legyen az politikai vagy vallási jellegű, az emberiség nagy részét butasággal fertőzi meg. Mintha ez egy szociológiai-pszichológiai törvény lenne, ahol az egyik hatalmához a másik hülyesége kell.

A folyamat itt nem az, hogy bizonyos emberi képességek, mint például az értelem, hirtelen meghibásodnak. Ehelyett úgy tűnik, hogy a növekvő hatalom elsöprő hatása alatt az embereket megfosztják belső függetlenségüktől, és többé-kevésbé tudatosan feladják autonóm pozíciójukat.

Az a tény, hogy a hülye ember gyakran makacs, nem vakíthat el attól, hogy nem független. A vele való beszélgetés során az ember gyakorlatilag azt érzi, hogy egyáltalán nem is mint emberrel van dolga, hanem szlogenekkel, hívószavakkal és hasonlókkal, amelyek birtokba vették.

Megbabonázták, megvakították, visszaélnek vele, és lényében bántalmazzák. Miután így esztelen eszközzé vált, az ostoba ember is képes lesz minden rosszra – nem látja, hogy az gonosz.

Az utasítás nem, csak a felszabadítás képes legyőzni a hülyeséget. Itt be kell látnunk, hogy a legtöbb esetben a valódi belső felszabadulás csak akkor válik lehetségessé, ha az a külső felszabadulás megelőzte. Amíg ez nem történik meg fel kell hagynunk minden próbálkozással, hogy meggyőzzük az ostoba embert.

Bonhoeffer az Adolf Hitler elleni összeesküvésben való részvétele miatt 1945. április 9-én hajnalban a flossenbürgi koncentrációs táborban hunyt el, mindössze két héttel azelőtt, hogy az Egyesült Államokból érkező katonák felszabadították a tábort.

Bonhoeffer szavaival: „A cselekvés nem a gondolatból fakad, hanem a felelősségre való készségből. Az erkölcsös társadalom végső próbája az, hogy milyen világot hagy gyermekeire.

[dramoor]

"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God.  Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.  Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

[salvadorbonaparte]

Vegan reviewer still has her priorities straight and (checks notes) compares herself to Bonhoeffer despite not even spelling his name correctly

[bruceburgdorf]

The German resistance to the Nazis and Hitler

A common criticism of the now well known 20th July plot was that many of the German conspirators were opposed to how Hitler was leading the war but not the Nazi regime as a whole or only opposed the Nazis once the fate of the war had already been decided. This was however certainly not the case for all who resisted Hitler within Germany.

These two men form part of the exception to this criticism and were consistent in their opposition from the early days of the 1930‘s and throughout the Nazi rule in Germany.

For me one of the greatest tragedies was learning of their names through wartime fiction and not through school, TV documentaries or books about WW2.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906 -1945

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian who was part of a well educated and connected family. In his early years he travelled and had witnessed the poor treatment of black Americans.

He returned to Germany in the early 1930’s and spoke out against the Nazis before they were elected and became a founding member of the Confession Church. This new church opposed the Nazi interference in religious teachings which sought to revise the bible to exclude Jewish influences and also remove pastors of Jewish descent.

When Bonhoeffer drew the attention of the Nazi party he was banned from public speaking and later banned from the city of Berlin but continued to gather support to oppose the Nazi influence on the church in secret.

He was informed of the 1938 plot to arrest Hitler by his brother in law Hans von Dohnányi who use his position in the Abwehr to keep him informed of the Nazi atrocities and to also get Dietrich himself a position in the Abwehr which protected him from conscription and allowed him to continue his work. He became aware that his brother in law had moved to conspiring to kill Hitler not just arrest him which as a pastor Bonhoeffer was originally against but eventually agreed that they needed to stop Hitler at any cost.

His role was to be a courier, assigned to engage in covert talks with foreign church leaders who could communicate with the Allies. He had hoped his position could allow for peace terms for Germany to be discussed however Allied wartime policy would ignore resistance from with Germany. This was party due to the allies needing to remove any ambiguity when it came to placing the blame on the Germans for the war but also because they had been fooled in the past by an SD agent pretending be be with the resistance and passing on false information. It was nethertheless unfortunate that communication from the real German resistance would be then be ignored.

Bonhoeffer was eventually arrested on grounds of sedition and sent to Tegel prison where he used his teachings and faith to comfort other prisoners and he even impressed some of the guards with his courage and strength and a few of these guards were persuaded to assist him by allowing letters to be sent to his family and one even offered to help him escape although he refused as he was worried of the consequences it may have on his family.

When the diaries of Admiral Canaris of the Abwehr (another key member of the resistance) were discovered he was found to be linked to the 20th July plot and was moved to Buchenwald and eventually Flossenburg concentration camp where he was hanged on 9th April 1945.

Hans von Dohnányi 1902 - 1945

Hans von Dohnányi was like his brother in law, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, well educated. He was a lawyer and also someone who opposed the Nazis before they had come to be elected. He began to write down the Nazi parties crimes which he planned to use as evidence if they were overthrown.

He was recruited into the Abwehr, the military intelligence service, by Hans Oster, a Wehrmacht colonel at that time and later a general but more importantly someone who also opposed the Nazis before the war had began and worked under Admiral Canaris.

The Abwehr had recruited a number of opposers to the Nazis who would work legitimately within the intelligence service but who would secretly also work against their own government. Hans would have access to their archives and he soon learned of Hitler’s military plans for Europe as well as atrocities which were being perpetrated against the Jews and on the eastern front. He became part of the active resistance to arrest Hitler in 1938 along with Hans Oster and others and would later be involved in an assassination attempts on Hitler’s life including in 1943 where a bomb was smuggled onto Hitler's plane but unfortunately didn't detonate.

The previous year Hans had taken part in a secret Abwehr operation to smuggle 13 Jews out of Germany and had illegally transfered government funds to support the Jews who were now living in Switzerland. This transfer of money would then led to his arrest in 1943 and eventual transfer to Sachsenhausen. Hans had worked to bring together civilians and military personnel who opposed the government in an effort to establish a more organised resistance. This lead to his conviction for his involvement in planning of the 20th July plot.

He was executed in Sachsenhausen likely on the same day as Bonhoeffer was executed in Flossenbürg, 9th April 1945 . He is now recognised as one of the righteous among Nations by Israel.

One more note in this great man's legacy is that his grandson is actor Justus von Dohnányi who I admire very much.

[segretecose]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945), Are We Still of Any Use?, from: Letters and Papers from Prison; An Account at the Turn of the Year 1942-1943

Text under the cut.

[Are We Still of Any Use?

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds. We have become cunning and learned the arts of obfuscation and equivocal speech. Experience has rendered us suspicious of human beings, and often we have failed to speak to them a true and open word. Unbearable conflicts have worn us down or even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? We will not need geniuses, cynics, people who have contempt for others, or cunning tacticians, but simple, uncomplicated, and honest human beings. Will our inner strength to resist what has been forced on us have remained strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves blunt enough, to find our way back to simplicity and honesty?]

[tonreihe]

Rowan Williams, Christ the Heart of Creation

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Warren Throckmorton at The Throckmorton Initiative:

In a fascinating statement, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s descendants have come together to criticize Eric Metaxas’ misuse of Bonhoeffer’s work and legacy. Metaxas’ 2010 book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is being turned into a movie by Angel Productions to be released later this year. Apparently, this has moved the family to action. Here is the statement.

Descendants: Do not distort and misuse Dietrich Bonhoeffer!

We are horrified to see how the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is increasingly being distorted and misused by right-wing extremists, xenophobes, and religious agitators. As direct descendants of the seven siblings of the theologian and resistance fighter executed by the Nazis, we can testify based on what we learned from our families that he was a peace-loving, freedom-loving humanitarian. Never would he have seen himself associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian Nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.

A key figure in this abuse is Eric Metaxas, whose 2010 biography of Bonhoeffer was first published in the United States and sold more than a million copies in 20 languages. In the book, he ignored the historical context and misrepresented Bonhoeffer as a fundamentalist Evangelical. Metaxas, now a right-wing Trump supporter, regularly compares US President Biden to Hitler, speaks of 'total war' and posts photos of a gun on a Bible: “So we can now finally clearly see that Biden is our Hitler. In 1933-34. See my Bonhoeffer book for details. The parallels are staggering and increasingly obvious. Pray for this nation. PRAY.” The right-wing evangelical production company Angel Studios has secured the rights to a new Bonhoeffer movie, and this is now their advertisement on X: “The battle against tyranny begins now. Watch Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin”. The accompanying image shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer holding a gun. The history-distorting biopic, which turns Bonhoeffer into an evangelical saint, is scheduled to hit theaters shortly after the U.S. presidential election.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not a lone fighter. The Bonhoeffer family was a tight-knit unit and worked together closely during this time. Dietrich's brother Klaus and his brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher were executed for their resistance activities, just like Dietrich. They were driven by the search for truth, honesty, humanity and the struggle for freedom, the rule of law and democracy. They repudiated religious zealotry, nationalism, militarism, and blind obedience. Those who invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer to justify anti-democratic, xenophobic aspirations are either misinformed or malicious.

The tasteless trivialization of Bonhoeffer's legacy has encouraged this misuse: he was a complex thinker who was primarily concerned with ethical issues. Unlike the majority of Germans, he did not turn a blind eye to the disenfranchisement, oppression, and mass murder that took place under Nazi dictatorship. His quotes have been taken out of context and reduced to set pieces for all kinds of occasions. More recently, they have increasingly been used by many whose intentions are diametrically opposed to Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and actions; ranging from Project 2025 – the Heritage Foundation's proposed program for Trump – to the German right-wing extremist Björn Höcke.

The family of the anti-Nazi resistance fighter and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls out right-wing pundit Eric Metaxas’s penchant for David Barton-esque history revisionism about Bonhoeffer.