Blogging Bonhoeffer, some preliminary thoughts to Chapter Seven

Some preliminary thoughts to Chapter Seven of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography by Eberhard Bethge:

1. Do not cast Dietrich Bonhoeffer vs. Adolph Hitler. They are not hero and antihero. I say this because almost every reference to Bonhoeffer that I've seen this year does this to one degree or another, such as this youtube video. I don't mean these folks aren't well-intentioned. It's just a stupidly easy characterization that takes us from our vantage point in history to theirs and back again without any real struggle!
2. 1933 is not the beginning of Bonhoeffer's true significance. To begin here is to lose real sight of him.
3. Hitler's rise to power, and the situation in Germany before him have local significance long before their universal significance.
4. We cannot judge history beginning with the Allied victory in 1945. I come to chapter seven with very mixed feelings because of my country's appeal for the War on Terror framed on a revisionist history of WWII. American Christians, like Focus on the Family and Chuck Colson view Bonhoeffer as a model Christian with a simple eye toward his opposition to Adolph Hitler. I don't see FoF or Colson with any real interest in Bonhoeffer's theology up to this point. Bonhoeffer from this vantage point is our vicarious hero in the ideological war against evil. We're on Dietrich/Jesus' side against the Hitler/Devil side. How convenient. This really ticks me off. To really enter Dietrich Bonhoeffer's world is to enter a losing situation, where pacifists and gypsies, gays and bible thumpers all suffer the same execution by hanging or firing squad. To try to score points for Jesus after the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust is blasphemous.
5. When Hitler rose to power on January 30, 1933 the Bonhoeffer family knew they were at war long before the start of World War. (Bethge, p. 257) This brings up an important question regarding what it means to be a State. If the citizens of a country are at war with their own leadership, how are they it's citizens? And who will protect them? Before Hitler Germany had been attempting democracy since 1918. To really understand Bonhoeffer it is paramount to gain a working knowledge of Germany's frustrated government after WWI. I have Germany Tried Democracy: A Political History of the Reich from 1918 to 1933 by S. William Halperin. For a simpler reference there's Wikipedia's entry for the Weimar Republic.

I am bemused and saddened by the way I hear Hitlerizations being bandied about in the news. I've heard President Bush referred to as a Hitler more times than I can count. I also hear Hitler characterized as a Christian. My hope is that these folks will take a serious look at the Church Struggle in it's right context and really learn from history. Here in America we have our own crisis situation. References to fascism, as much as we would like to resonate with them, really don't get us further in our own struggle. The worst part of our crisis is that we don't feel it much at all. We are kept numb by so many things. Conversations are masterfully twisted into mute points. Victory and safety from the "right" side of history has the effect of stripping our need for God or the suffering servant Jesus Christ.

Tags: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fortress Press, Eberhard Bethge, Adolph Hitler, Focus on the Family, Chuck Colson, Weimar Republic, youtube

11,448

In his book Daring, Trusting Spirit John deGruchy reveals the larger context of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's participation in the resistance against Adolph Hitler:

The losses of the Bonhoeffer family were symbolic of a far more widespread loss that was most evident to the immediate survivors of the resistance. In the months that followed the failed coup of July 1944, the Nazis executed 11,448 people suspected of being involved in various resistance groups. These were people from all walks of life - the churches, the Communist and socialist parties, the civil service, the military - who had been engaged in some kind of activity to overthrow the Nazi regime and to create a foundation for what would follow. The Nazi regime, even in its death throes, had managed to eradicate its most articulate and thoughtful opponents. (Daring, Trusting Spirit: Bonhoeffer's Friend Eberhard Bethge, John deGruchy, Fortress Press, 2006)

Keep that number in mind, 11, 448, the next time you are tempted to say "but" when referring to Bonhoeffer's Christian witness. I have heard so many sloppy arguments for why Bonhoeffer's life was wasted by the Resistance. Here are 11,448 more "wasted" lives. I recently had a gem of a book given to me titled Dying We Live: The final messages and records of some Germans who defied Hitler, Edited by Hellmut Gollwitzer, Fontana, 1960. On the other side, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would not have regarded his own decision as prescriptive in every case, shoot, most cases. Neither did he care that his name be honored or understood. He knew that he would be forever misunderstood as one more German around during the Holocaust--"numbered with the transgressors". He did not mind the stain on his name because the name of Christ was stained and he didn't mind the shame of that association.

I'd like to blog through Dying We Live at some point. Also, I picked up a review galley of What About Hitler? Wrestling with Jesus's Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World, by Robert Brimlow, Brazos, 2006 at the Ekklesia Gathering this year. I'll try to cover it when I get to the imprisonment in my Bethge blogging.

Tags: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, resistance, Hitler