By Lynn Burnett
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Germany in 1906, and received his Doctor of Theology degree in Berlin in 1927. He traveled to New York in 1930 for postgraduate work, where he studied under the renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. While in New York he taught Sunday school at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem… a church that had been named after the ancient Ethiopian Empire. It was one of the largest Black churches in the country. And it was led by the civil rights minister Adam Clayton Powell Sr., who had founded the Urban League, and whose son would soon represent Harlem in congress. The young German theologian had landed right in the heart of Black American spirituality… and of politics.
Abyssinian Baptist Church was thriving in the era of the Harlem Renaissance, but Dietrich had also arrived during the onset of the Great Depression. The church was engaged in enormous community service efforts, helping to feed and clothe thousands of community members. Many Harlemites had recently fled the South during the Great Migration, and had emotional and spiritual needs as people who had uprooted themselves from former communities, only to face harsh realities in a new land. At Abyssinian, loving thy neighbor was practiced in a very concrete way. That practice was recognized as a form of walking in Jesus’s path. Furthermore, walking that path through embodying love and compassion in daily life was recognized as an essential form of honoring God… above any particular religious belief. As Reggie L. Williams, the author of Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus puts it: the message of Abyssinian was that “We feed God when we feed our hungry neighbor.”
It was in the context of teaching and practicing his Christian faith in a Black community in Harlem during the Great Depression that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own liberatory theology took shape. However, he was also deeply impacted by witnessing White American racism, by experiencing how that racism impacted his Sunday school students and Abyssinian church members, and how White American Christianity served to uphold that oppression. Experiencing such a stark juxtaposition between Black and White Christian communities forced Dietrich to reflect deeply on what it meant to be a true disciple of Jesus. Those reflections would soon guide his own actions in Nazi Germany.
Dietrich returned to Germany in 1931. His year in Harlem had guided him into a more mature theology that moved beyond mere intellectual rigor, and towards addressing the reality of the world and the actual needs of human beings. As he put it, I “turned from phraseology to reality.” In Harlem, he had come to see racism as a Christian problem, that White Christians had a responsibility to confront. Back in Germany, it was Bonhoeffer who named what was happening to the Jews as the central problem that Christians themselves had to face.
Two days after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Dietrich offered a radio address urging Germans not to be seduced into a cult of personality, and by what he implied was an immature and romantic notion that “only a great figure would be able to restore order and unity.” “The leader,” Dietrich urged, “must radically reject the temptation to become an idol, that is, the ultimate authority of the led.” Germany, of course, would not be so lucky. Dietrich’s radio address was cut off mid-sentence.
Shortly afterwards, Dietrich became the first church leader to urge Christians to resist the Nazis and do everything they could to support the Jewish community with these famous words: “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spike into the wheel itself.” He was soon running underground seminaries for anti-Nazi Christians in Germany. He travelled from village to village, cultivating grassroots Christian anti-Nazi opposition. These underground congregations provided Jews passage out of Germany at great risk. During these dark times, Bonhoeffer taught these underground congregations the Spirituals he had studied in Harlem, as a way to generate the inner strength needed to forge ahead.
In 1938, Dietrich’s brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi, introduced him to members of the German military intelligence community who sought to overthrow Hitler. From them, he learned that war was imminent. Out of concerns that he would be drafted and potentially killed if he refused to serve, Dietrich left for the United States once more. However, once he was safely in the U.S., he was racked by guilt. He immediately returned to Germany, where Hans ensured his safety by securing a position for Dietrich in the military intelligence community, under the premise that Dietrich’s extensive church network would prove valuable.
Dietrich leveraged his new position within the intelligence community – and his connections with the anti-Nazi dissidents within it – to provide further support to Jewish communities. He also gave spiritual council to those in the innermost circle of the Resistance, plotting Hitler’s assassination. In order to provide cover and lend credibility to his new position within Germany’s military intelligence, Dietrich at times felt that it was necessary to publicly praise Hitler. In doing so, he sacrificed his reputation, and shocked his friends. To protect the plans to overthrow Hitler, however, Dietrich knew it was best not to explain the change in his behavior even to those closest to him. During this time, he felt profoundly alone, and within that aloneness he sought God’s council more than ever. As Dietrich’s biographer Eric Metaxas puts it: “He was involved in a high-stakes game of deception upon deception, and yet Bonhoeffer himself knew that in all of it, he was being utterly obedient to God.”
In April of 1943, Dietrich was arrested: although the Gestapo had no proof, he was suspected of being connected to the Resistance. On June 20, 1944, there was a failed attempt on Hitler’s life from within the military intelligence community. Dietrich was accused of being associated with the would-be-assassins, and was secretly transferred to a concentration camp, where he was hung during the final days of war.
Additional Resources
Articles
Randall Balmer: Between God and the Führer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s radio address that was cut short: The Younger Generation’s Altered View of the Concept of Führer.
The International Bonhoeffer Society: Collection of Articles and Interviews.
Wikipedia:
Selected Books
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a prolific author: browse his many books here.
Eric Metaxas: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.
J. Deotis Roberts: Bonhoeffer and King: Speaking Truth to Power.
Reggie L. Williams: Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance.
Video and Audio
The International Bonhoeffer Society: Collection of video lectures.
Reggie Williams: