[May 2001 journal entry]
During a recent visit with Renate Bethge, she asked if I might have some ideas/suggestions re a presentation she has been invited to give to International Bonhoeffer Society members attending the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Denver. She has been asked to speak about ‘Memories and Perspectives’. At various times during these days together, I offered and we discussed the following ideas/suggestions (listed in no particular order) --
During a recent visit with Renate Bethge, she asked if I might have some ideas/suggestions re a presentation she has been invited to give to International Bonhoeffer Society members attending the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Denver. She has been asked to speak about ‘Memories and Perspectives’. At various times during these days together, I offered and we discussed the following ideas/suggestions (listed in no particular order) --
- How Dietrich is remembered is linked to the perspective/s of the one/s remembering.
- Consider working off of Dietrich’s prison correspondence thoughts about memory and remembering. Discuss the indications in the prison letters (a) that Dietrich anticipated being remembered and (b) how he wanted to be remembered.
- To be studied is not necessarily to be remembered in a way that calls for a verdict.
- It is ironic that organizations such as the International Bonhoeffer Society and the American Academy of Religion make it difficult for the Letters and Papers Bonhoeffer to be remembered in a radical, vibrant, and challenging way.
- Drawing from Dietrich’s exchange in New York City with the young French pastor who aspired to become a saint (Dietrich’s 21 July 1944 letter to Eberhard), challenge the beatification or making into a saint/icon that has occurred in the ‘religious’ recollection/treatment of Dietrich.
- Develop Dietrich’s ‘from below’ perspective (e.g., the paragraph attached to Dietrich’s December 1942 Ten Years Later essay).
- Reconstruct how confusing and ambiguous Dietrich’s 1939-45 Abwehr conspiracy involvement was to those after the war who viewed him from a Confessing Church/Finkenwalde perspective.
- Point to Dietrich’s sense of accountability to the next generation (e.g., the frequent references in his December 1942 Ten Years Later essay).
- Critique various perspectives of Dietrich in light of Dietrich’s perceptions of himself as indicated in his ‘Who Am I?’ prison poem/prayer.
- Note that how Dietrich has been remembered is somewhat analogous to the interpretations that developed around the life of ‘Jesus’ soon after his death.
- Very soon no one will remain who knew Dietrich – his eyes, his manner, his scents, his tone, his habits, his touch, . . . .
- Dietrich will be remembered. The question is – How will he be remembered?
- Eberhard and Renate have invested their postwar lives to making it possible for Dietrich to be accessible to subsequent generations.
- Consider beginning with personal memories before shifting to more prophetic reflections.
- Eberhard knew Dietrich in ways unique to being the ‘friend in the singular’. What stands out in how Eberhard remembered Dietrich?
- Were there detectible/significant transitions after the war in the ways Eberhard and Renate remembered Dietrich? in the ways immediate family members remembered Dietrich?
- Should Dietrich be remembered as who he was or as who he was on the verge of becoming? according to familiar categories (i.e., pre-1939 categories) or according to unfamiliar categories (i.e., post-1939 categories)?
- Perspectives by which Dietrich is remembered – e.g., religious, Jewish, immediate family, scholar, historian, Finkenwalde student, fellow conspirator, friend, Maria, fellow prisoner, Confessing Church colleague, . . . perspectives.
