Good morning. I trust you are all well. I very much appreciate the reflections I have received over the past few weeks in response to the communication/reading for Session #3 of our ‘Integrity’ virtual symposium. Please do not hesitate to suggest ways to improve the format/logistics as we move forward, following the order and the content of the first iteration of this virtual symposium I began facilitating in September 2021 with fifteen surgeons affiliated with medical school departments of surgery across the country. Though quite diverse, their (and our) common ground is a shared resolve to be authentic, to show respect, to be gentle, and to be fair in personal and professional encounters. Please know I am honored, challenged, and humbled by the privilege to adapt for you this second iteration of a virtual symposium centered on the examination of integrity.
We are using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s December 1942 After Ten Years essay as the anchoring tool/prompt for examining our integrity (personal and professional) . . . for assessing the health of our existential core. Remember -- the subject for this virtual symposium is maintaining integrity (in the structural or engineering sense of ‘integrity’) in difficult circumstances, particularly when the consequences can be costly and even dangerous.
I have inserted below (and provided here in Word format) the reading for Session #4 of our ‘Integrity’ virtual symposium. To name/focus Session #4, I am using a phrase – ‘the necessity of acting’ – in an 8 October 1945 post-war letter Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s father Karl (retired neurologist/psychiatrist) sent to a Professor Jossmann in Boston:
“ . . . That we have experienced much evil and have lost two sons and two sons-in-law through the Gestapo, you have as I hear already learned. You can imagine that this has not passed by us old people without leaving its mark. Throughout the years, we stood under the pressure of concern for those imprisoned and those not yet imprisoned but endangered. But since all of us were agreed about the necessity of acting, and my sons and sons-in-law were aware of what awaited them in case the plot was unsuccessful and had made their peace with life, we are certainly sad but also proud of their clear-cut behavior.”
I hope the readings and our exchanges for Sessions #1 and #2 established context, specificity, nuance, and grip (1) to the disclosures/challenges our disillusioning experiences pose for being truly candid about our integrity and (2) to the unavoidable rethinking/refreshing of our integrity demanded by our disillusioning experiences, using the six ‘personal statement’ questions – i.e., Who am I? Who/what do I trust? What do I do? For whom do I do what I do? To what end do I do what I do? Within what values do I do what I do? With the reading for Session #3 a few weeks ago, we began examining our integrity by considering the challenges to integrity faced by the generation in Europe that came of age after World War One through the Nazi years, with special attention on the decisions and reflections of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45) during his participation from 1939 forward in covert efforts to bring down Hitler and the Nazis.
The aim of the reading below for Session #4 is to make Dietrich and his decisions approachable/imaginable for you by sharing with you selections from my numerous conversations (1993-2008) with Dietrich’s closest friend Eberhard Bethge and his cherished niece/Eberhard’s wife Renate. For those of you who might have the margin, I have also provided links to selections from Jennifer Chiaverini’s 2019 Resistance Women, a reliable historical fiction novel that traces four couples (three couples being historical figures -- including Dietrich’s distant cousin Arvid Harnack and his American wife Mildred Fish -- and one couple being a composite of several historical figures). The Resistance Women selections (plus Chiaverini’s ‘Author’s Note’ ) make vivid the challenges faced – in 1935, in 1937, and in 1941-42 – by Germans whose integrity demanded ‘the necessity of acting’.
Resistance Women (A Novel) -- selections from 1935
Resistance Women (A Novel) -- selections from December 1936 through December 1937
Resistance Women (A Novel) -- selections from March 1941-December 1942
Resistance Women (A Novel) -- Author's Note
Re the format for our virtual symposium -- I am sending you every few weeks a brief reading along with a few discussion/reflection prompts. You are encouraged to (1) spend as much time as you can allot becoming familiar with and pondering/engaging each reading plus the promptings and (2) send to your fellow participants at least one brief e-mail response to each assigned reading when possible (using ‘Reply All’ to the e-mail message I send the group at the start of each session). I will manage these group e-mail responses for each session and I will respond individually if/when a participant requests confidentiality.
Doug
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Highlights from Conversations with Eberhard and Renate Bethge (1993-2008)
Douglas Brown, PhD
From “some pleasant days” with the Bethges at their Wachtberg home (October 1993)
Barbara and I stepped off the train to be warmly greeted by the Bethges at Bonn’s main station. Eberhard drove us to their home in a small village a few kilometers south of Bonn. Worn stone markers in the surrounding forests are reminders that Wachtberg’s history reaches back many centuries. The new construction indicates Wachtberg’s link to Bonn’s growth. The Bethge’s modest house is located on a bricked side street near the village’s center. The garage is only a bit larger than their car. Flowers line the front yard. Large cedars encase the back yard. The front door opens into a small foyer with stairs to the immediate right leading to the Bethge’s personal quarters and with pathway into the kitchen to the left. The foyer -- with striking images of Dietrich’s father Karl Bonhoeffer and of Eberhard on either side of a mirror -- branches to the left into the dining/living room, ahead into Eberhard’s office, and to the right into a guest room. Another door leads down to a basement which the Bethge’s use mainly for storage. The kitchen is efficient. A board with numerous family photographs hangs to the left of the passage to their round dining table. An olive-colored couch, with accompanying table and chairs, sits across from a grand piano. Heirloom furniture, bookcases, and paintings line the walls. An inviting patio awaits those who step outside. A soft armless chair under an enlarged photograph of Dietrich first catches the eye when walking into Eberhard’s office. Shelves to the ceiling on each wall bend under the weight of books and files. Eberhard’s desk shows the signs of unfinished work. The guest room has single beds to the left and right of the door. A beautifully painted antique chest stands across the room, flanked by bookcases.
Dietrich’s traits that stood out to Eberhard and Renate – reticent, demanding, scrupulous, difficulty making decisions.
Re Dietrich’s parents, most of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been noticeably distant/detached from the story of the family’s involvement/sacrifices in Nazi resistance during the Hitler years.
After the war, Dietrich’s surviving siblings scattered. His parents died soon after the war -- Karl (d. 1948) and Paula (d. 1951). Sabine, who took care of the family governess, moved back to Berlin. The Leibholz property was restored. One of the Dohnanyi children became a highly regarded conductor with the Cleveland Symphony.
From “some pleasant days” with the Bethges at their Wachtberg home (May 1994)
The Bethges commented on the impact Paul Schneider’s 1939 execution had on Dietrich. Schneider (1897-1939) was pastor for a Protestant congregation in Dickenscheid. Soon after Hitler’s rise to power, he began regularly preaching sermons critical of the Nazis. He attempted to discipline members of the congregation who sympathized with the Nazis. He was repeatedly arrested. The Nazis finally sentenced him to Buchenwald concentration camp. He continued to voice his opposition among the prisoners. He was executed 18 July 1939. Dietrich had departed from New York City 7 July 1939, arriving in Berlin 27 July. Eberhard explained that Dietrich respected Schneider’s resolute protest, but he did not see him as an example of how to resist the Nazis in Germany 1939 forward. I wondered if Dietrich had Schneider in mind when he wrote, in his December 1942 essay ‘After Ten Years’, that – “To talk of going down fighting like heroes in the face of certain defeat is not really heroic at all, but merely a refusal to face the future. The ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live.” Eberhard recalled that, on the first anniversary of the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life, an announcement was read from church pulpits that referred to Schneider as “a martyr in the full sense of the word”. Dietrich was intentionally not mentioned in the commemoration due to church officials’ stated disapproval of the 20 July 1944 conspirators (of whom Dietrich was one).
From “some pleasant days” with the Bethges at their Wachtberg home (February 1996)
We discussed ‘denazification’ efforts after the war. Eberhard and Renate recalled that members of the Nazi party had to establish a compelling case against their being punished. There were many Nazi supporters who were not party members. Renate recalled her mother writing a letter of support for a local shoemaker who was a party member (naively, she thought) whose job was to collect party dues. However, she refused to write a similar letter for a woman who had been very enthusiastic about the Nazis.
I asked how the children of Dietrich’s siblings perceive/d the family’s overt/covert opposition to the Nazis and the resulting executions. Renate said it never crossed her mind to question whether her father and the others should have resisted, even to the death. Renate does remember a few among her cousins who blamed their parents for raising them to be inclined to resist.
From “some pleasant days” with the Bethges at their Wachtberg home (February 1997 and February 1998)
We discussed Eberhard’s recent lecture re the place of Dietrich’s older brother Karl-Friedrich in the formation of Dietrich’s ‘non-religious’ ideas/actions. I suggested that Dietrich’s relationship with and approach to his family should be studied for insight into the ‘non-religious’ meaning of ‘community’ forming on the horizon for him in the prison letters. Prior to and separate from the horrific Nazi situation, the Bonhoeffer family was a strong gathered ‘community’ capable of integrating diversity. The Bonhoeffer family shared philosophical and humanistic resources. The Bonhoeffer family provided Dietrich his most reliable experience of ‘community’ during the 1933-45 years (especially the 1939-45 years) symbolized by ‘the parcel’ references throughout the prison letters.
We agreed that ‘holocaust’ has both a wide meaning (including Czarist oppression, brutalities experienced by Native Americans, United States slavery, Asian and African genocide, . . . ) and a more narrow meaning (i.e., exploitation, deprivation, ghettoizing, and concentration camp slaughter under Hitler). We distinguished pre-modern anti-Semitism evident in and endorsed by Protestant and Catholic traditions from modern anti-Semitism latent in the goal of cultural assimilation. Eberhard and Renate agreed that both forms of anti-Semitism existed in pre-Nazi Germany. Renate expressed reservation about this assessment, but eventually accepted Eberhard’s insistence that blatant anti-Semitism was widespread and unchallenged in social circles other than the Bonhoeffer family’s upper-class circles (where the goal of cultural assimilation had succeeded). Eberhard recalled noticing as a child a picture in a Bible in which ‘Jesus’ was pictured as very handsome/striking with the Jews surrounding him pictured as vile/mean. They recalled that the majority in Germany did not oppose or feel strongly about Nazi anti-Semitism and was, therefore, swayed (especially early) to support the Nazis. Many in this majority realized too late that they could no longer support the Nazis’ ideology or actions. Very few cared deeply enough to risk their safety/lives.
We discussed the gatherings/conversations of the Bonhoeffer family during the Nazi years. Eberhard and Renate noted that women as well as men in the family participated. Renate recalled a time when she and her brother tore down a Nazi poster, resulting in a SA officer coming to their home to warn them. Eberhard and Renate described Karl Bonhoeffer – Dietrich’s father -- as quiet, soft-spoken, reserved, respected. They described Paula Bonhoeffer – Dietrich’s mother – as more approachable. She and Dietrich’s grandmother very actively supported the Confessing Church as the only institutional resistance to the Nazis that had a chance to make a difference. Eberhard and Renate explained that Karl Bonhoeffer was from South Germany (and, thereby, was clearly hesitant re a ‘nobility’ manner) whereas Paula Bonhoeffer was from North Germany (and, thereby, was more at ease with a ‘nobility’ manner). Renate’s father, also from South Germany, shared Karl Bonhoeffer’s reservations. Eberhard and Renate agreed that the Bonhoeffer family was clearly upper class. The pastor and theologian husband of Susanne (the youngest of the Bonhoeffer children) was thought within the family not to have treated her very well. He rarely came to the Bonhoeffer home, perhaps due his being somewhere between the Confessing Church and the ‘German Christians’. He and Dietrich were awkward around each other. Eberhard and Renate remembered that Susanne’s mother-in-law had Nazi tendencies. They sensed that the post-Nazi political model most favored in the Bonhoeffer family was the British model.
We discussed serving in the German military in light of the required oath of allegiance to Hitler. Eberhard and Renate agreed that the oath held back military officers who were sympathetic to the conspiracy circle/plans in which Dietrich was involved. They pointed out that the term ‘Kaiser’ was not equivalent to the term ‘Fuhrer’. We compared the oath of allegiance to Hitler with the United States ‘pledge of allegiance’. Renate proposed that many Germans took the oath with a set of implicit conditions/restrictions (e.g., ‘as far as I can in good conscience’ or ‘as far as I must to protect my family’ or ‘as cover for subversive action’ or . . . ). Eberhard had to take the oath when he was drafted. He assumed Dietrich had to do so when he was assigned to the Abwehr.
Renate described the dangers she and other of the women in the Bonhoeffer family faced when the Russians reached Berlin. She remembered some acquaintances who befriended Russian officers in hope of avoiding harsh/coarse treatment from regular soldiers. She recounted hiding with a cousin in an attic and in a covered closet. She remembered using fake bandages and attempting to fake illnesses. She noted that survival and recovery were the primary concerns/tasks in the weeks and months after the war ended.
From “some pleasant days” with the Bethges at their Wachtberg home (February 1999)
We discussed the impact (including emotional/psychological damage) the executions of Hans (Dietrich’s brother-in-law), Dietrich, Klaus (Dietrich’s brother), and Rudiger (Renate’s father) had on Bonhoeffer family members. Renate told about one of Klaus’ children hitching a ride, telling about his father’s death, and being put out of the car. Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer (Dietrich’s parents) became very quiet after the war. Renate’s mother and Dietrich’s younger sister were deeply wounded. Karl-Friedrich died an early death (d. 1956). Karl-Friedrich’s children questioned their uncles’ involvement in the 20 July 1944 conspiracy circle.
We discussed Renate’s father’s death. After the war ended, Eberhard rode his bicycle from place to place throughout war-scarred Berlin trying to find information about him. Eberhard had been in the same Berlin Gestapo prison with Renate’s father during the last months of the war. He knew Renate’s father and seven others had been taken from the prison in the night. He happened to find one of the eight prisoners. Eberhard learned from him that the eight prisoners had been put in a bomb crater near a Berlin cemetery and shot. The families of the executed prisoners found the site, but decided not to disturb the mass grave.
Dietrich was permitted to send every two weeks one censured letter from prison to his parents and later also one censured letter to Maria. By November 1943, the opportunity had formed to smuggle illegal and uncensored letters out to Eberhard. Dietrich would give a letter to the sympathetic prison guard who would address and send the letter through the military mail to Eberhard. Eberhard would return the letter through the same guard to Renate. Eberhard and Renate placed the secret correspondence in tin cans, which they hid in a chest they buried in the garden behind Renate’s parents’ home (next door to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer’s home). They recalled having some difficulty after the war finding the buried chest of letters.
Renate remembered seeing Hitler twice – first as an eight-year-old with the Dohnanyi family watching Hitler and Mussolini from her uncle Hans’ office and later as a fifteen-year-old with the family’s longtime maid (a communist).
From hosting Renate on several days in 2001 visiting Black Forest locations she enjoyed with Eberhard
First Day Together
Renate drove us from the train station to the home of her sister Dorothee (two years younger) and her husband Karl Dietrich Bracher. Dr. Bracher (b. 1922) remains a respected historian several years after retirement. He held faculty positions first at Free University in Berlin (1950-58) where he published his seminal work Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik and then for the balance of his career at the University of Bonn where he was Professor of Political Science and Contemporary History. A senior and authoritative scholar among postwar German political historians, he drew attention to the larger context surrounding Hitler and the rise of Nazism both to properly interpret the German experience and to illustrate the twentieth-century totalitarian threats to democracy and liberalism worldwide. He insisted democracy is a fragile political structure that can survive only when concerned citizens sacrifice to protect it.
We discussed briefly Dr. Bracher’s 1943-45 internment in a Kansas prisoner-of-war camp. He had been stationed in North Africa and was in the army Germany lost there (300,000+ soldiers). (Renate commented later that, as far as she knows, his being a soldier did not indicate Nazi sympathies.) He recounted his processing experience at New York City’s Ellis Island before being delivered by train to the Kansas camp. He described the academic and cultural circles the imprisoned German soldiers maintained to the war’s end, attributing to these experiences his pursuit of an academic career when free to do so. He completed his doctoral studies in classics in 1948 at the University of Tübingen (where he and Dorothee met).
Second Day Together
Renate’s grandparents’ (Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer) Berlin house was not badly damaged during the war. However, Renate’s parents’ home next door was virtually destroyed by artillery shelling in the war’s last days. Renate commented, “Thankfully, my father did not know this.” Immediately after the war, Renate’s mother, brother, and two sisters lived with the Dohnanyi family a few blocks away. Her mother and siblings sold in ‘black market’ manner cigarettes and other care-package items they received from friends and supporters outside Germany (as families associated with Nazi resistance did not receive German assistance until 1952 or so). Renate’s mother used what remained of these funds after meeting basic needs to rebuild the family home. To support the family, Karl Bonhoeffer returned to work at a mental health clinic. Renate’s grandparents’ house was later turned into a historical site for use as a spirituality center in honor of Dietrich.
Renate had a maid at various times and remembers her grandparents to have had as many as four or five maids when their children were young. The Bonhoeffer family was clearly upper class, though Renate said such distinctions are not spoken of in these terms in Germany. Whether or not one is educated is the key. She said that, until more recent times, the midday meal -- @2:00 PM -- was a family’s main meal. Children were at home from school by that time. She remembers her grandfather always being home for this meal.
Renate only remembers a second cousin on her maternal grandmother’s side to have had Nazi sympathies. He became a lawyer. He attended her great-grandmother’s 1936 funeral at which Dietrich spoke about her opposition to the Nazis. This cousin later rebuked Dietrich who in turn responded sharply to him, breaking all subsequent contact. When Hans von Dohnanyi was arrested and put in prison, his wife Christine arranged for this cousin to be added to Hans’ defense team for appearance’s sake.
Renate seemed very surprised by my description of (1) the ‘No Jews Allowed’ restrictions in upper New England as late as the 1940s and (2) the political power of the KKK in the United States through mid-century.
Renate and her siblings belonged the Hitler Youth. She remembers her brother enjoying the singing activities. Her parents arranged for them to have a doctor’s permission not to be involved in the outdoor activities.
Third Day Together
Renate told of a time when she and several other children were walking to school. One of the children was Jewish. One mother asked Renate’s mother to prohibit the Jewish child from being among the children because of her six-year-old boy’s racial sensitivity. After the war, that mother asked Renate’s mother to write a denazification letter for her. She refused.
Renate’s mother grieved deeply after the war. She wore black for many years. Her friendship with Renate’s brother’s mother-in-law helped bring her “back to life”. Christine (Hans von Dohnanyi’s wife) was wounded deeply by Han’s death and by the critical reactions to his involvement with the Abwehr conspiracy circle. She was frustrated and angry when those who did not resist the Nazis were put in leadership positions after the war and were thereby in positions to interpret the Nazi resistance that had occurred during the war. Renate remembers Christine saying, “Now I know how history is written”.
Fourth Day Together
Renate’s older brother Hans had to be careful about other soldiers knowing of his father’s arrest and subsequent death verdict as a political prisoner. He quickly realized he had made “a big mistake” in asking his commanding officer for leave time to visit his imprisoned father. His commanding officer refused, but Hans’ pilot allowed him to go. He saw his father on 20 April 1945. He remembers his father saying, “We will see each other again soon.” However, his father was executed shortly after the visit.
Renate does not remember much firsthand about Dietrich’s 1939 decision to leave for New York. She thinks the family had mixed thoughts about his decision to return from the safety of New York City. She remembers Confessing Church pastors Niemoller and Scharf saying after the war that they could not have done what Dietrich did with the Abwehr covert resistance if they had had the opportunity. Renate’s assessment -- “Dietrich’s action was too political for them”.
Fifth Day Together
Renate described being made to look sick, along with her cousin, by her aunt Christine (Hans von Dohnanyi’s wife) in order to avoid the Russian soldiers. They were also hidden in an attic and behind a bureau. Renate remembers having more difficulty bearing/delivering her second child after the war than with bearing/delivering her first child in 1944 Berlin.
Sixth Day Together
We discussed again reactions after the war’s end to Dietrich’s actions/death. Few understood for some time Dietrich’s involvement with the Abwehr conspiracy.
Eberhard chose to destroy the last letters he had received from Dietrich before turning himself over to his commanding officer for arrest. Renate does not remember Eberhard trying to reconstruct the content of those letters. She does remember individuals suggesting that Eberhard be hypnotized as a way to try to recover the content of the destroyed letters.
From a few special days in April 2003 with Renate Bethge when the two of us returned to Berlin
Friday April 25
During our time together on this first day, we discussed numerous subjects – e.g., (1) Renate remembers hearing the shooting from Hitler’s 1934 bloody purge of Ernst Röhm and his SA (‘Brown Army’) when Röhm persisted in calling for a ‘second revolution’ (assuming Hitler’s support) that would establish the socialist goals he understood to be the vision of the Nationalist Socialist Party. She remembers, during this ‘Night of the Long Knives’, her younger sister saying – “Hitler’s enemies are being killed.” (2) Renate understood that no one outside the immediate family knew what Dietrich was doing re participation with the Abwehr resistance other than ecumenical leaders Bishop George Bell in England and Willem Visser t’ Hooft in Switzerland. (3) Renate recounted her experience in the Hitler Youth (e.g., earning her six-month blue scarf). She remembered her older brother enjoying the music. The Dohnanyi children were in the Hitler Youth as camouflage for Hans’ covert resistance. The Nazis regularly sent out surveys to families, one item of which asked – “Are your children in the Hitler Youth? If not, why not?”
Saturday April 26
During the day, we spent time at Renate’s grandparents’ house where Dietrich was raised, the apartment building where Renate’s family lived when she was a young girl, the school the Bonhoeffer children attended, her grandparents’ house where they lived after Karl Bonhoeffer retired from the university, her parents’ house next door, the Dohnanyi family’s house a few streets away. We visited the cemetery where her grandparents are buried.
Renate reflected on her childhood during the Nazi years – e.g., (1) she referenced many happy and content memories, (2) as we looked out the window by Dietrich’s desk in his third-floor room in his parents’ house, she remembered his throwing candies to her and her siblings while they did homework on the porch below and across from his room’s window, (3) she recalled several benignly mischievous anecdotes (e.g., throwing snowballs at passersby from a balcony with a friend, putting snow into mailboxes, putting paraffin in keyholes, . . .), (4) she remembered the tension she felt as her youngest sister seemed to receive special attention and liberties from her mother (e.g., being relieved of drying dishes, not being disciplined like Renate was, . . .), (5) she remembered having her hands tied to the bedposts at night when she was three years old as a way to break her from sucking her thumb, whereas her sister sucked her thumb as late as seven years of age, (6) she described slipping through the back hedge when walking to her grandparents’ house, (7) she recalled collecting flak casings, (8) she remembered her next-to-youngest sister feeling disappointed when she compared herself to her affluent/rich friends, (9) she recalled her older brother being accidentally left behind at an S-Bahn station.
The time we spent at the Bonhoeffer house was very special. The house now serves as a retreat/meeting center. A pastor to university students and his family permanently reside there. A university student also lives there as an intern. Before we left the hotel, Renate called the house and spoke with the student about our visiting later in the day. The student, apparently not realizing who had called, did not tell the pastor. As we walked through the gate, the pastor opened the front door with one of his children in hand. He immediately recognized Renate, expressed his embarrassment for having to take his child to an appointment, and apologized profusely about not knowing Renate had called to arrange the visit. Renate sought to relieve his frustration and encouraged him to take care of his child’s needs. She and I slowly worked our way through the house, beginning on the first floor with the photo-lined meeting room, the kitchen, and the family room (where she described her grandfather’s reading the December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay). We tarried in Dietrich’s third-floor room. I sat for a few minutes at the work desk where Dietrich had most recently been working on yet another draft for a book on ethics when he was arrested. As Renate brought back the room’s memories, I asked what was most noticeably missing to her. She said, “The walls were lined with books” and, chuckling, “the tobacco smoke!” After Renate began stepping down the stairs, I stopped on the landing outside the room and looked back once more. The photograph from that moment is my most cherished image.
Before departing, we walked to the house’s backyard. Renate pointed across the hedge to the large shrub behind her parents’ house near which the smuggled prison letters – in metal canisters – had been buried. Renate recounted the difficulty she and Eberhard had in finding the hidden letters after the war’s end.
We then made our way to Tegel Prison. Along the way, Renate described the packaging and delivering of the parcels mentioned frequently in the prison letters. Renate discovered that we could not enter the prison without having made previous arrangements. I remember fondly Renate’s determination to find an alternative way into the prison. She spied an opportunity when some prison workers exited a side door. I finally dissuaded Renate from attempting to enter as they were exiting!
Sunday April 27
We walked through the neighborhood around the church in the city’s working class Wedding district where in 1932 Dietrich took over a confirmation class of unruly boys. We discussed the implications of the distance – actual and symbolic – from Dietrich’s privileged upbringing and life. Renate explained why the Nazis shut down Dietrich’s use of the Oderberger 61 room as a gathering place with/for the boys – i.e., ‘communist’ fears. Renate remembered being contacted by one of the boys after the war.
Monday April 28
We enjoyed breakfast and a walk before departing Berlin. Among the subjects we discussed – (1) Renate remembered Dietrich’s relationship with his older brother Karl-Friedrich to have been very close; with his sisters, close; with Klaus, not so close. (2) Re German youth pressed into military service near the war’s end -- Renate remembered her younger sister having a friend who was killed. Karl-Friedrich’s son (to whom Dietrich was close) was given an injection before his physical examination in order to disqualify him because of the apparent heart condition. (3) Re Dietrich’s December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay – Renate described listening to her grandfather read the essay out loud to family members on 1942 Christmas Day.
From a few special days in August 2004 with Renate in Wachtberg
Thursday August 19
Renate and I shared reflections on the December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay. She recalled her grandfather’s reading Dietrich’s essay to those gathered at her grandparents’ home on Christmas Day. Those she remembered being present – her parents and siblings, her grandmother, the von Dohnanyi family, Eberhard. She did not recall Dietrich (who had recently been very sick) being there. She aligned herself with the central/pivotal place Dietrich’s essay holds in my life/thought.
When talking about the Bonhoeffer family, Renate noted that Dietrich was not thought to be and was not treated as special.
Friday-Saturday August 20-21
As I browsed through a copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Life in Pictures, Renate remembered Dietrich’s friendship with Walter Dress as having originated during Dress’ student years at Berlin University when Dietrich was a lecturer. Dress led Renate through a not too interesting confirmation. She described Dress as being something of a loner, seeming to be more interested in biology than theology. Married to Dietrich’s younger sister Susanne, Dress agreed with the Bonhoeffer family members who were resisting Hitler and the Nazis. But Renate spoke of him as timid, deciding to remain on the sidelines in the church struggle – being neither a Confessing Church participant nor a ‘German Christian’ -- because “he did not want to go to prison”. She gave him the benefit of the doubt by introducing his concern for his family’s safety (which obviously was also a concern for Dietrich’s siblings with families who were taking risks to resist the Nazis).
Renate shared some Bonhoeffer family recollections --
Hans von Dohnanyi was born to Hungarian parents, his father being a well-known musician and composer who left the family when Hans was eleven years old. She described Hans as ambitious, with a manner that conveyed importance.
Karl Bonhoeffer – Dietrich’s father -- was able to support the family during the economic depression after World War One by caring for foreign patients who paid in dollars.
Dietrich’s brother Klaus had difficulties in childhood. He did not always do well in school, though his father considered him to be the most clever of the children.
Examples of how Renate’s recollections bring Dietrich to life – e.g., he paced when talking (Karl Friedrich too), was generous, was a good listener, had a moderate-volume voice, used good manners, was punctual, was not absentminded, enjoyed jokes and playing pranks, was patient (up to a point), kicked his crossed legs nervously while sitting (her father too), was competitive, . . . .
The 2:00 PM family dinner at her grandparents’ house – e.g., third of three rings was the final call to dinner; the children did not speak without first being spoken to; servants served the meal; servants made sure the children were clean and properly dressed, . . . .
Renate and I discussed the ‘civil courage’ section in Dietrich’s ‘After Ten Years’ essay. Renate explained that Dietrich was appealing for “free responsible action” over against “unblinking obedience”. I suggested (1) that Dietrich was challenging the low/depraved view of fallen humanity that had remained foundational to Lutheran theology, (2) that the 17th-century British and later French beheadings of royalty – actions absent in German history -- implied a dramatic turn away from the pre-modern ‘religious’ paradigm, (3) that Dietrich was headed toward a thoroughly de/reconstructed concept of ‘God’. I pointed out that democracy (1) implies a suspicion of authority/power, (2) protects the voice/interests of minorities, (3) tolerates (encourages?) persistent questioning of authority. Renate explained that Germany had no such experience or tradition before the restructuring after World War Two.
Renate and I discussed briefly the ‘sense of quality’ section in Dietrich’s ‘After Ten Years’ essay. Renate interpreted the section as Dietrich’s stance against the rudeness, disrespect, and intrusiveness characteristic of the Nazi culture.
From a few special days in April 2005 with Renate at her Wachtberg home
Thursday April 17
During our drive from the train station to Renate’s home and then to/from Aachen, our conversation included the following subjects – (1) Renate described Eberhard as smoking mostly cigars; Dietrich, mostly cigarettes (heavily). (2) Renate remembers vividly her experiences delivering parcels with hot food to imprisoned Dietrich and later to her father when he was imprisoned. She and other family members delivered parcels to imprisoned family members every week to ten days. (3) Renate said that Eberhard did not anticipate Dietrich’s eventual fame. She agreed that resisting the Nazis was essential to and inseparable from the special friendship between them. (4) Renate agreed with the ultimate value I place on Dietrich’s December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay. She recalled that her grandfather had his hospital secretary make a copy of the essay. She thinks the original may have been damaged by dampness. (5) Renate described the time she and Eberhard met with Dietrich for thirty minutes at Tegel Prison. Their time together was cut short by an air raid. She said it was unusual for other than a wife/fiancé or parents to visit a prisoner. (6) Renate remembers her grandparents being very worried about Dietrich after his arrest. Family members were anxious re who would be arrested next, what would be the Gestapo’s next action.
Renate described the Bonhoeffer family listening to the BBC every night during the war years – e.g., after the maids retired, keeping the volume low, the children serving as lookouts re anyone near or approaching the house.
Friday-Saturday April 18-19
Renate reconstructed her upbringing. She was born October 1925. She began school at age six. She attended a small private school for grades one through four. There were six students, including a Jewish student. Then she was enrolled in a public school. The Nazi emphasis/enthusiasm varied from teacher to teacher. A “Heil Hitler” was the typical beginning of the school day. School was conducted in the mornings Monday through Saturday. Afternoons were reserved for Hitler Youth activities (e.g., music, singing, sports, community service). Participation in the Hitler Youth was by choice (not without peer and/or Nazi pressure, of course) until age fourteen. Renate participated in her younger years. Her younger sister was considered for a leadership position, but her parents refused. Her older brother enjoyed the singing opportunities. Her parents arranged for a fake medical report to keep Renate out of the athletic activities. Her last three school grades included ‘government’ studies in which the teachers were expected to indoctrinate the students with the Nazi political model.
From a few special days in June 2006 with Renate at her Wachtberg home
Wednesday June 7
We discussed Dietrich’s observation that “the mind’s hunger for discussion is much more tormenting than the body’s hunger for food” (25 December 1943 prison letter). Had he survived the descent ‘below’ as a prisoner in the brutal grip of the Gestapo, I have often wondered who would have been his most cherished conversation partners if/as he continued to think through and live out the radical (i.e., into the root) ideas he anticipated in the December 1942 ‘Ten Years Later’ essay and began to see/consider in prison. No doubt many individuals would have drawn near to him, would have crowded around him. They could have satisfied much of his ‘hunger for discussion’. But I can imagine only a few who could/would have stayed in meaningful conversation with him if/as he strained to keep ‘seeing from below’. Eberhard and Renate, given their having shared the smuggled prison correspondence would already have been familiar with the cutting edge of Dietrich’s thought/life. Dietrich’s older brother Karl Friedrich, given his expertise in modern physics and given their longstanding mutual respect, could have prompted Dietrich’s resolve to become more firmly grounded in the scientific method/disciplines. Unfortunately, new acquaintance and fellow prisoner ‘Herr Engel’ would not have been there. He was killed in the 27 January 1944 bombing raids. Dietrich wrote of him to Eberhard (29/30 January 1944 prison letter) –
I am sorry to say that I suffered a severe loss the night before last. The man who was, to my mind, by far the most intelligent and attractive in the place was killed in the city by a direct hit. I should certainly have put him in touch with you later, and we already had plans for the future. We often had interesting talks, and the other day he brought me Daumier und die Justiz, which I still have. He was a really educated man of working-class origin, a philosopher, and father of three children. I was very much distressed by his death.
I arrived at a very crowded Bonn train station late afternoon. Renate did not recognize me – due to the full white beard I had grown for the trip to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories -- when I approached her on the landing. As we made our way to her car in the parking garage, I noticed that Renate seemed to show her age (she turned eighty years old last October) more than in past years (e.g., tired eyes, plain hair, cautious gait, shoulders slightly tilted). However, she seemed as intellectually keen as ever. Within a few minutes after reaching her home in Wachtberg, we were sitting on the patio enjoying tea/coffee with a delectable platter of pastries. She appreciated our gifts – kitchen towels, chocolate covered cranberries, Vermont maple syrup, and an album with a set of photographs from the days in 2003 we spent together in Berlin.
I suggested a spectrum with ‘enthusiastic German Christian/Church’ at one end, ‘Dietrich’s resolve’ at the opposite end, and ‘attempt to be neutral’ at the midpoint. Renate reminded me there were distinguishable dispositions from the midpoint toward the ‘enthusiastic German Christian/Church’ end. Then she placed Otto Dibelius -- who, as the first bishop of the recently formed Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg (1945-66), became the most prominent Protestant leader immediately after the war’s end -- slightly off the midpoint toward ‘Dietrich’s resolve’, Walter Dress (married to Dietrich’s younger sister) a bit past Dibelius toward ‘Dietrich’s resolve’, and the vast majority of those associated with the Confessing Church further toward but noticeably short of ‘Dietrich’s resolve’. Renate observed,
I always felt the fact that Dietrich and Eberhard did not have wives and children made a difference in their stance against the Nazis. Niemoller represented those in the Confessing Church ranks who did risk. He had ‘Traitor to the Fatherland’ painted on his house.
I asked Renate to describe/interpret those who were content to be classified ‘moderate’. She agreed that some ‘moderates’ on either side of the ‘attempt to be neutral’ midpoint on the spectrum saw some validity to views held on the opposing side of the midpoint. However, for others on the ‘Dietrich’s resolve’ side of the spectrum, ‘moderate’ had to do more with the level of risk to which they would expose themselves, their families, and – in the case of pastors – their congregations.
I asked Renate about Dietrich’s status in the family. Renate noted that, in his fiancé Maria’s family, Dietrich was treated as a celebrity; in his own family, not so. I mentioned the ‘always the baby’ frustration younger siblings often experience. Renate heard in the family that Dietrich’s father lost some interest in the children after the older children.
Thursday June 8
After breakfast, Renate and I began discussing sections in the prison correspondence I marked in my current study copy during my most recent reading with an eye on references to Renate’s personal experiences – e.g., Renate’s wedding, locations outside Berlin where Renate and other family members spent time during the intense bombing). By September 1945, only Renate, her mother and siblings, and Eberhard were in Berlin with her grandparents. Christine and the von Dohnanyi children sought anonymity (“disappeared”) in the Bavaria region of Germany. Klaus’ family left for Hanover. Karl Friedrich and his family stayed in Leipzig. Sabine (Dietrich’s twin sister) remained in England. Suzanne and her husband Walter Dress lived in Dahlem.
I asked Renate if she would describe herself as ‘religious’. She put herself somewhere between her grandfather (who was respectfully agnostic re ‘God’ language and religion) and her grandmother (who was more comfortable with religion and who was overtly religious), more toward the post-1939 Dietrich than Eberhard (who, she pointed out, “was raised religious”).
Friday June 9
During another delightful breakfast, Renate and I discussed subjects I had marked earlier that morning in the first few chapters of the recently published biography of Eberhard – Daring, Trusting Spirit – by the Bethges’ longtime South African friend and theology professor John de Guchy.
Renate confirmed that the Finkenwalde students who knew Dietrich from their studies with him at the University of Berlin were resistant to and threatened by the closeness that developed so quickly between Dietrich and Eberhard (who was ‘rural’ and not educated at the University of Berlin) during the first weeks after the opening of Finkenwalde. Eberhard eventually earned (perhaps begrudgingly) their respect.
I asked about Dietrich’s enduring friendship with Franz Hildebrand. Renate remembers Hildebrand to have been dignified, white-haired at an early age. He held a faculty position after the war at Drew University and later returned to a position in London.
Renate noted that Dietrich valued Eberhard as a balance, as a complement and that, for Eberhard, friendship with Dietrich “was everything to him”. She described Dietrich as more structured; Eberhard, more spontaneous.
I asked Renate about Eberhard’s condition after the war’s end. She had visited him in prison two months before the war ended. She does not remember his being more noticeably malnourished or weak than others. She had been hopeful about his release and also about her father’s release. She thinks her father may have spoken too openly under interrogation due to his “not being able to lie well”. After the war, Eberhard took care of Renate’s mother and grandparents.
Renate and I worked through my translation of two more sections of Dietrich’s December 1942 essay – “On success” and “On foolishness”.
Closing -- A few final reflections
In my many conversations with collaborators in the healthcare sphere, my place/function could be described as pastoral minus any ‘religious’ nuance. I see Dietrich -- from his 1939 return forward -- to have been moving/maturing into a similar place/function with his family (the immediate recipients of the December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay) and among the circle of conspirators embedded deep inside the Abwehr. Most of my conversation partners are embedded deep inside the medical education and practice environments with the shared resolve to confront barriers to a humane practice of medicine, energized by a passion for social justice.
My professional experiences have been deeply impacted by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s decisions during the war years and his radical thoughts in prison. It should be noted that this influence has changed somewhat from the mid-1970s to the present. The reason is linked to the reality that the Bonhoeffer most helpful to me was/is the Bonhoeffer of the war years, the imprisoned Bonhoeffer, the Bonhoeffer who ‘might have been’ had he survived and had he pursued the fresh questions/ideas he had only started to seriously consider and, thereby, to the bridge to this Bonhoeffer the Bethges so graciously provided me. When I had the privilege of meeting with them in Boston back in 1993, I described in detail my rather imaginative way of appropriating the later Bonhoeffer and had resolved to cease doing so if they thought I was violating his experience during the war years. Their reassuring and refreshing encouragement that day and for the many subsequent years of friendship made the pivotal role Dietrich had/has for me possible as I continue to live out my questions/ideas that resonate so clearly with his questions/ideas in the prison letters. Renate continued to be bridging for me after Eberhard’s death (2000). Our last meaningful visit/conversation was in 2008. The previously subtle indications of dementia were clearly detectable then. Within a few months, she was lost to dementia. Without either Eberhard or Renate these past few years, Dietrich seems less accessible.
Douglas Brown, PhD
Surgical Ethics Specialist
Center for Humanism and Ethics in Surgical Specialties
Department of Surgery
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
St. Louis, MO
