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| Bonhoeffer, at Tegel Prison Courtyard, Summer 1944 |
Bonhoeffer was put to death by his own government, executed by the Nazis in Germany just weeks before the end of World War II, at Tegel Prison. Bonhoeffer's fame owes itself partly, for sure, to his wonderful books, especially Cost of Discipleship, to his witness to Christian faithfulness in his active resistance to the Nazi regime from the time of Hitler's ascent to power in 1933, and to his remarkable courage and witness in the years of his imprisonment leading up to his execution.
However, it could be that what puts Bonhoeffer at or near the top of the list of famous theologians may be a misunderstanding concerning why the Nazis killed him. Bonhoeffer was well known as a pacifist in the years leading up to his arrest, based in part on his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount in Discipleship. But then, the story goes, he had a change of heart given the exigencies of Nazi tyranny and joined with the conspiracy that sought to assassinate Hitler. The attempt on Hitler's life failed, the conspirators were arrested, and most -- including Bonhoeffer -- put to death.
Bonhoeffer, then, has become kind of a poster boy for "Christian realism", a recognition that pacifism is a fine ideal but at times in the real world one must, of necessity, turn to the sword and use "evil" methods to defeat a greater evil. In that way, it's commonly perceived that political involvement for Christians will ultimately always require you get your hands dirty. (This realism hasn't gone away, either. I heard it articulated most recently in a PBS news broadcast discussing the American use of drones and the President's sanction of them.)
Now, this use of Bonhoeffer's martyrdom may be, and of course has, been vigorously debated for years. But maybe one of the premises that all sides to the debates have generally accepted -- that Bonhoeffer indeed did take part in the effort to kill Hitler -- is not actually true.
After re-reading Discipleship recently, I was struck by the stark contrast of the widely-accepted claim about Bonhoeffer's death in contrast with what he claimed in those pages. So I set off on a search. This is an accounting of what I now think about Bonhoeffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was -- in every account -- a remarkable young theologian quickly rising to prominence in Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s. When he was in his mid-20s, he experienced what he termed a "conversion" stemming from his close reading of the Sermon on the Mount. One fruit of this conversion was a commitment to pacifism. Probably everyone who has looked at his life would agree that Bonhoeffer did have this profound clarity in his convictions, and that his life reflected those convictions.
Bonhoeffer was one of the early opponents to Nazism and courageously spoke out against Hitler's new government from the start, especially focusing on challenging Christians in Germany not to support what Bonhoeffer, with his friend and mentor Karl Barth, understood to be Nazi idolatry. Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship during this time and seriously considered going to India to study with Gandhi. He was in touch with Gandhi and arrangements were made, but in the end Bonhoeffer felt the urgency to stay in Germany.
During the 1930s, Bonhoeffer devoted himself to church work, training pastors, preaching, and writing -- embodying the resistance he advocated. Part of what is most remarkable about Bonhoeffer is how unfriendly Germany was to pacifism, even long before the Nazis. He was indeed a voice crying in the wilderness.
Of course, in every account, Bonhoeffer was also in prison. Arrested by the Nazis, he was well aware that the likelihood of execution was pretty high. During these several years, he served as a pastor to his fellow inmates, wrote when he could (a collection of these writings, Letters and Papers From Prison, has become a theological and spiritual classic), and strove to sustain what relationship he could with his loved ones outside (though often little read, his prison letters to his fiancee are especially poignant). The account of his final months is extraordinarily moving, and reinforces the picture we have from his earliest days of a remarkable Christian disciple embodying Jesus' peaceable way.
So far, none of this is all that controversial in Bonhoeffer circles -- a thoroughly pacifist life and death, lived in the light of Jesus' life and teaching.
Here's where it gets sticky. After looking at the accepted historical account, the assumptions that Bonhoeffer stepped outside his pacifist way of life to join directly in an attempted murder simply don't withstand scrutiny. It's not like there's a large chunk of uncovered new evidences, so much as evidence to support Bonhoeffer's repudiation of pacifism (in theory or practice) simply doesn't seem to exist. That is, the standard account regarding Bonhoeffer has been based on assumptions, not evidence. I'm now in a place to question those assumptions
Bonhoeffer was labeled by the Nazi Gestapo from 1933 on as "a pacifist and enemy of the state"; he was dismissed from his teaching position at Berlin for "political reasons" (most probably that pacifism). He avoided military service because he couldn't allow himself to take human life, especially as an agent of the Nazis. Through family connections, he managed to evade military induction by working for a military intelligence agency -- the Abwehr -- but his work there didn't involve anything that directly supported the war effort and in fact served as a cover for him to pursue ecumenical contacts in western Europe. The purpose of these secret contacts was to make possible postwar church relationships. (Witness his contacts from New York and London that were made while he was a student at Union Theological Seminary.)
Bonhoeffer was part of a collection of about 100 Nazi resisters in the Abwehr, and a handful of those were directly involved in the July Assassination Plot known as Valkyrie. But there's no evidence that Bonhoeffer himself was -- we simply have to assume that he was involved in Valkyrie in order for the traditional account to be true. After the conspiracy was discovered, thousands were arrested, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with the plot. At Bonhoeffer's trial, he was convicted of draft evasion (which itself would have been a capital offense). That is, the Nazis themselves never claimed Bonhoeffer was involved in the plot. That, I think, is the most significant piece of evidence against Bonhoeffer's alleged "realism" and repudiation of his long-standing pacifism.
If I'm right, this would make Bonhoeffer's life and death not only consistent, but sensible. Bonhoeffer refused to fight in the military and found a way to do constructive ecumenical work while not violating his convictions. He was arrested mainly because he was known to have connections with assassination conspirators, but was convicted of draft evasion (in his case, a profoundly pacifist stance), not involvement in the plot. In the end, he was executed. We don't know exactly why, but quite likely simply because he was seen as an enemy of the state (which had been his label from 1933) -- one of thousands the Nazis put to death in the final months of the war as a concluding act of revenge. (Hitler was notorious for that level of revenge.)
I think there's good reason to see Bonhoeffer as a martyr.
To be honest, it's always bothered me that most folks have seen his that way. According to the standard account, Bonhoeffer was not a martyr due to following Jesus, really, but for recognizing the need to quit following Jesus in this extreme circumstance.
If I'm right about this picture of Bonhoeffer -- and I think I am -- he was a consistent follower of Jesus all the way. Bonhoeffer died because he was a pacifist, not because he repudiated pacifism.
It also means those who want to use Bonhoeffer as a test case against genuine pacifism have to let this one go.