Summary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Bonhoeffer wrote this final paragraph at the end of 1942 or in autumn 1943. It was never completed, but it was planned as part of After Ten Years. The German text does not appear in the new German edition of Letters and Papers, but in Gesammelte Schriften II, p. 441.
#2 I am fine, and I am grateful for the small things in prison. I am anxious about my fiancée, though, who has only recently lost her father and brother in the East.
#3 Dietrich had not thought of the most obvious things first. He had not written to Dietrich, but he wanted to let him know that people were thinking about him. He had many heartfelt questions, but this note could not be more than the need to tell him all sorts of inconsequential matters.
#4 I want you to know that I am grateful to you for everything you have been and are to my wife, my children, and myself. I hope that you can be free soon, and that the two of you can be together.

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669372844
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Bonhoeffer wrote this final paragraph at the end of 1942 or in autumn 1943. It was never completed, but it was planned as part of After Ten Years. The German text does not appear in the new German edition of Letters and Papers, but in Gesammelte Schriften II, p. 441.

#2

I am fine, and I am grateful for the small things in prison. I am anxious about my fiancée, though, who has only recently lost her father and brother in the East.

#3

Dietrich had not thought of the most obvious things first. He had not written to Dietrich, but he wanted to let him know that people were thinking about him. He had many heartfelt questions, but this note could not be more than the need to tell him all sorts of inconsequential matters.

#4

I want you to know that I am grateful to you for everything you have been and are to my wife, my children, and myself. I hope that you can be free soon, and that the two of you can be together.

#5

I am still being treated well, and I am allowed out of doors for half an hour every day. I am reading a lot, and I am reading the Bible. I am very thankful for everything.

#6

I have been in Austria for three weeks now. I like going to bed at eight o’clock, and I look forward to my dreams. I never knew before what a source of pleasure dreaming can be. I dream every day, and always about something pleasant.

#7

I was outside with Susi when I brought you the things. I hope I’ve sent you the items roughly what you wanted. You must see that you keep your strength up. We have just received a letter from you, and we are eagerly awaiting the next.

#8

Easter is over, and everyday life now has its due. We have missed you very much in the past days. We’ve chiefly been working in the garden and music has taken a back place. But it has not been absent altogether.

#9

I have had four weeks in prison. I was able to accept my lot from the beginning, but I am now getting used to it in a natural and unconscious way. I am learning to live without trust, but I hope that one day I will be able to share the joys of their home.

#10

I received many gifts from my friends, including a clothes brush, mirror, towel, face-cloth, and warm socks. I was also given Holl, Church History, the volume on the West, and something to smoke.

#11

The how is more important than anything that happens to you from outside. It allays all the anxieties about the future which sometimes torment us. Thank you again for remembering me every day and for all that you are doing on my behalf.

#12

I am writing to you to tell you that I have been engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer since January. It was not to be mentioned until the summer, and I was only to tell my parents. It’s a severe trial for Maria, but she is brave, cheerful, and confident, so I am very encouraged.

#13

The past is important because it teaches us what not to do. It is important to be realistic and not to idealize it, and to remember that we are all subject to self-deception.

#14

The present is determined by what is uppermost in the memory. The past and future are interrupted by a gap of indifference, boredom, and sickness.

#15

I asked the Judge Advocate of the War Court on 20 April 1943 for permission to visit my son Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was under investigation for five weeks. My request was refused. I repeated this request for my wife and myself since my son had been under investigation for more than thirty years.

#16

The wedding was on Saturday, and the family planned to celebrate it happily. They were only getting together after the supper. The wedding was at 2:30 p. m. , followed by a simple meal at the Schleichers.

#17

Dietrich was secretly engaged, and I was glad. He was not one of those who are naturally destined to be bachelors, and in the difficulties that his profession brings today, he needed a good, wise and competent wife.

#18

I am writing to you from prison. The situation is not very different here from anywhere else. I read, meditate, write, and pace up and down my cell. The most important thing is to stick to what you still have and can do.

#19

I would like to receive the following items: two pairs of short underpants, a cellular shirt, and the repaired shoes. I would also like ink, stain remover, and laxative.

#20

The wedding ceremony should be an occasion of joy for the bride and groom. They have chosen a new direction for their lives by agreeing to marry, and they have conquered a new land by their own free and responsible action.

#21

Marriage is more than just your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance through which he wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love, you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory.

#22

God establishes a rule of life for you and your spouse to live by. This rule is so important that God establishes it himself, because without it, everything would get out of control.

#23

The wife’s place is in her husband’s home, which is a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world. It is not founded on the shifting sands of outward or public life, but it has its peace in God.

#24

God has laid on marriage a blessing and a burden. The blessing is the promise of children, and it is from God that parents receive their children. Parents have divine authority in respect of their children.

#25

Dietrich was very glad to hear that Renate was well, and he felt a sense of togetherness with her, even though they were constantly separated by their work. He was always grateful for the little things that separated them.

#26

Dietrich was arrested in Berlin, and I was told that he was being transferred to Hamburg. I met his fiancée and her mother, and they both liked me. I was very impressed with how self-assured and modest they were.

#27

Maria’s letters were a joy to receive, and I was happy to know that she was happy. However, I was also tormented by the fact that I could not help her in any way. I knew that her hard time would eventually be important for our marriage.

#28

I’m very glad that you are now reading Gotthelf, and I’m sure you would like his Wanderungen. I think Susi has them. For serious reading, I have been very glad to read the History of Christian Philanthropy by Ulhorn.

#29

I sent a parcel to my son, filled with all my love. Each one contributed what he could, even the children. I was grateful that my son was healthy, and I hoped that he would be allowed to visit the Judge Advocate’s office in the near future.

#30

I have plans for the summer, and I have booked Grete and the children into Templeburg for three weeks. I will go walking for a couple of days if that is still possible with the billeting and doesn’t use up too many calories.

#31

The church is the place where the language of God, which everyone understands and through which alone people can understand each other again, is discovered. The church is the place where the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel is overcome.

#32

I was extremely happy that you were both below to deliver the Whitsun parcel. The spirit always wants some visible token of the union of love and remembrance, and then material things become the vehicles of spiritual realities.

#33

I was in prison for my beliefs, and my family was worried about me. They wrote to me, asking how I was holding up, and if they could bring me books.

#34

I would like to try and clear up the situation with the Abwehr once again. I would like to state my views on what seems to me to be the very important question of my exemption.

#35

I had no reason to fear further measures by the Gestapo, as I had already been through several. I had withdrawn to the mountains of Bavaria to write a large academic work, and I had reported this to the Gestapo as I was obliged to do.

#36

I did not dispute that the fact that my exemption for the Abwehr followed a few months after the prohibition against speaking was a great inner relief to me. I saw it as a welcome opportunity to rehabilitate myself in the face of the state authorities, which was opportune given the damaging charge that had been made against me.

#37

I have always been careful to avoid meeting colleagues, as my family and colleagues can attest. I have never told anyone that I was in the service of the military Abwehr. I have always said that my work was primarily concerned with the church.

#38

I cannot believe that I have been accused of being a collaborator with the Gestapo. If this were true, I would not have found my fiancée in an old officers’ family, all of whose fathers and sons have served as officers since the beginning of the war.

#39

I was asked to testify about the Friedenthal affair. I was not aware of the details, but I knew that my brother-in-law had spoken to her. I was also told that she had looked me up briefly one day during the summer and asked me whether she could legitimately undertake the task she assumed would be assigned to her. I had answered in the affirmative at that time.

#40

The date of my conversation with my brother-in-law was unclear to me. I believed it was spring 1942, but it may have been years ago. I now believe that the date is completely wrong. I infer this from two things: my brother-in-law occasionally said to me that the carrying out of the whole action lasted more than a year.

#41

I was shocked to hear that Niesel had been threatened with military service, and I couldn’t understand how I could have used such an expression. It made a very un