Bonhoeffer family home, site of conspiracy meetings
TWENTY-ONE
THE WAR HITS HOME
1938
By 1938 Hitler’s war machine had roared to life. His army rolled into Austria and annexed its territory, effectively making Austria part of Germany. Next, he set his sights on Czechoslovakia. Soon all of Europe would be engulfed in the flames of war, and thousands of young German men would be called up to fight. Including the seminarians of the Confessing Church.
Out on a walk one day, the young men under Bonhoeffer’s tutelage debated the issue. Then one of young men turned to Bonhoeffer for advice. What would he do if he were drafted? Bonhoeffer was silent for a long time, as he stooped and let a handful of sand sift through his fingers.
His brothers had fought for Germany, and Bonhoeffer considered himself a patriot. But he was also a pacifist.
Finally, he stood and said, “I pray that God will give me the strength not to take up arms.”1
As he struggled with his own course of action, Bonhoeffer urged the members of the Confessing Church and the Pastors’ Emergency League to give up the safety and comfort of parish life and fight for peace. “There is no way to peace along the way of safety,” he said in a speech. “Peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe.”2
Bonhoeffer had already taken a risk by funneling information to Archbishop George Bell in England and by meeting with leaders of other churches in Europe. Now he was calling on his fellow pastors to join him. “What are we waiting for?” he said. “The time is late.”3 But once again, his pleas fell on deaf ears. The members of the Confessing Church would go only so far: They would condemn Hitler’s interference with religious matters, but they would not take action to help the Jews. Bonhoeffer was crushed.
Not long after that speech, on January 11, 1938, Bonhoeffer was arrested. The Gestapo interrogated him for seven hours before releasing him. He was put on a train and banned from Berlin. The little seminary in the hills was shut down.
Now Sabine turned to him for help. The law requiring Jews to hold special passports was about to go into effect. If she and her family were going to escape, they had to go soon. But where would they go?
Early one morning, Sabine told her two daughters that the family was going away for the weekend with their uncle Dietrich. They packed their car lightly, but the girls were told to wear two sets of underwear since they wouldn’t be back till Monday. Bonhoeffer sang songs to keep the girls distracted as the trip wore on. Eventually, they stopped at a grassy spot by the side of the road for a picnic. Then Bonhoeffer put Sabine and her family back in the car and sent them on. He waved good-bye as the car headed to the Swiss border. Dietrich, through his contacts in the Swiss church, had gotten them to safety. From there, they would go to live in England, with help from Archbishop Bell. They would survive the war in safety.
When Bonhoeffer got back home, a letter was waiting for him. He was to register with the military immediately.
Bonhoeffer prayed for guidance. If he declared himself a conscientious objector, he would be arrested and executed. If he refused to fight, the young seminarians might think he expected them to follow his lead—and they, too, would be killed. How could he obey his own conscience but not risk the lives of others?
While he agonized, others were taking actions on his behalf. Unbeknownst to him, family members and church leaders were arranging for him to go back to the United States. Reinhold Niebuhr, his old professor at Union Theological Seminary, appealed to officials there, telling them that if they didn’t make room for Bonhoeffer, he would end up in a concentration camp.
Hans von Dohnanyi also pulled some strings. He wanted to save his brother-in-law, but he also wanted to preserve Bonhoeffer’s secre t ties to Bell and the British government. And perhaps he could spread the word in the United States of Hitler’s wrongdoings.
By the time he was due to report for service in Hitler’s army, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was on an ocean liner on his way to America.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on a ship traveling to America, summer 1939
TWENTY-TWO
A DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
1939
All the lights were out in the dorms at Union Theological Seminary. All but one—the desk lamp in the prophet’s corner, an ornate wood-paneled room reserved for VIPs. There sat Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an overflowing ashtray on his desk, a small fan blowing a feeble breeze in his direction, as he crumpled up another paper and threw it in the waste can. New York was in the grip of a beastly heat wave and Bonhoeffer was miserable. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t write. He could barely concentrate enough to read his Bible.
He’d arrived to a warm welcome at his old school a few days earlier. He’d been invited for a weekend in the country at the home of Henry Sloane Coffin, the president of the seminary, who’d helped create a position there that would allow Bonhoeffer to safely sit out the war. But Dietrich was instantly sick with regret. He knew that many people had gone to extraordinary lengths on his behalf, but, as he wrote in his diary, he didn’t know why he was in the United States when he could have been back in Germany being useful.
He wandered down to Times Square and stared at the newsreel for an hour, desperately looking for news about Germany. He took a day trip to the World’s Fair, nearby in Queens, if only to get lost in the crowds. But he quickly retreated to his room to think. “One is less lonely when one is alone,”1 he wrote in his diary. And one night, Bonhoeffer sat alone in the common room holding a cup of cold coffee between his hands. As lively conversation swirled around him, Bonhoeffer muttered, “I shouldn’t be here.”2
Now he was alone in a stifling dorm room, “in utter despair.”3 He opened his Bible. “The one who believes does not flee,” it said. (Isaiah 28:16)
It was the sign he had been waiting for. He would go home immediately. “It is cowardice and weakness to run away here now,”4 he wrote in his diary. He hated to disappoint those who had worked so hard on his behalf, but he knew his place was in Germany, not in the safety of the United States. “It probably means more for me than I can see at the moment. God alone knows what.”5
BONHOEFFER’S DIARY
June 15, 1939.
Since yesterday evening I haven’t been able to stop thinking of Germany. I would not have thought it possible that at my age, after so many years abroad, one could get so dreadfully homesick. What was in itself a wonderful motor expedition this morning . . . in the country . . . became almost unbearable . . . I thought how usefully I could be spending these hours in Germany. . . . I was in utter despair.6
Within days, he was on his way back home. While thousands were fleeing the coming war, Bonhoeffer sailed straight into the storm. Despite all the efforts to keep him out of harm’s way, he returned to Germany—on the Queen Mary, the last steamer to cross the Atlantic before the outbreak of World War II.
TWENTY-THREE
FROM CLERGYMAN TO COURIER
1939–40
Dohnanyi was waiting with more secret documents for Bonhoeffer when he arrived home. He had proof of new atrocities. A group of Polish Jews had been herded into a cemetery and shot. Children with birth defects, the blind, the deaf, and the elderly were being sent to medical centers in the countryside, where they were murdered. Poles were declared untermenschen (subhuman) and enslaved in work camps.
It would not be enough to overthrow Hitler, Dohnanyi said. He had to be killed.
But what would happen to their souls if they were to commit murder? Dohnanyi asked. What about the Bible passage that said “all who take up the sword will perish by the sword”? (Matthew 26:52)
Hitler’s brand of evil had “thrown all ethical concepts into confusion,”1 Bonhoeffer told his brother-in-law and the other conspirators. “To think and to act with an eye on the coming generation and to be ready to move on without fear and worry—that is the course that has, in practice, been forced upon us.”2 With these words Bonhoeffer gave the conspirators the mor
al justification—and “the greatness of heart”3—to commit murder. He also offered them reassurance: “God promises forgiveness and consolation to a man who becomes a sinner in [such a] bold venture.”4
As for himself, he said, “If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders, then I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try and wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”5
But how could a small group of conspirators get close enough to the Führer to kill him? Hitler’s personal security was tight. All of his food was made by a private chef, then tested by his doctor. He wore a hat lined with steel. And his personal airplane cabin was armor-plated and outfitted with a parachute.
By now, a handful of military officers who knew about Hitler’s crimes had joined the conspiracy. General Hans Oster and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris would play key roles in the plot, but the conspirators would need to find officers who could get close enough to Hitler to carry out their plan. A chance meeting between Bonhoeffer and a German aristocrat would prove crucial in securing that help. But that wouldn’t take place for some time to come.
Meanwhile, the conspirators needed a go-between with the outside world. Otherwise, they feared, Britain and France would take advantage of Hitler’s death to attack Germany—and many more lives would be lost. And once Hitler was gone, the conspirators would need to show the Allies that there were “good Germans” they could deal with.
They needed someone who could travel back and forth to London inconspicuously. They needed someone who had a secret contact inside the British government. Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer willing to be that person?
THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II
•September 1, 1939—Germany invades Poland.
•September 3, 1939—Great Britain and France declare war on Germany. World War II officially begins.
•September 27, 1939—Poland surrenders.
By now, Dohnanyi was working for the Abwehr, a German intelligence agency, a job that gave him access to secret information about what was going on inside the government. His supervisor, Admiral Canaris, was also a member of the resistance and gave Dohnanyi free rein to continue collecting evidence of atrocities. He allowed Dohnanyi to hire Bonhoeffer as a counterintelligence officer. Not only would this permit Bonhoeffer to avoid the draft, he would now have a cover story for his travel outside of Germany. As far as anyone else could tell he would be collecting information valuable to the German government. But his real purpose was to smuggle damaging information out of the country, to tell foreign contacts about Hitler’s atrocities, and to enlist their help in the coup. While traveling abroad he would also be in a perfect position to overhear information about military plans and pass it on to the conspirators.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer had wanted to use the moral authority of the church to fight Hitler. But by the time he returned from the United States, he was thoroughly disillusioned by the cowardice of his fellow clergy. Now he had a decision to make. To do nothing against Hitler was a sin, he had reasoned. But to kill was also a sin. How could a pacifist, a man of God, justify what he was about to do? The answer was one that had first been articulated by Martin Luther, the founder of the church Bonhoeffer had loved. Sometimes, Luther said, a true believer must “sin and sin boldly.” Bonhoeffer would break the Commandments he had vowed to uphold and renounce his cherished philosophy of nonviolence. He would lie, cheat, and plot murder. And he would do it by using the church as his camouflage.
He would have to keep his role secret—from his friends and even other family members. And he would have to bide his time until he had a way to safely travel to London.
EVENTS OF 1940
•May—Germany attacks Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
•June—The French surrender.
On June 19, 1940, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was sitting at an outdoor café with his friend Eberhard Bethge, enjoying the sunshine. They had tried to put recent events out of their minds, but it was impossible. Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland had already fallen to the Nazis. Holland and Belgium had fallen. Now German tanks were rolling across France.
When news came over the radio that France had surrendered, the café erupted in celebration. People jumped onto their chairs and began singing patriotic songs. People poured into the town square to cheer. The German public, so beaten down after World War I, was triumphant.
To Bethge’s utter astonishment, Bonhoeffer leaped to his feet and gave the “Heil, Hitler!” salute.
Bonhoeffer couldn’t tell his friend what he was doing, but Bethge would understand eventually. If his role in the conspiracy was to go unnoticed, Bonhoeffer would have to pretend he was loyal to Adolf Hitler.
The young pastor had become a double agent.
TWENTY-FOUR
UNDERCOVER
1940–41
Gusts of snow battered the windows of the ancient monastery where Bonhoeffer had holed up for a few months to work on a new book—and wait for his first assignment. Finally, he got word from Dohnanyi. He was being sent to Switzerland, ostensibly to gather intelligence for the Abwehr. In reality, he was meeting with Protestant church leaders from France and the Netherlands and presenting them with evidence of the latest atrocities in Germany and Poland.
Due to the Malicious Practices Act, very little of this information had escaped Germany. Surely, Bonhoeffer thought, once the rest of the world heard about Hitler’s barbarity, their leaders would help the conspirators.
EVENTS OF 1941
•April—Germany conquers Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, North Africa.
•June—Hitler invades Russia.
Undercover as a pastor, Bonhoeffer met with Archbishop Bell’s contacts, in the hopes that Winston Churchill, the new prime minister of England, would be sympathetic to their cause. Many in the British government held the view that all Germans were Nazis, but Bonhoeffer had gone to Switzerland to show the world that there were good Germans willing to stand up to Hitler.
Bonhoeffer spelled out the Nazi atrocities and said there were Germans ready to risk their lives to overthrow Hitler—if only they could get support from Great Britain. Then he waited in vain for a reply. After a few weeks, he had to return home or risk blowing his cover.
But he went back again, this time taking an even more dangerous step.
Bell had sent word that Churchill wasn’t interested in helping the conspirators; he wasn’t even convinced a conspiracy existed. And so Bonhoeffer wrote a memo that described the conspiracy in detail. Later, at a private meeting with Bell in Sweden, he even named some of the prominent members of the group. He tried desperately to prove that the resistance had real support in the military and that they would succeed. This information, if it fell into the wrong hands, would mean execution for all those involved.
“You can rely on it,” Bonhoeffer said. “We shall overthrow Hitler!”1
Still, the British were unwilling to help. Unbeknownst to Bonhoeffer, Churchill wanted a complete military victory over Hitler, nothing less. His foreign secretary dismissed Bonhoeffer in a letter where he wrote, “I see no reason whatsoever to encourage this pestilent priest.”2
But Bonhoeffer didn’t give up. He asked Archbishop Bell to pass his memo on to the American ambassador. He never heard back.
During one of his trips to Switzerland, Bonhoeffer went to visit his former mentor, the theologian Karl Barth. “Why are you actually here?” Barth asked. When Bonhoeffer told him he had joined the conspiracy, Barth was angry. How could a pacifist join such a violent movement? he asked. How could a pastor justify being involved in a plot to kill the leader of his government while other young German men were giving their lives on the front lines of a war? And how could such a crazy scheme succeed?
Bonhoeffer returned home, dispirited, to the streets of Berlin, where Jews were now forced to wear yellow stars pinned to their clothing. “If you want to know the truth,” he wrote to a friend, “I pray for the
defeat of my nation. For I believe it is the only way to pay for all the suffering which my country has caused in the world.”3 He not only prayed for Germany’s defeat, he prayed for Hitler’s death—and he prayed with the men who had pledged to carry it out.
One night at Dohnanyi’s house, he said, if necessary, he would kill Hitler.
His brother-in-law said the plotters needed him more as their spiritual leader. And he said they had another assignment for him.
Operation 7 was the code name for a plan to help seven Jews, including a woman named Charlotte Friedenthal, escape the country. Even though she’d been baptized at birth, Friedenthal was forced to wear a yellow Star of David on her coat because she had “Jewish blood.” All her relatives had fled the country, but she had remained, devoted to her work for the Confessing Church. Now that the little breakaway church had been ruled illegal, she, too, needed to flee. Bonhoeffer tried to intercede for her and six others with the Swiss.
But they were unwilling to help. Bonhoeffer explained that Dohnanyi had gotten Friedenthal and the six others forged documents letters of safe passage to Switzerland. But still the Swiss refused.
Finally, Dohnanyi broke the impasse: He would transfer a large amount of currency to a Swiss bank to pay the refugees’ expenses once they arrived. It was a violation of wartime currency restrictions, but it had to be done. Bonhoeffer, meanwhile, went to his church contacts in Switzerland and arranged for visas and sponsors for the group—which had now grown from seven people to fourteen. Friedenthal was the first to leave; the others arrived safely in Basel a few weeks later. Operation 7 was a success—but it would prove to be Dohnanyi’s and Bonhoeffer’s undoing.