Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
This bestselling biography of the heroic Lutheran priest who followed Christ into conspiracy against Hitler has been out for over a year but I only just got around to reading it. If you haven’t yet, you should too. Although it comes in at over 600 pages, it’s terrific stuff and more than worth your time. The story is heartbreaking and life affirming at once. And author Eric Metaxas’s experience as a sometime children’s writer has honed his talent for explaining complex historical issues in straightforward and compelling prose.
Conservatives, especially, seem to find Bonhoeffer’s tale inspiring. Glenn Beck says he couldn’t finish the book because he found it too affecting. At a moment when many feel the evil of anti-semitism is on the rise – or to put it more exactly, evil is on the rise bringing its twin brother anti-semitism with it – it is fortifying to read the story of a man so grounded in Biblical truth that he knew the right path to travel from the very outset and even unto death.
I particularly liked some of Metaxas’s descriptions of the Nazis who took control of a once civilized nation and turned it into a hell out of Hieronymus Bosch. Himmler is “saurian,” Heydrich is a “piscine ghoul,” and Goebbels is a “vampiric homunculus.” (That last is my favorite, though I wrote Eric to say I thought he had been unfair to both vampires and homunculi.)
Best of all, Bonhoeffer challenges the distorted picture many, especially liberals, have sought to paint of this martyr. They have tried to refashion him as a humanist supporter of “religionless Christianity,” and thus made him a vehicle of the “cheap grace” he despised. As Metaxas proves, it was Biblical Christianity and nothing else that guided Bonhoeffer’s sure and certain steps to the Nazi scaffold and upward. That faith is the story, and it comes through on every page.
Bonhoeffer has been a hero since I read “The Cost of Discipleship” as a seminarian. My opinion hasn’t changed. Biblical Christianity is a call to stand for truth and for justice. Bonhoeffer did so unswervingly.
One of the best biographies I have read in the last decade. Interesting insight into how Nazism insinuated itself into everyday life, as well.
I read The Cost of Discipleship in seminary also, but on my own. The liberal seminary I attended (I since have left the denomination) was fine with Rev. Bonhoeffer when he opposed the Nazis but they saw the possibility that the same approach could be applied to Pres. Clinton and felt it best not to talk about him too much. He was a hero, and I contrast him with the likes of Ann Coulter, whom I think is funny and provocative but who causes me to cringe when I hear her say how important her faith in Jesus Christ is to her. This is between her and God, of course, and I try to be sure I’m not judging, but “by their fruits will ye know them.”
Status Confessionis!
5 years ago whilst visiting London, we quite literally walked into a service at Westminster Abbey commemorating what would have been the 100th birthday of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Beyond the obvious goosebumps of hearing the sounds of “Jerusalem” from the choir and pipe organ while sitting in the epicenter of British history, I was greatly moved by the actual service. Having been taught that very few gentiles stood up to Hitler (especially the clergy and in particular the Vatican, which actually gave its tacit approval by remaining silent), it is always welcome to hear stories that prove otherwise.
The attention given to people such as Klaus Von Stauffenberg I think is undeserved. His attitude towards Hitler only changed when Germany started losing the war, which leads one to wonder what his feelings would have been had Germany won. Bonhoeffer on the other hand spoke out as early as 1933 and continued to oppose Hitler until he was arrested.
In any case, his righteousness and moral clarity should be recognized and he is rightly deserving of the title “hero.”
“(especially the clergy and in particular the Vatican, which actually gave its tacit approval by remaining silent)”
Which is entirely untrue; a fiction Stalin’s minions started and which has become Narrative ever since, especially since the mendacious 1962 play by Rolf Hochuth, an agent of the Stasi. Never mind that Bonhoeffer himself was sheltered for two years by the monks of Ettal Abbey, along with dissident priest Rudolf Mayr. Never mind the Catholic-based White Rose movement, all executed by the Gestapo. Never mind the pastoral letter Mit Brennenger Sorge, over the signature of Pius XI but written by Eugenio Pacelli, shortly to become Pius XII, instructing German Catholics that they could not consistent with the Faith belong to or support the Nazi Party. Ignore Pius XIIs repeated denunciations of Germany’s treatment of Jews (denunciations the Narrative wants to flush down the Memory Hole).
Um, no.
I refer you to the Reichskonkordat between the Vatican and Hitler, signed very soon after he came to power, which gave tremendous prestige and a stamp of legitimacy. Easy to see happen because of the nearly 1,500 year history of persecution and damnation of Jews from the pulpits all across Europe. From then to the end of the war, Pius and the Catholic church remained silent and did not lift a finger to save the Jews. The German clerics strongly protested the Aktion T-4 euthanasia program and it was stopped. So they had the power and influence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat
And of course after the war, with Hitler gone and Nazism defeated, the Vatican directly helped hundreds if not thousands of SS and war criminals flee Germany through Italy and on to safe havens in South America and elsewhere.
While the White Rose movement and other righteous individuals are to be loudly praised and held up as examples, (hence my praise of Dietrich Bonhoeffer), tragically they were few and far between. Far fewer than what your comment suggests.
J.J. Sefton wrote: “From then to the end of the war, Pius and the Catholic church remained silent and did not lift a finger to save the Jews.”
These remarks regarding Pope Pius and the Catholic Church are patently, documentably false.
From the Foreword to “Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau”:
Quote:
During and right after World War II, it was commonly assumed that Christians as well as Jews suffered a great deal under Hitler. Jews were grateful to Catholics and others for such assistance as they were able to provide, and especially esteemed Pope Pius XII, who quite probably saved more Jews from the Nazis than any other single person. That was why Golda Meir, one of the founders and later Prime Minister of the newly created Jewish state of Israel, thanked the pope and honored him among the righteous gentiles: “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the pope was raised for the victims.”
Similarly, Moshe Sharett, the second Prime Minister of Israel, remarked after meeting with Pius: “I told him [the Pope] that my first duty was to thank him, and through him the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews. We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church.”
End of quote.
In a recent (2003) interview, leading Holocaust historian Sir Martin Gilbert said: “Hundreds of thousands of Jews [were] saved by the entire Catholic Church, under the leadership and with the support of Pope Pius XII.”
In a 2005 article, Sir Martin writes of the notorious 1943 Nazi deportation of Jews from Rome:
Quote:
News of the start of the round-ups was brought personally to the Pope early on the morning of October 16…
To protect those who were thus still in their homes from a possible German reversal of the halt to the deportations, the Pope gave instructions for the Vatican to be opened to Rome’s Jews, and for the convents and monasteries of Rome to provide hiding places, or provide false identification papers.
As a result of this papal initiative, in Rome a larger percentage of the Jews were saved than in any other city then under German occupation. Of the 5,715 Roman Jews listed by the Germans for deportation, 4,715 were given shelter in more than 150 Catholic institutions in the city; of these, 477 were given sanctuary within the confines of the Vatican itself.
End of quote (source: http://spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-pope/1)
Much more has been written to dispel the pernicious myth of a Pope and Church indifferent to the plight of the Jews during WWII. A number of helpful links may be found here:
http://popepiusxiiandthejews.blogspot.com/