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COPYRIGHT 2000 Professors World Peace Academy
This paper reviews the evidence for the charge that, if not antisemitic, Dietrich Bonhoefer was at best "the best of a bad lot." The article examines the charge in the context of the time and place in which Bonhoefer lived, as well as the dominant Lutheran doctrine of that time. In this context the article concludes that for Bonhoefer "...to will the defeat of his own nation and to participate in bringing it about" was an extraordinarily courageous act and that he "...fully merits the accolade righteous Gentile."
On May 26, 1996 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum held a ceremony honoring Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi as "righteous gentiles" who helped to save Jews during the Third Reich. The ceremony was not without controversy concerning Bonhoeffer's role. One especially harsh Jewish critic has called Bonhoeffer "the best of a bad lot." [1] Anticipating the controversy, the Museum staff felt compelled to include the following statement in the invitation:
Although repudiating Nazism, Bonhoeffer also expressed the anti-Jewish bias of centuries-old Christian teaching.
The path taken by Bonhoeffer to his ultimate martyrdom was anything but simple. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been described as "an insider who became an outsider in his own land." [2] He was born into a family that was part of Germany's Bildungsb[ddot{u}]rgertum, the educated middle classes that considered themselves the custodians of the nation's "true" values. [3] His paternal grandfather, Friedrich E. P. T Bonhoeffer (1828-1907) was President of the High Court at T[ddot{u}]bingen at the time of his death. His father, Dr. Karl Bonhoeffer, was one of Germany's most distinguished psychiatrists, serving as Professor of Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases at the University of Berlin and director of the psychiatric and neurological clinic at Berlin's Charit[acute{e}] Hospital Complex from 1912 until his retirement in 1938. Karl Bonhoeffer was "religiously unmusical," to use a phrase once applied to Max Weber. On his mother's side, religion had played a more significant role. His maternal great-grandfather Karl August vo n Hase (1800-1890) was a church historian and professor at Jena. His son, Dietrich's grandfather, I(ad Alfred von Hase (1842-1914) served as Court Preacher to Kaiser Wilhelm II and Professor of Practical Theology at Breslau. [4] The insider tradition was continued in Dietrich's generation. His brother Kari-Friedrich was appointed to the chair of physics in Frankfurt at age 31. His twin sister Sabine married Gerhard Liebhold, a constitutional lawyer; who was appointed professor at G[ddot{o}]tttingen in 1931 only to be compelled to "retire" in 1938 because, although Christian, he was of Jewish origin. His sister Christine married Hans von Dohnanyi, who was executed in 1945 for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler as were his brother Klaus and another brother-in-law Dr. R[ddot{u}]diger Schleicher, who served in the Ministry of Transport.
Unlike most of their contemporaries among the Bildungsb[ddot{u}]rgertum, from the outset the Bonhoeffer family had few illusions about Hitler and National Socialism. Fifteen years after the war's end, Karl Bonhoeffer wrote:
From the start, we regarded the victory of National Socialism in 1933 and Hitler's appointment as chancellor as a misfortune--the entire family agreed on this. [5]
The first public expression of the family's opposition was the action of Dietrich's grandmother, Julie Tafel Bonhoeffer, who ignored the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses on April, 1, 1933 and, at age 91, marched past a menacing group of stormtroopers posted in front of the Jewish-owned department store, Kaufhaus des Westens. The presence of Gerhard Liebholz in the family also gave the family an early understanding of the practical consequences of National Socialist racism. Had the Bonhoeffer family chosen the path elected by the overwhelming majority of members of their caste and religious background, they would have found a way to accommodate, if not embrace, National Socialism.
The issue of political legitimacy was crucial for the Bonhoeffer family, as it was for most other members of their caste. It was one thing to disapprove of Hitler's tactics; it was quite another to regard the government as utterly unworthy of allegiance and obedience. Taking this step was especially difficult for Dietrich because it went counter to everything his Lutheran tradition had taught about the state and the individual's obligation to it. The Lutheran teaching concerning the individual's relationship to political authority ultimately derives from Romans 13. In that classical passage, Paul expounds on...
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