Dietrich keenly felt the loss of his grandmother. It was the end of an era, and he sensed it could be the last time the extended Bonhoeffer family was together in one place.
Back in Finkenwalde, Dietrich prepared the first group of students for graduation. On the night of his thirtieth birthday, they all sat around the fire singing and telling stories. The students begged Dietrich for stories of his time in Spain, the United States, and London, and Dietrich happily obliged. After a while the conversation shifted to how the students would love to see more of the world themselves and meet Christians from other countries and cultures. Suddenly the idea grew that they should all visit Sweden together. Jokingly they suggested Dietrich give them such a trip as a birthday gift from him to them. Dietrich loved the idea. It was just what he felt they all needed to lift their spirits. A trip outside Germany would help the students understand the church in a wider context and let them see that the true church around the world was standing with them.
Dietrich eagerly began planning. He didn’t see any sense in delaying the trip. He was concerned that the Nazis would find out what they were up to and forbid them to leave the country. As it was, travelers were not allowed to take money out of the country, and the seminary students would have to rely on the kindness of Swedish Christians to board and feed them.
Within a month of coming up with the idea, the group was on its way to Sweden. The trip proved to be a boost for everyone. Most of the students had never traveled outside Germany, and it was eye-opening for them to see that there were Christians in another country who openly accepted them. As they traveled, Dietrich posed the questions that had influenced so much of his own thinking: What is the church? Is it made up of people from the same country or cultural background, or is it made up of people who love God and follow the teachings of Christ? As he listened to the students’ answers, Dietrich was satisfied that they were learning to see the true church and not the false version being presented to the world by the German Christian movement.
Regretfully, when the group returned to Germany, they discovered that their trip had been well documented. Dietrich had arranged the trip through his brother-in-law in the Justice Department. The group’s plans had leaked out, and Bishop Heckel was not happy with Dietrich. The bishop carefully reviewed Dietrich’s movements and decided he had violated a recent law banning university lecturers from leaving the country without a permit. As a result, Dietrich was dismissed from his weekly lecturing position at the University of Berlin. However, Bishop Heckel was reluctant to go any further in punishing Dietrich for his actions, at least for the moment. This was because an important event was about to take place that would put Germany on the world stage—the 1936 Olympic Games.
During the time leading up to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Berlin on August 1, the Nazis did all they could to make Germany look like a peace-loving, just society. Dietrich watched as the “No Jews Allowed” signs were removed from the city’s main tourist attractions. Other groups whom Hitler didn’t think looked “German” enough, such as the Romani, Gypsies living on the outskirts of Berlin, were rounded up and placed in camps far away from the international visitors arriving for the games. German-Jewish athletes were barred from participating in the games, and many countries considered boycotting the event as a result. In the end, only the Soviet Union and Spain, where civil war had just broken out, were not present for the games.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics were spectacular. No expense was spared, and red and black swastika flags draped every building in the city. When the games were over, the New York Times declared that the Olympic Games put Germans “back in the fold of nations” and even made them “more human again.”
But not for long. As soon as the Olympic Games were over, the Nazis reverted to persecuting non-Aryans and the Confessing Church. Even people who had been invaluable to the success of the games, like the head of the Olympic Village, Captain Wolfgang Fürstner, were not spared. Two days after the Olympics were over, Fürstner was dismissed from military service because of his Jewish ancestry. He killed himself that night.
Dietrich preached several times in Berlin during the bustle of the Olympics, but he was glad to get back to Finkenwalde. Following the graduation of the first seminary class, another group of about thirty young men took their place. But even in Finkenwalde, the post-Olympics crackdown could be felt. The Nazis made it illegal to read people’s names out loud for prayer in church and for a church to send out any kind of newsletter or duplicated letter. All such communication had to be in the form of a personal letter, signed by hand. It was declared illegal for Confessing Church pastors to take up any kind of collection.
Such changes sapped the strength of many church workers. Dietrich did all he could to help them stand firm in the face of such opposition, but it was a discouraging task. Still, he did what he could, arranging for the wives of pastors arrested and taken to concentration camps to stay with his friend Ruth von Kleist-Retzow.
While running the seminary, Dietrich worked on the manuscript of a book of sermons based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He planned to call the book Discipleship.
On July 1, 1937, Dietrich and his friend Eberhard were in Berlin visiting family and gathering information when they decided to visit Martin Niemöller, leader of the Confessing Church. Martin lived in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem. When Dietrich and Eberhard arrived at his house, they found only Dietrich’s old friend Franz Hildebrandt and Martin Niemöller’s wife, who recounted that the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) had arrested Martin and taken him away only minutes before.
As the four of them sat at the dining table talking the situation over, several black Mercedes cars roared to a halt in front of the Niemöller house—the Gestapo were back. Dietrich, Eberhard, and Franz bolted out the back door of the house, right into the arms of a Gestapo officer who escorted them back inside and put them all under arrest.
Meanwhile, the Gestapo began searching the house. As they searched, an odd situation arose. Martin was a popular pastor, and as people came to the house to visit, they too were placed under arrest. Several hours passed, and Dietrich was surprised when he looked out the front window of the house and saw his parents’ car drive by with his mother peering at the house from the rolled-down car window. The car drove past several times, and Dietrich wondered how his parents had found out what was going on.
Finally the Gestapo found a safe hidden behind a picture, from which they extracted a thousand marks. It was money Martin used to help pastors in emergencies. Pleased with their find, after seven hours, the Gestapo let all those under arrest go. Dietrich breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away from the house a free man.
Following Martin’s arrest, Franz took over the preaching and pastoral duties at the church. He was just as fearless as Martin and met the same fate. On July 18, 1937, he was arrested by the Gestapo for reading aloud a prayer list containing the names of pastors sent to concentration camps and for taking up a collection in church. Dietrich was not present at the Dahlem church when Franz was arrested, but he heard about it later.
Franz was arrested at the end of the service. The congregation immediately began harassing the Gestapo officers arresting him. They screamed at the officers as they marched Franz outside and placed him in their car. They followed, surrounding the Gestapo car, beating on it. For some reason the car wouldn’t start, and the Gestapo officers climbed out into the crowd and marched Franz off to jail on foot. The congregation followed, drawing everyone’s attention to the actions of the normally secretive Gestapo. As a result, more people joined the protest procession. What Dietrich found amusing was that in the confusion, the Gestapo officers became disoriented and marched off in the opposite direction of Gestapo headquarters.
While Franz’s arrest had its amusing side, Dietrich was concerned about his friend and rushed back to Berlin to see how he could help. In Berlin he learned that Franz had been sentenced to twenty-eight days in Plötzensee prison. Dietrich talked to his brother-in-law Hans about the situation, and Hans was able to pull some strings at the Ministry of Justice to get Franz released from prison two days early. This gave Franz a great advantage. His paperwork said he would be released from jail in twenty-eight days, but he was out in twenty-six. It was a common Gestapo practice to put a person in prison for a time and wait until he or she was released. Within minutes of release, the Gestapo would rearrest the person and ship him or her off to a concentration camp. Franz, whose mother was Jewish, would certainly have been subjected to torture and abuse in a concentration camp. But because of his early release, Franz slipped across the border into Switzerland before the Gestapo even knew he was free. Dietrich was relieved when he received a call informing him that Franz was safely in England, staying with Bishop Bell.
Soon after Franz’s escape from Germany, the fifth group of seminary students graduated from their six-month course at Finkenwalde. Following graduation, Dietrich traveled to Göttingen to visit Sabine and her husband, Gerhard Leibholz. While in Göttingen, he received a phone call from Finkenwalde. It was bad news. The Gestapo had arrived and sealed the seminary doors. It was the end of an era. Dietrich knew there was no point in returning. Now he had to decide what was next.
Chapter 13
Crossroads
Heil Hitler! Long live the führer!” Dietrich and his friend Eberhard stood at the loft window of the Bonhoeffer home in Berlin and listened. Thousands of people were gathered along the parade route to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s forty-ninth birthday, April 20, 1938. The din of the crowd echoed across the city while row upon row of soldiers stood at attention.
By now it appeared to Dietrich that Germany was gearing up for another war. Of course, many Germans didn’t believe that Hitler had war on his mind, not even after the anschluss, or joining. A month before, Austria had ceased to exist as an independent nation and was now part of Germany. Through a mix of cunning, deceit, propaganda, and intimidation, Hitler had pulled off the takeover under the guise of uniting all German-speaking lands and territories with Germany. What amazed and disturbed Dietrich about the anschluss was how easily the Nazis had done it and how little other European nations had protested.
According to Dietrich’s brother-in-law Hans, this was just the start. Secret sources had informed Hans that Hitler and the Nazis were recklessly determined to start a glorious war that would lead to Nazi domination of the world. It would be a very different war from the previous one. This time Hitler would be in charge of everything, and there would be no consulting anyone under him. What the führer decided was all that mattered. A chill ran through Dietrich as he thought about it. What would happen to the Jews, the Romani, and all the other groups for which Hitler had a personal disdain? Would there be anywhere for them to hide?
Later that day, Dietrich listened to the führer’s birthday address on the radio. He also learned of a “gift” Hitler had not mentioned on air. As a special present to himself, Adolf Hitler now required all Protestant pastors to swear a personal oath to him. Dietrich saw this as an opportunity to stand up for Jesus Christ. Most of the pastors saw it as a necessary act to continue their work.
Dietrich did not have to take the oath himself, as he was not a registered pastor, but he strongly urged the 150 graduates from the Finkenwalde seminary not to take it. Most of them, however, could see no real harm in taking the oath. This left Dietrich feeling disappointed and alone. Was he the only one who saw how evil Hitler and the Nazis were? Perhaps he was the one who was misguided. Dietrich didn’t think so, but it was hard to keep encouraging young pastors who did not share his sense of urgency or doom.
