Years later, Eberhard Bethge said that most people, including him and Bonhoeffer, were unaware of the anti-Semitic ravings of Luther. It was only when the arch-anti-Semite propagandist Julius Streicher began to publish and publicize them that they became generally known. It must have been shocking and confusing for devout Lutherans like Bonhoeffer to learn of these writings. But because he was so intimately familiar with all else Luther had written, he most likely dismissed the anti-Semitic writings as the ravings of a madman, unmoored from his own past beliefs.
