The music at Abyssinian formed an important part of his experience. Bonhoeffer searched New York record shops to find recordings of the “negro spirituals” that had so come to transfix him every Sunday in Harlem. The joyous and transformative power of this music solidified his thinking on the importance of music to worship. He would take these recordings back to Germany and play them for his students in Berlin, and later in the sandy Baltic outposts of Zingst and Finkenwalde. They were some of his most treasured possessions, and for many of his students, they seemed as exotic as moon rocks.
