Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 Quotes

“It is more sensible to be pessimistic; disappointments are left behind and one can face people unembarrassed. Hence, the clever frown upon optimism. In its essence, optimism is not a way of looking at the present situation, but a power of life, a power of hope when others resign, a power to hold our heads high when all seems to have come to nought, a power to put up with setbacks, a power that never abandons the future to the opponent but lays claim to it. Certainly, there is a stupid, cowardly optimism that has to be frowned upon. But no one ought to despise optimism as the will for the future, however many times it is mistaken. It is the health of life that the ill dare not infect. (DBWE 8, Prologue)”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“We should not romanticize the ‘second life’ that Bonhoeffer was leading as a series of adventures out of a spy novel. For him, his activities on behalf of the conspiracy were a necessary evil, a contribution he had to make because there was no one else who could do it, and which had to be made to bring about peace and to stop the Nazis’ crimes.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Where the figure of a successful person becomes especially prominent, the majority fall into idolizing success. They become blind to right and wrong, truth and lie, decency and malice ..... Success per se is the good. This attitude is only genuine and excusable while one is intoxicated by events. After sobriety returns it can be maintained only at the cost of deep inner hypocrisy, with conscious self-deception. (DBWE 6, 89)”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Thus both from within and without, Hitler received moral support for his claim to be the God-given executor of historical justice, and only a small remnant was able to perceive, precisely here, Satan in the form of an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11:14; DBWE 16, 530–31)”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“From 1933 onward, Bonhoeffer was better informed than most of his colleagues about what was really going on in Germany. He got his information, as long as it was possible, from the foreign press and foreign radio broadcasts.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“In a repentant sermon the following Sunday, Pastor Julius von Jan in Oberlenningen, Württemberg said: Who would have thought that this single crime in Paris could result in so many crimes committed here in Germany? Now we are facing the consequences of our great apostasy, our falling away from God and Christ, of organized anti-Christianity. Passions are being unleashed and the commandments of God ignored. Houses of God which were sacred for others are being burnt down, the property of others is being plundered or destroyed. Men who have served our nation loyally and conscientiously fulfilled their duties have been thrown into concentration camps, merely because they belong to another race. Those in authority may not admit to any injustice, but to the healthy good sense of our people it is quite clear, even though no one dares speak of it.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“In early 1938, official church president Werner gave orders that on Hitler’s 49th birthday in April, all Protestant pastors must swear an ‘oath of allegiance to the Führer and Reich Chancellor’ (Hitler’s two titles). Werner’s decree included the words, ‘Anyone who refuses to take the oath is to be dismissed.’ It was the time just following the annexation of Austria, which had been greeted with a wave of enthusiasm nationwide, so that any pastor who expressed reservations about Werner’s order came under a cloud; ‘the nation could not depend on him’. German Christians took the oath immediately, ‘with joyful hearts and in obedience to an inner command”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Most of Bonhoeffer’s students were later called up for military service and lost their lives in the war, but the small group that survived had a sense of belonging together which lasted all their lives and was evident to everyone who came into contact with them.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Even the ecumenical movement has to make up its mind and is therefore subject to error, like everything human. But to put off acting and taking a position simply because you are afraid of erring, while others – I mean our brethren in Germany – have to reach infinitely difficult decisions daily, seems to me almost to go against love. To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love ..... and in this case it is really now or never. ‘Too late’ means ‘Never’.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“He was not the sort of preacher who stood up in the pulpit with just a few notes; every sermon was written out word for word. Sixteen of his sermons in London have been preserved.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Spontaneous’ was one of the Nazis’ favourite words for actions planned by the Party.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“It is important to appreciate the extent to which, before Hitler, German Jews had been integrated in German society. There were no ghettos, and no one gave any thought to the fact that, for instance, Bonhoeffer’s friend Franz Hildebrandt, who was preparing for ordination as a Lutheran pastor, had a Jewish mother.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“even after these conservatives who had pulled the strings saw how greatly they had been deceived in this new Reich Chancellor and his party, they did not so much as attempt to turn the wheel back again. The people, including the millions-strong army of the unemployed, reacted with a mixture of apprehension and dim hope. Perhaps at last their fortunes were about to take a turn for the better.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Hitler did not become Reich Chancellor through a victory by his party or by the will of the people, as the term ‘taking power [Machtergreifung]’ might suggest. In the election of 6 November 1932, two-thirds of the voters did not vote for him. It was some influential conservative leaders – including former Chancellors Papen and Schleicher, and Oskar von Hindenburg, son of the Reich President – who thought it would be a clever tactical move to bring Hitler into the coalition in power and thus exercise some restraint over him.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Why is the . . . Church of Christ, as it appears in the World Alliance, afraid?’ Because it knows there is a commandment to peace, and yet with the clear vision that is given to the church, sees the reality that is full of hate, enmity, violence. It is as if all the powers on earth had conspired together against peace; as if money, the economy, the drive to power, even the love of one’s fatherland have been dragged into the service of hate .”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Thus the church must not proclaim principles which are true for all time, but only commands which are true for today. For whatever is ‘always’ true, is just what ‘today’ is not true: God is ‘always’, for us, the One who is God ‘today’. (DBW 11, 332)”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“So on the spot I decided to say to him, ‘Look, God made the animals, the same as people, and certainly loves the animals too. And I think God has arranged things so that everybody on earth who loved someone, really loved them, will get to be together with them in God’s heaven, because loving is a part of God. Even though we don’t know how it actually happens.’ –You should have seen then, the happiness on that boy’s face; he had stopped crying completely. ‘So I’ll see Mr Wolf again, when I’m dead too, and play with him’ –he was transported with joy. I said to him a couple of times more that we don’t know how that happens. But he knew”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Hitler’s military organization was confusing, and he often fiddled with it to keep it that way and guarantee his own power to micro-manage anything he wished.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance

“Bonhoeffer’s stirring phrase, ‘Christianity entails decision’, was now sharpened to the more precise point that faith means making a decision, for there is no faith without obedience.”
― Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance