Just saw the documentary "Bonhoefer"

[JDPriestly]

My father was a great admirer of Dietrich Bonhoefer, but I didn't know anything about him other than that he was a theologian in Germna in WWII. I recommend the film. Has anyone else seen it? What do you know about Bonhoefer? His story is inspiring but also very frightening. He and his family were involved in the famous plot to assassinate Hitler. What a horrifying time they lived in.

[AspenRose]

1. I have great admiration for him

I saw a movie on his life that was being circulated by the Lutheran church. I wept like a baby at the end.

Pretty amazing man.

[babylonsister]

2. Hmmm-Lutherans. I have stories also. But that's a different subject. nt

[Hekate]

3. Highly recommended: article on Bonhoefer in Sojourners

I was introduced to Bonhoefer early in college, probably in Philosophy 101, and never forgot the name. He was a Lutheran minister who resisted the Nazis and was hanged in his prison cell. One of the righteous gentiles.

I subscribe to Sojourners as a gesture of support for the work Rev. Jim Wallis is doing to resist the Bushies, and I hope his fate will be happier.

The February issue has an article by Larry Rasmussen called The Steep Price of Grace:

"An encounter following a recent viewing of a documentary on Dietrich Bonhoeffer unnerved me. As discussion of the film about the German theologian and leader of Christian resistance to the Nazis drew to a close, an elderly gentleman stepped to the microphone and said simply: 'I'm a Holocaust survivor and I can tell you what year *this* is: It's 1932.' He turned and left."

The rest of the article includes the author's analysis of the complex social issues that led to the rise of Nazism and Hitler: It was not inevitable at all. The analysis includes strong parallels to what we are enduring in our time.

I'll try to see if the article has appeared in Sojo online; if I can I will add a link on edit.

I was really struck by the anecdote about the elderly gent because during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq I encountered three or four elderly Europeans who were having horrible flashbacks to the 1930s. One was my mother-in-law, another was a Hungarian woman I talked to at one of the many meetings I was attending at the time, and also a married couple who spent the war in Dutch Indonesia.

My MIL was raised in Vienna and escaped to Belgium with two of her sisters and their children. Subsequently one sister and her kids were taken by the SS; my MIL ended up in one of the minor camps at the very end of the war, where she barely missed the last train to Auschwitz. She's old and frail now and seems to live to kvetch, so it was a shock to have her up and say the atmosphere in this country was all-too-reminiscent of Austria in the 1930s.

The witness of these people made manifest what I had not been able to say for fear of sounding melodramatic or paranoid. I'm not Jewish, I'm one of DUs happy little pagans, and I know all too well that making comparisons to the Holocaust can be misunderstood as cheapening that defining event of the 20th century. It shook me because I knew we were in even deeper trouble than I had been able to see before.

Hekate

link on edit:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=Soj0602&article=060220

Another snippet:
> The rise of National Socialism was not inevitable, Stern said in his speech. Some clearheaded Germans recognized emerging Nazism as a "monstrous danger and ultimate nemesis." But there was also widespread "civic passivity and willed blindness."
>
> Still, Stern continued, these are only preconditions, which of themselves don’t explain "the triumph of evil in a deeply civilized country." What then does?

[JDPriestly]

6. Great article. Thanks for the link.

I was shocked to see photos of pastors and priests in German churches saluting Hitler in the Heil Hitler manner. Our time is so like that of the Germans in that period. You are absolutely right. My husband lived in that part of the world during WWII and likens Bush to Hitler. Maybe you and I can't make the comparison, but my husband can. He remembers what it was like living under Hitler during the War.

If you think of it, our situation is very similar to that of the German people in the 30s. We lost the Viet Nam war. That was a crushing blow to the pride of many Americans. Many Americans never recovered from that loss and are still fighting that battle. (as we saw in the last presidential campaign). On top of that, in the '70s we experienced the oil crises, which brought home the fact that we are in a very shaky economic position. Oil is the basis of our economy. Petroleum is the raw material of so much of what we use and need to survive today -- as well as the source of much of our energy. On top of that, it is essential to our transportation. Yet we know we are running out of it or will not be able to afford it sooner or later -- more likely sooner. Like the NAZIs, the conservatives have moved right in and are exploiting the fear and uncertainty of those of us who feel frightened by the changes we face.

Back to Bonhoefer -- I think it is sad that he lost faith in nonviolence. It must have been horrible to see the corruption, the cruelty and the hate take over and to witness the massacre of millions of people -- including, don't forget, many, many Germans and Austrians and followers of Hitler. Still, Bonhoefer's death was a terrible loss to our society and to Christianity. He was only 39 when he died. Had he survived the war, he could have led the way to a truly relevant Christian church and made enormously important contributions to the entire world. That is quite a lesson.

[funflower]

4. There was a PBS movie about Bonhoeffer a while back.

I'm sure you could find it.

[flyingfysh]

5. read the book

There is a collection "Letters and Papers from Prison" of letters Bonhoeffer wrote. Get it practically anywhere.