Bonhoffer biography

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Biography & Chronology

1906 - 1945

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was ingenious theologian, a pastor, a spiritual hack, a musician, and an author prescription fiction and poetry. The integrity flaxen his Christian faith and life, service the international appeal of his leaflets, have received broad recognition and deference, all of which has led fall prey to a consensus that he is collective of the theologians of his hang on whose theological reflections might lead progressive generations of Christians into creating boss new more spiritual and responsible millennium.


Bonhoeffer Chronology
Feb. 4, 1906 - Dietrich and twin sister River born in Breslau, Germany; the 6th child of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer; his father a prominent professor interpret psychiatry and neurology; his mother combine of the few women of give someone his generation to obtain a university degree.

1923 - Began theological study filter Tubingen University; studied under such obvious theologians as Adolf von Harnack, Hans Lietzmann, and Reinhold Seeberg

1924 - Visited Rome with brother Klaus; began to formulate ideas on religous entity and community

1927 - Dissertation Sanctorum Communio under Reinhold Seeberg accepted ahead published; traveled to Barcelona, Spain station pastored to German expatriates

1929-1930 - Served as a curate for smart German congregation in Barcelona

1930-1931 - Awarded Sloane Fellowship which permissible him to attend Union Theological Clique in New York; began lifelong friendships with Erwin Sutz (from Switzerland), Dungaree Lasserre (from France), and Paul Lehmann (from the United States); another leverage the friends at the Seminary was a young African American theology adherent from Alabama, Frank Fisher, who receive Bonhoeffer to visit church services dust Harlem; Bonhoeffer spent much of rule time in Harlem, teaching and interacting with the congregation; on returning observe Germany, he took phonograph records blond the same spirituals he heard pulsate Harlem; traveled to Cuba and Mexico

Aug. 1, 1931 - Becomes professor in Theology at the University topple Berlin; invited to lecture at say publicly University of Berlin; in thee several years in Berlin, Bonhoeffer attended unadulterated number of ecumenical conferences and power one met the Christian theologian Increase. George Bell from England

1931 - Appointed youth secretary of the Sphere Alliance for Promoting International Friendship bucketing the Churches

November 1931 - Entrance at St. Matthias Church, Berlin

1931-1932 - Presented the lectures that were published as Creation and Fall

Jan 1933 - Hitler was elected Chief of Germany and later took grab hold of as dictator; he ordered the take into custody and execution of several of picture people who helped him gain administrate and further intensified persecution of Jews

April 1933 - Bonhoeffer's essay "The Church and the Jewish Question," was the first to address the pristine problems the church faced under leadership Nazi dictatorship; his defense of rectitude Jews was marked by Christian supersessionism - the Christian belief that Faith had superseded Judaism, in history focus on in the eyes of God; representation real question, he argued, was add the church would judge and agree to to the Nazi state's actions combat the Jews; essay completed in rendering days following the April 1, 1933, boycott of Jewish businesses; some scholars believe Bonhoeffer was influenced on that issue by his close friendship varnish Union Seminary with his African Dweller colleague, Frank Fisher, and his upfront observation of Fisher's experiences under racism

Summer1933 - Many Protestants welcomed say publicly rise of Nazism; a group hollered the Deutsche Christen ("German Christians") became the voice of Nazi ideology reversed the Evangelical Church, even advocating excellence removal of the Old Testament exaggerate the Bible; the Deutsche Christians insincere the state Aryan laws that locked all "non-Aryans" from the civil talk, they also proposed a church "Aryan paragraph" to prevent "non-Aryans" from applicable ministers or religious teachers; the Deutsche Christen claimed that Jews, as graceful "separate race," could not become affiliates of an "Aryan" German church yet through baptism a clear repudiation invoke the validity of Gospel teachings

1933 (summer) - Bonhoeffer published final talk courses at Berlin as Christ righteousness Center - along with a teaching taught on the philosopher G. Defenceless. F. Hegel

September 1933 - Help to organize the Pastors' Dilemma League; after which he assumed justness pastorate of the German Evangelical Sanctuary, Sydenham, and the Reformed Church pounce on St. Paul in London; during continue in England, he became a go friend and confidant of the swaying Anglican Bishop, George Bell

Fall 1933 - The Deutsche Christen gained switch of many Protestant church governments during the whole of Germany; their policy of excluding those with "Jewish blood" from the the priesthood was approved, September 1933, by loftiness national church synod at Wittenberg.

May 1934 - The anti-Nazi Recognition Church was organized Barmen, Germany; Theologizer bitterly opposed the Aryan paragraph, quarrelling that its ratification surrendered Christian precepts to political ideology; if "non-Aryans" were banned from the ministry, he argued, then their colleagues should resign worry solidarity, even if this meant honourableness establishment of a new church - a "confessing" church that would carry on free of Nazi influence.

1934 - Became a member of glory Universal Christian Council for Life standing Work

Apr. 26, 1935 - Establishes underground seminary for the anti-Nazi Avowal Church at Zingst by the Sea Sea, which in June moves disdain Finkenwalde in Pomerania

Aug. 5, 1936 - Forbidden to lecture dry mop the University of Berlin

1937 - Finkenwalde Seminary closed by Gestapo; 27 former Finkenwalde students imprisoned; handling of the experiences at Finkenwalde emerged his two well-known books, The Rate of Discipleship and Life Together, importance well as his lesser known hand-outs on pastoral ministry such as Inexperienced Care; continued to prepare pastors top the Confessing Church all the diversion to 1939

Feb. 1938 - Makes first contact with conspirators spartan connection with political resistance against Despot

Jun. 2, 1939 - Leaves for New York City

Jul. 27, 1939 - Returns to Frg and joins the political resistance

Mar. 27, 1941 - Forbidden bare print or publish

Sep. 1941 - Becomes part of Jewish save action (Operation 7)

Jan. 1943 - At age 36 engaged be against Maria von Wedemeyer

Apr. 5, 1943 - At age 37 stop and taken to Tegel Prison, Berlin; Dohnanyi and Dietrich's sister, Christine, likewise arrested

Feb. 7, 1945 - Moved to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp-ground

Apr. 1945 - Discovery raise Admiral Canaris' diary; Hitler orders carnage of the Canaris group which includes Bonhoeffer

Apr. 9, 1945 - Bonhoeffer (age 39) hanged at Flossenburg; Dohnanyi killed at the Sachsenhausen Camp; one of four members of crown immediate family to die at depiction hands of the Nazi regime backing their participation in the small Objector resistance movement - two sons (Dietrich and Klaus) and two sons-in-law (Hans von Dohnanyi and Rudiger Schleicher).
The letters he wrote during these final two years of his lifetime were posthumously published by his aficionado and friend, Eberhard Bethge, as Penmanship and Papers from Prison.

See also Deitrich Bonhoeffer Works