Theologian, Resistance Fighter, and Role Model of Faith

In September 1931, Bonhoeffer was elected youth secretary at an ecumenical conference in Cambridge. From October of the same year, he worked in Berlin as a private lecturer and student pastor at the Technical University, a position he held until 1933. In November, he was ordained as a pastor and additionally supervised a confirmation group in northeast Berlin for half a year. In the following years, Bonhoeffer remained internationally ecumenically engaged, including through participation in conferences in Geneva and Gland in the summer of 1932.

The year 1933 marked a profound turning point. While Bonhoeffer's writing Schöpfung und Fall was published, Adolf Hitler seized power on January 30. As early as February 1, a radio lecture by Bonhoeffer on the concept of the Führer was prematurely terminated. In the following months, he positioned himself decisively against the National Socialist church policy, including with the lecture Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage and the leaflet Der Arierparagraph in der Kirche. Together with Martin Niemöller, he was involved in the preparations for the founding of the Pastors' Emergency League, which became the nucleus of the Confessing Church. From October 1933, Bonhoeffer took over a parish in London, which he held until 1935.

Even after his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer remained internationally connected. In 1934, he participated in the ecumenical conference in Fanø, Denmark, where he advocated for a theologically based peace policy and became a member of the World Council of Churches. From April 1935, he led a preachers' seminary of the Confessing Church, initially in Zingst and later in Finkenwalde near Stettin, while also teaching at the University of Berlin.

In 1936, a study trip to Denmark and Sweden was made possible for the preachers' seminary, but in August, Bonhoeffer's teaching license at the university was revoked. A year later, his writing Nachfolge appeared, and at the same time, state pressure intensified: after the arrest of Martin Niemöller in July 1937, the preachers' seminary was closed by the police in October. Bonhoeffer continued the training in the form of collective vicarages in various locations and lived temporarily in Schlawe.

From 1938, Bonhoeffer received a residence ban for Berlin and increasingly established contacts with the political resistance. At the beginning of 1939, Gemeinsames Leben appeared. To avoid the impending conscription into military service, Bonhoeffer traveled to the USA in June 1939 for a teaching position, but returned to Germany for reasons of conscience as early as the end of July. With the beginning of the Second World War on September 1, 1939, a new phase of his life began.

From 1940, Bonhoeffer was involved in conspiratorial resistance work and worked as an employee in the Foreign Office/Defense Office. At the same time, he worked on his Ethics. During this time, he lived in various places in Germany. In 1941, he received a publication ban, but made several trips to Switzerland as a courier of the resistance and was involved in a rescue operation for Jewish persecutees.

In 1942, Bonhoeffer continued his resistance activities, including through trips to Norway, Italy, and again to Switzerland, as well as through contacts with the Kreisau Circle and Bishop George Bell. On January 13, 1943, he became engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer. A few months later, on April 5, 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested in his parents' house in Berlin and taken to the Tegel military prison.

During his imprisonment, Bonhoeffer developed new, far-reaching theological ideas about the church, the world, and faith in letters and notes. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, his situation worsened drastically. In October 1944, he was transferred to the Gestapo cell in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. At the turn of the year, he wrote the poem From good powers faithfully and silently surrounded there.

In February 1945, Bonhoeffer was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp and transported further at the beginning of April, most recently to the Flossenbürg concentration camp. On April 5, the order for his murder was issued. On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed after a nocturnal drumhead court-martial for high treason and treason against the state. A few weeks before the end of the war, a large part of his family also lost their lives through the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer is still considered one of the most impressive theological and moral figures of the German resistance against National Socialism.