What Did Bonhoeffer Know?

What did Bonhoeffer know?

Dohnanyi told him that n, w, under the dark cover of war, Hitler had unleashed force that beggared description, that mad the usual horrors of war quaint things of the past. Reports from Poland indicated that the SS were committing unspeakable atrocities, things unherd of in civilized times. On September 10, a group of SS men had brutally overseen the forced labor of 50 Polish Jews who spend the day repairing a bridge. When the work was completed, the SS herded the workers into a synagogue and murdered them. That was only one example. On a widespread systematic level, the Wehrmacht advances in Poland were occupied by the intentional mass murder of civilians.

Dohnanyi’s primary source was his boss Admiral Canaris. It was so disturbing that Canaris insisted on meeting with Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the German military. They met in Hitler’s private railroad train on September 12, and Canaris questioned OKW chief about the peinious evils, which would destroy Germany. What Canaris could not have known at that civilized meeting was that it would continue and would get much worse. It would not only destroy Germany, but would do so more completely than he had ever dared to fear. The German culture and civilization that he, Dohnanyi, and Bonhoeffer knew and loved would be obliterated from history. Future generations would be convinced that nothing good could ever have existed in a country that produced such evil. They would think only of these evils. It would be as if these unleashed dark forces had grotesquely marched like devils on dead horses, backward through the gash in the present, and had destroyed the German past too.

“Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy” has been the most revealing read to me of this new decade if not even the last. Never did I learn more about the era between WWI and WWII than I have through this book. Thanks to Eric Metaxas’ masterful biography of the life and death of Dietrich von Bonhoeffer.

As a German I have been plagued for many years, why could a people so civilized and cultured commit such horrendous crimes. It is the country of the poets, thinkers and theologians. Now I’m not saying that Anti-Semitism never existed on German soil. This would be dishonest. But especially since Bismarck, Jews were very much part of the fabric of German society. Every walk of live had its Jews and they were just as much German as the rest of Germany. Some of them were amongst the wealthiest. Many sported a proud heritage of serving in the German Armed Forces. But this passage out of chapter 22 “The End of Germany” clearly demonstrates the damage Hitler’s atrocities left on the German nation. To this day we dare not do what we ought to do for German survival. Patriotism, Conservatism is considered fascist even so America has been known for it’s strong Patriotism and the many good this nation did to help the less privileged. When I mentioned to someone that it is sad to see our cities becoming a melting pot and the Germaness of it is less and less visible, I have been told that they do not dare to tighten their borders out of fear of being equated with Nazism. How damaging Hitler’s actions have been on our national psyche.

This is not to make lite of the Holocaust, not in the least. But if this book did not show me anything, it showed me that many people amongst the German officers and the upper class deeply despised Hitler and saw it necessary to get rid of this evil. Not just for the sake of Germany’s future, but also because of the evil, done to others who were not part of the “Aryan” people. As the book reveals, Bonhoeffer’s family knew much of the things that went on, years before the rest of the German people got to know about it. Bringing shame to multitudes including my own mother who was ashamed to show a green passport at America’s ports of entry and only in her later years realized that the typical German Lanzer was no worse or better than the GI Joe. It was Hitler’s worst of worst, the SS, SA, and every one else who in a normal society would not even have come to the power but under Hitler no one could be depraved enough not to be a viable tool in Hitler’s evil murderous machinery. Sadly enough, appeasers existed throughout history. If Neville Chamberlain (don’t want to call him a name) wouldn’t have agreed to Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland, Canaris and his men would have had every legal means to get Hitler on criminal charges and foremost for treason to the German people. I’m proud of each and every one who risk their lives to stand up in the face of evil. Whether it was to end Hitler’s rain through assassination or those that harbored Jews from the Nazis, some of them loosing their own lives in the wake of being found out.