Search advanced search
 
Books
Search:
x dismiss this message

Did you know you can edit this page?

Bonhoeffer
  • Rated 0 stars
Read Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer (2010) (edit title/settings)

Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

by Eric Metaxas (Author) (edit contributors)

Share this book on:
see page history

Description edit see section history

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace , a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler. A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the... read more

Summary edit see section history

Story of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Theologian, who opposed Hitler from the earliest days, and opposed him in the name of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It ultimately cost him his life in a concentration camp. Powerful story of Christian conviction.

This truly is more... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Story of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Theologian, who opposed Hitler from the earliest days, and opposed him in the name of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It ultimately cost him his life in a concentration camp. Powerful story of Christian conviction.

This truly is more than the story of a German Theologian, it is the tale of one man who dared to try and follow in the footsteps of Christ. I say try because as men there is no way for us to succeed, we as Dietrich points out we are required to try. Bonhoeffer comes close in confronting the manifestation of "real evil in this world". God we pray that worse is not to come..

People edit see section history

  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Subject of this biography. Professional theologian who favored an ecumenical but passionately Christ-centered Christianity. He quickly perceived that Hitler's protestations of Christianity disguised a plan to transform Christianity into a shill for Nazi ideology and the cult of the totalitarian dictator.
  • Adolf Hitler: Leader of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Achieved dictatorial control of the country rapidly and ultimately made every institution of society subservient to his government. This included the German Lutheran Church. Bonhoeffer was arrested for opposing Hitler.
  • Hans von Dohnanyi: Married Dietrich's sister, Christel, and is a good friend of Dietrich and Klaus
  • Bishop Theodor Heckel: the official in charge of German Evangelical Church
  • Eberhard Bethge: Bonhoeffer's student and later, most dear friend.
  • Franz Hildebrandt: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's close friend, Jewish Christian Theologan
  • Reich: German word used to designate a kingdom or empire
  • Karl Bonhoeffer: Father of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was an eminent psychiatrist who dominated his field in Berlin.
  • Klaus Bonhoeffer: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's brother
  • Martin Luther: Though not alive at the time, his influence on German Protestantism in general and on Bonhoeffer in particular was profound.
  • Karl Barth: Swiss theologian who had the profoundest effect on Bonhoeffer.
  • Sabine (Bonhoeffer) Leibholz: Bonhoeffer's twin sister.
  • Canaris: German admiral who plotted against Hitler
  • Heinrich Himmler: Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party
  • Walter: Add a description of this character.
  • Claus Von Stauffenberg: served combat positions in all of Hitler's major campaigns, became appalled by the atrocities committed by the Schutzstaffel (SS), SD and “Security Police” units and was involved in a plot to kill Hitler
  • Paula Bonhoeffer: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's mother was a telented teacher who homeschooled her children for their first few years. She was descended from theologians and was supportive of her son's career path.
  • Adolf Von Harnack: One of Bonhoeffer's academic mentors although Harnack found that his student differed with him over the importance of accepting God's existence behind scripture. Harnack thought that God could not be known through scripture and that the study of scripture had to leave His existence out and focus on what men had written about God. Harnack also lived in the same neighborhood as the Bonhoeffers so that Dietrich would walk with his teacher to school.
  • Martin Niemöller: German Pastor who was an early opponent of Hitler but not as early or as thoroughly anti-Hitler as Bonhoeffer
  • Fabian Von Schlabrendorff: He was trained as a lawyer, later joining the German Army. As a lieutenant in the reserves, he was promoted to adjutant to Colonel Henning von Tresckow, a major leader in the resistance against Adolf Hitler. He joined the resistance and actually attempted to assassinate Hitler by planting a bomb. He was arrested for the attempt and spent time in the concentration camps, he survived due to extenuating circumstances.
  • Gert: Sabine's husband; Dietrich's brother-in-law
  • Roeder
  • Keitel
  • Beck
  • Paul von Hindenburg: Second President of the German Reich who appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933
  • Ursula
  • Dr. Joseph Goebbels: A German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism. He had a hand in the Kristallnacht attack on the German Jews, which many historians consider to be the beginning of the Final Solution, leading to the Holocaust.
  • Hooft
  • Fosdick
  • Jeremiah
  • Julius Rieger: A German Evangelical Lutheran theologian and writer . As pastor of a German congregation in London, he was a friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and supported him in resisting the Nazi dictatorship.
  • Werner von Fritsch: A prominent Wehrmacht officer, member of the German High Command, and the second German general to be killed during World War II.
  • Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: He founded his doctrine of nonviolent protest to achieve political and social progress based upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence for which he is internationally renowned. Bonhoeffer planned to meet him to view first hand his way of living.
  • Rüdiger Schleicher: A German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime, Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law,
  • Ruth Von Kleist-retzow
  • Erwin Sutz
  • Moltke
  • Frau Von Wedemeyer
  • Paul Lehmann
Show all 39 characters
Popular Covers

Loading covers…

Choose your book’s cover

Quotes edit see section history

  • “In New York they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.”
    Deitrich Bonhoeffer
  • “Christianity conceals within itself a germ hostile to the Church.”
    Deitrich Bonhoeffer
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”
    Highlighted by 680 Kindle customers
  • There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.
    Highlighted by 680 Kindle customers
  • “Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.”
    Highlighted by 655 Kindle customers
  • religion was a dead, man-made thing, and at the heart of Christianity was something else entirely—God himself, alive.
    Highlighted by 615 Kindle customers
  • He felt that what was especially missing from the life of Christians in Germany was the day-to-day reality of dying to self, of following Christ with every ounce of one’s being in every moment, in every part of one’s life.
    Highlighted by 553 Kindle customers
  • Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.
    Highlighted by 540 Kindle customers
  • The concept of cheap grace that Dietrich would later make so famous might have had its origins in his mother; perhaps not the term, but the idea behind it, that faith without works is not faith at all, but a simple lack of obedience to God.
    Highlighted by 451 Kindle customers
  • He then aggressively attacked the idea of “religion” and moral performance as the very enemies of Christianity and of Christ because they present the false idea that somehow we can reach God through our moral efforts. This led to hubris and spiritual pride, the sworn enemies of Christianity. “Thus,” he said, “the Christian message is basically amoral and irreligious, paradoxical as that may sound.”
    Highlighted by 448 Kindle customers
  • God was interested not in success, but in obedience. If one obeyed God and was willing to suffer defeat and whatever else came one’s way, God would show a kind of success that the world couldn’t imagine. But this was the narrow path, and few would take it.
    Highlighted by 414 Kindle customers
  • “God wants to see human beings,” he said, “not ghosts who shun the world.” He said that in “the whole of world history there is always only one really significant hour—the present. . . . [I]f you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.”
    Highlighted by 386 Kindle customers
Show all 12 quotes from this book

Organizations edit see section history

  • Confessing Church: The Church that Bonhoeffer started to combat the fall of Christianity in Nazi Germany
  • Nazi Party: The destroyers of Germany
  • German Christians: The false Christian church in Germany during the Nazi regime.

First Sentence edit see section history

Peace had at last returned to Europe.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1. Family and Childhood
2. Tübingen, 1923
3. Roman Holiday, 1924
4. Student in Berlin, 1924-27
5. Barcelona, 1928
6. Berlin, 1929
7. Bonhoeffer in America, 1930-31
8. Berlin, 1931-32
9. The Führer Principle, 1933
10. The Church and the Jewish Question
11. Nazi Theology
12. The Church Struggle Begins
13. The Bethel Confession
14. Bonhoeffer in London, 1934-35
15. The Church Battle Heats Up
16. The Conference at Fano
17. The Road to Zingst and Finkenwalde
18. Zingst and Finkenwalde
19. Scyllia and Charybdis, 1935-36
20. Mars Ascending, 1938
21. The Great Decision, 1939
22. The End of Germany
23. From Confession to Conspiracy
24. Plotting Against Hitler
25. Bonhoeffer Scores a Victory
26. Bonhoeffer in Love
27. Killing Adolf Hitler
28. Cell 92 at Tegel Prison
29. Valkyrie and the Stauffenberg Plot
30. Buchenwald
31. On the Road to Freedom

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 26 of 5 in New York Times Bestseller. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Eric Metaxas (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Timothy J. Keller (Foreword)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Country: USA
Publication Date: April 20, 2010
ISBN: 9781595551382
Page Count: 591

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: BX4827.B57 M48 2010
  • Dewey: 230.044092

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

Movie Connections edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Cost of Discipleship
  • Life Together
  • Letter and Papers from Prison
  • A Testament to Freedom
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (English)
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance
  • Christ the Center (Harper's Ministers Paperback Library)
  • A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons
  • Meditations on the Cross
  • The Wisdom and Witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 1940-1945
  • Amazing Grace

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (English)
  • Love Letters to Cell 92: Dietrich Bonhoeffer to His Fiancee Maria Von Wedemeyer
  • Letter and Papers from Prison

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history

   
  • The Bible (King James Version)
  • All Quiet on the Western Front
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin
  • They Almost Killed Hitler: Based on the Personal Account of Fabian Von Schlabrendorff
  • Mein Kampf
  • The Will to Power
  • Church Dogmatics
  • The Epistle to the Romans (Galaxy Books)
  • The Cost of Discipleship
  • Act and Being
  • THE PSALMS: THE PRAYER BOOK OF THE BIBLE (FAIRACRES PUBLICATION)
  • I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • Life Together
  • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
  • Love Letters to Cell 92: Dietrich Bonhoeffer to His Fiancee Maria Von Wedemeyer

We’re hiding the errata, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book and books that cite this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.

Cliff M

You were just viewing this book on Cliff M’s shelf.

 

© 2006-2013 Shelfari | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy

Close