You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘June 20’ tag.
Tag Archive
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Return to Germany From the United States…
January 4, 2016 in America, Bonhoeffer Quotes, Conspiracy and Imprisonment, Costly Grace, Hitler/Nazism, New York, Serving Jesus in the Severest of Trials, Standing Against Evil in Society, The Church, The Grace of Living Well and Dying Well, The Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Union Theological Seminary, Who is Dietrich Bonhoeffer? | Tags: 1939, adolf hitler, blog about dietrich bonhoeffer, bonhoefferblog, dietrich bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, dr. bryan galloway, germany, June 20, nazi germany, nazism, new york city, reinhold niebuhr, union theological seminary, Volume 16: Conspiracy and Imprisonment 1940-1945, world war II | Leave a comment
In June of 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was safe and sound in the United States. He could have remained there but on June 20, 1939, he made the “fateful decision” to return to Nazi Germany. Why? In a letter to Reinhold Niebuhr, he gave the following explanation:
I have made the mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people…Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose, but I cannot make this choice in security.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 16: Conspiracy and Imprisonment 1940-1945, 1.
Recent Comments