Read Letters and Papers From Prison Online
Authors: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Tags: #Literary Collections, #General
I don’t think there is any need for us to compare notes about the night before last. I shall never forget looking through the cell window at the horrible night sky. I was very relieved to hear from
the Captain the next morning that you were safe. I’m very sorry that Susi has had damage a second time and now has to move house. She also has a load to bear. What a good thing that the children weren’t there! And I’m very relieved that Maria does not have to be in Berlin. Wouldn’t now be a good time for you at least to spend the nights in Sakrow?
It’s remarkable how we think at such times about the people that we should not like to live without, and almost or entirely forget about ourselves. It is only then that we feel how closely our own lives are bound up with other people’s, and in fact how the centre of our own lives is outside ourselves, and how little we are separate entities. The ‘as though it were a part of me’ is perfectly true, as I have often felt after hearing that one of my colleagues or pupils had been killed. I think it is a literal fact of nature that human life extends far beyond our physical existence. Probably a mother feels this more strongly than anyone else. There are two passages in the Bible which always seem to me to sum the thing up. One is from Jeremiah 45: ‘Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up…And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not…but I will give your life as a prize of war…’; and the other is from Psalm 60: ‘Thou hast made the land to quake, thou hast rent it open; repair its breaches, for it totters.’
I do want to thank you and everyone else involved for the last parcel. I never forget, and remind myself every day, of all the thoughts, trouble and sacrifice that such a parcel always demands. Precisely for that reason it is always not only an outward help, but also a great inward one, too. It was really very nice of the Schleicher girls to send me some of their sweets, but I think that they really need them very much themselves. I’m also more than grateful to Hans-Walter for his gift of tobacco. Of course I recognized grandmother’s biscuits, and the greetings from Pätzig are naturally part of it all, and daily direct my thoughts towards the time to which we all look forward. It makes me very happy to imagine Maria sewing and working away at her trousseau – really making preparations for the day. I can’t do anything here but wait, hope and look forward to it. It would be wonderful if the letters weren’t
so long on the way. Something has probably gone wrong. Your last letter is dated 11 August!, Maria’s the 16th. That’s really too long. I would like, for instance, to know Maria’s plans, and also how the great Berlin evacuation has gone with them.
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I
wish you would let me know whether you have had the anti-shrapnel trench dug, and whether it would not be possible for you to have an exit made from the cellar to the trench. That is what Captain Maetz has done. How are things with Renate? Aren’t these alarm nights particularly bad for her condition, even if she is out there at Sakrow for them?
I’m still getting on all right. I have been moved two floors lower because of the raids, and now it is very nice to have a direct view from my window on to the church towers. Last week I was able to write quite well again. The only thing I miss is open air exercise, on which I depend very much for any useful work. But it won’t be long now, and that is the main thing.
Much love to Maria. Tell her to be patient a little while longer and stay in Pätzig or in Kl. Reetz
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and not to worry. And love to all the family. Please don’t tire yourselves out too much with the alerts, have a rest in the afternoon and eat as well as you can. I’m always thinking of you all. Your grateful Dietrich
From Christoph von Dohnanyi
[Sakrow] 7 September 1943
Dear Uncle Dietrich,
It’s now three days since I wrote to you last time. Not much has happened in this short time. As I think I’ve already told you, the grandparents and uncle Klaus were here on Sunday. Uncle Klaus only came later. He had a visit which kept him from eight in the evening until half past seven the next morning.
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So he spent the day sleeping. They all stayed the night with us and then went back home again early on Monday.
Tomorrow we can all go to visit father. It’s really very splendid that it’s happened exactly on my birthday. It’s my second visit since father went away. This evening Eberhard is coming home
again. The English have attacked Kade;
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38 farms were burnt out. But nothing’s happened to Eberhard’s mother. It’s really going a bit far when they go out into the country and smash it flat.
Yesterday I got myself into a bit of a smash. As I caught it right on the ankle, I couldn’t cycle to school. I hope it’s all right in the morning again, so that I can go to see father. I must do that whatever happens. I can’t think of anything else to write to you, but I’ll write again soon.
All the best.
Your grateful Christoph
From Renate Bethge
Sakrow, 8 September 1943
Dear Uncle Dietrich,
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We so much wished that you would be able to visit us soon in our beautiful house.
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We really expected you from week to week. You would have had many well-known things to discover, I expect, but the way in which they had all blended together and were now arranged, the pictures and the books, would certainly have been a great delight to you. And now you will no longer be able to inspect them. Everything is in such a mess and scattered all over the place. In the meantime, you too have had to wait and wait, have had to tell yourself so often that your help would have been so useful in the turmoil, and I’m sure have often been anxious in the air raids because you have not been able to know straight away whether everything has gone well with us. We certainly hoped to see you again on the birthday. We celebrated it with lots of good things at the parents’, with mother-in-law, the parents, aunt Christel, the grandparents and Barbel. And you had such nice greetings and wishes arranged. Thank you very much. We also discovered the beautiful pigskin Bible with great delight. Even there you come upon the most beautiful presents. Did you also prompt Maria to the heartening greeting by telling her how much something like that would be cherished? Unfortunately my husband had to go travelling again in the evening. He has a heavy programme, so I am often alone. But things are well with us.
With me, in fact, they are going much better again, except that unfortunately I cannot keep on with the Conservatory from here. Of course it’s difficult that we cannot now settle anywhere properly. There are many difficulties on all sides…It’s very nice that we can have Barbel’s room at aunt Christel’s for the moment. In that way we still have a small domain of our own. It’s difficult with the scattered things, especially the books. When there is work to be done one never knows where the tools now are, in the Burchhardthaus cellar, with the parents, in Kade, in Barbel’s room or in aunt Christel’s cellar. But things are still really good with us. The question of furniture has not yet been solved. The piano, which is quite especially beautiful, is coming to the parents’…
Did you know that your publisher, Lempp, has died? Apparently quite suddenly. Ebeling held a quite excellent memorial service for Erich Klapproth. Fritz
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held the one in Köslin for Winfried Krause. All these happenings will make your seclusion particularly difficult. We would love to talk to you about everything. It will come about very soon. At any rate, we hope and wish very much for it. You are, though, to be envied for one thing in your awful position – for the many good things that you’ve read. These last weeks have quite taken it out of us. The music has been very quiet; even I don’t get down to much practice. Now best wishes from us both; I hope all is well with you.
Your Renate
To his parents
[Tegel] 13 September 1943
Dear parents,
Last time I said I should like to have more letters, and in the last few days I’ve been delighted to have a whole sheaf of them. I almost seem to be like Palmstrom, who ordered ‘a quarter’s mixed correspondence’. But seriously, a day when there are letters is a very noticeable change from the usual monotony. Now that the permission to visit has also come, things really are looking up.
After the tiresome postal delays of recent weeks I’ve felt very grateful for that. I was glad that you seemed to be looking a little better when you came, but what worries me most about the whole business is that this year you’ve missed the holiday that you so badly needed. You really must go away for a time before winter, and it would be best of all if I could go with you. Today letters came from you and from Karl-Friedrich, dated 3 September, and Christoph has even written twice. It was very nice indeed of him, and I’m most grateful. It will, of course, have been an enormous chore for you to have moved my things away without my help. Thank you very much.
It’s a strange feeling to be so completely dependent on other people; but at least it teaches one to be grateful, and I hope I shall never forget that. In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. Its very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe to others.
The stormy happenings in the world in the last few days
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go right through one, and I wish I could be doing useful service somewhere or other, but at present that ‘somewhere’ must be in the prison cell, and what I can do here makes its contribution in the unseen world, a sphere where the word ‘do’ is quite unsuitable. I sometimes think of Schubert’s
Münnich
and his crusade.
For the rest, I’m reading and writing as much as I can, and I’m glad to say that I’ve never had a moment’s boredom in the five months and more that I’ve been here. My time is always fully occupied, but in the background there is always the feeling, from morning till night, of waiting for something. A few weeks ago I asked you to get me some books that have just been published: N. Hartmann’s
Systematic Philosophy
and
The Age of Marius and Sulla,
published by Diederich; now I should also like
German Music
by R. Benz. I shouldn’t like to miss these things, and I should be glad to be able to read them while I am still here. Karl-Friedrich wrote about a book on physics, written for the general reader, and said he would send it to me. Klaus, too, sometimes discovers books that are worth reading. I’ve practically finished everything that I
want to read here. I may have another try at Jean Paul’s
Siebenkäs
or
Flegeljahre;
I have them in my room. I might not bring myself to read them later on, and there are many well-read people who think highly of him. In spite of several attempts, I’ve always found him too long-winded and affected. But as we’re now in mid-September, I hope these wishes will already be out of date before they are fulfilled.
Another brief greeting has just come from Christoph. I’ve already such a great longing to see him and all the children again. They will have changed over these months. Christoph fulfils his duties as a godchild much better than I do mine as a godfather; but I’m already looking forward to doing with him something that he really wants.
If you speak to Maria or see her, please give her my love. Many thanks to grandmother for her letter. Greetings to all the family - and the children. Thank you for everything, your Dietrich
Where is it that Karl-Friedrich has been called? Is he accepting? Some notepaper, please!
From the Judge Advocate of the War Court
The War Court
StPL (RKA)
111/114/43
Torgau, Ziethen Barracks
[deleted: Berlin-Charlottenburg 5
Witzlebenstrasse 4-10
Telephone 38 06 81]
16 September 1943
Stamp: Wehrmacht Interrogation Prison
Branch office
23 September 1943
Ac: 83.23g
signed. Mz
Order
Confidential
The legal attorney Dr Kurt Wergin of Berlin W 35, Woyrschstrasse 8, is permitted as the chosen defender of pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, §323 Abs.4 MStGO§51 GStVO.
The President | The Judge Advocate |
of the Reich War Court | by order |
as Chief Judge | signed Dr Lotter |
signed Bastian | Reich War Attorney |
Admiral |
From his mother
Charlottenburg, 20 September 1943
My dear Dietrich,
…I don’t think that anything will now come of our trip to the little house
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for a couple of days this summer or autumn. Very sad. I sometimes think that I will go up there once again for a week with father. With all his work and his seventy-five years he hasn’t had a day’s relaxation for a year. But he can’t make up his mind to it until your case is sorted out, and I feel the same way. It will be all the finer if it then becomes possible again, and then this time your Maria will be coming, too. She has made such a kind offer to give me some help in the house now, but I would have no peace of mind and a very bad conscience in the air raids, whereas as things are I’m absolutely calm. There’s no sense in a slit trench if it isn’t supported at the sides, and the wood isn’t to be had. Walter was in such a trench during the last heavy attack and when the bombs fell near him the sand came over him and the sides collapsed, so he won’t go into another one. Eberhard is now in Spandau, at the Seeckt barracks…
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Father wants to ask for permission to visit again. It helps one on a bit further if we’ve seen each other and talked. By the way, I have Hartmann’s
Systematic Philosophy
and will bring it next time.
We’re pleased that you’ve just written a family story, and we’re very eager to read it sometime later. Unfortunately I can’t get hold of the chess book you wanted anywhere, nor Stifter’s
Witiko.
If you wanted to have Fontane’s
Journeyings through the Mark,
that would be there. I’ll go on looking for the other books. Your bookshelves upstairs have now been completely cleared and everything has been moved down below, including the pictures and what was in the cupboards. When one sees all the damage to the roofs round about, it’s best that way, though of course everything has got thoroughly mixed up. In Kade,
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too, a number of fire bombs have been dropped on the barns. That place was supposed to be safe. Little Renate sent a mass of things out there. But that’s how it goes; one cannot plan for anything at all. Perhaps it’s quite a good thing, as otherwise there would be even more unrest among families. Father wants to add a greeting. I’m always thinking of you.