Letters and Papers From Prison (35 page)

With all my heart, your Dietrich

From Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer

[at Charlottenburg] 26 March 1944

Dear Dietrich,

When you get this letter it will probably be exactly a year that you’ve been in prison. Inconceivable for any of us who has not experienced it. Your letters still keep circulating round our whole family and are a great joy to us. But I would very much like to see you again and talk to you. So I’ve applied again for permission to visit. With so many members of the family, each individual can only come rarely, and parents and fiancée have priority.

I’m sitting here in the parents’ living room. They’re now in Pätzig and getting to know the house of your future mother-in-law. I’m very glad that they’ve finally managed to make the journey. Mother in particular went with a great inner conflict, though she needed the change quite urgently. It’s simply too much for her; she must relax. During the bomb attacks she doesn’t take the slightest notice, and if anyone advises her to take care in any way she almost regards it as an insult. But of course on top of everything else it will be some relaxation. Unfortunately they don’t intend to stay much longer than a week; partly they’ll feel they have to come back because they’ve got permission to visit you. So I expect that you will see them in the week before Easter, even before you get this letter from me.

Meanwhile I’ve become half a Berliner again. Perhaps not quite ‘half, but it looks as if I shall have more to do here in the near future in connection with my new activity with Osram. It may, of course, be that I shall ‘evacuate’ myself again from here, an idea
which has become very topical during the time of your imprisonment. When you come out, you will be amazed at the way in which the world has changed in a year. Academic work has gradually got very difficult. The books in the libraries have all been ‘evacuated’ and are hard to get at, the Institute has been hit, people are distracted by all sorts of domestic worries. One has to gather up more than all the energy that one has to compel oneself to concentrate. I’ve left things that were 80% finished lying around for months, but I haven’t got them finished. Yet in our area it should be a decisive matter for industry that theoretical questions of pure science should be taken further. In the long run one can’t go on living off capital. I would be happy if I could find a quiet, suitable bywater somewhere where I could carry on my scientific and technical investigations and could perhaps bring Grete and the children along. I would then compress my lectures in Leipzig into a few days and so to speak finish up there by making visits. But I’m afraid that this sort of thing can’t be found any more.

I’m going to Leipzig again shortly, and am not coming back until Easter. I hope I shall have permission to visit by then. May one wish you a ‘happy’ festival?

All the best.

Ever your Karl-Friedrich

From Eberhard Bethge

[Rignano, End of March, 1944]

Dear Dietrich,

…The chief here and the second in command, both very nice to me personally, are so ‘modern’
¹⁷⁶
and have such a soldierly approach that I can never talk to them about my problems in the way that would sometimes be desirable. One of those below told me recently, when he was drunk, that in the peace after victory legal proceedings would be taken against people like me and Rainalter (academics), good and proper. Most people found that out of place. When I can come, we shall have to think about a number of things. What will have happened by then? The
Wehrmacht
reports now call for an intrepid and steadfast heart; i.e. only
among those who are at all interested in it. I’m very curious to know what all this is that you’re now reading in Dilthey about music….

I would very much like to see Sepp.
¹⁷⁷
I once had a short talk with his wife. He has surely kept his
hilaritas.
Interesting that you’ve now become so preoccupied with the Middle Ages. The thirteenth century. Because of the present fashion I’ve had something of a reaction against this period of the ‘Reich’.
¹⁷⁸
But your observations on ‘worldliness’ without an anti- are still very attractive. At the moment I’m sitting here in the country and can’t see anything of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but only campagna, farmwork, with every now and then an old paving stone and marble remains of old buildings along the road with a frieze.
¹⁷⁹
About your observations on what people believe, there is also an interest in fortune-tellers here. Some people keep going to them from time to time while at the same time assuring everyone that they don’t believe a word of it…I think that I can well understand the business of dramatizing ‘suffering’, depicting things, making a role out of them. It’s probably a form of inner protection against grief and may even be a form of divesting oneself of it…

Warmest greetings. It will soon be Palm Sunday and Easter.

Your Eberhard

From his father

Pätzig, 27 March 1943
¹⁸⁰

Dear Dietrich,

When we returned from Tegel last Thursday, we found the permission to visit waiting. That was very sad, because we’ve now had to put off the visit until our return from Pätzig. The journey here couldn’t very well be put off once again. However, Maria is hoping to be able to visit you very soon, probably on the 30th. We arrived here on Friday without any special trouble. Karl-Friedrich went with us to the station. We’re being very spoilt here, and I hope that mother will be able to recover a bit during the time while she doesn’t have to bother about anything. The weather is cool and windy, with flurries of snow. The advantage
of that is that one doesn’t go out in the open air much, and is really forced to sit still and rest. We’re in very friendly company here. Mother Wedemeyer and the children are a joy to us in every respect, particularly when we can think that you won’t find it hard at a later date to feel at home here. Even the many evacuees who are here are nice, considerate people. The unselfish character of the mistress of the house and the way in which she is concerned about everyone has an effect on the whole house. On Saturday we had all sorts of musical offerings from the young people. Cello, piano, flute and recitation. We were reminded very much of our own Saturday musical evenings, when you were all at home. Yesterday Frau von Wedemeyer read aloud to us reminiscences by her husband of his father. They interested me not only because the man evidently had considerable strength of mind, and despite being fettered to a wheel-chair for years kept a tight hand on the reins of his business, but also because despite the quite different sphere of interest, his fundamental attitude to life and to the bringing up of a family hardly differed at all from that of our families in Schwabia. I expect that we shall come back on Tuesday 4 April, and then hope that we shall be able to visit you on Wednesday or Thursday. Mother really wanted to write to you too, but we decided that she shouldn’t do so for a couple of days so that you don’t get two letters from the same place saying essentially the same thing. I think that the stay here will do mother good. We’re rather worried about the last attack on Berlin, about which we’ve had no further details. One can’t get through by telephone. Mother sends much love; she is just writing to Maria. See you soon.

Your Father

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel] 2 April 1944

Dear Eberhard,

Now that Easter seems likely to come and go without our being at home and meeting again, I’m putting off hope until Whitsuntide at the latest. What do you think about it? You must be having a glorious spring just now, and you will be longing to be able to
show everything that you’re now seeing to Renate one day, in peace. In normal circumstances, I expect that you would have confirmed Klaus and Christoph today. Here it’s a clear, but still rather cool Palm Sunday morning. How we would be able to celebrate such a feast day in the family! But how good it is that for years—I believe, since father’s seventieth birthday—you’ve celebrated all the family festivals with us and have added splendour to them. I keep feeling very sorry that Maria has really come to know the family only under the pressure of the last year; she only shared in Hans-Walter’s farewell party. She was here a couple of days ago and told very vividly how they had anticipatory celebrations for father’s birthday in Pätzig on 29 March. Maria had gone for two days to meet my parents there. In the morning, singing outside the door, birthday breakfast for my parents with Maria and her mother, by themselves, evidently quite an Epicurean banquet with local produce, a great festal board…I was really delighted with it all, especially thinking of my parents, who have a very open heart for such spontaneous acts of friendship. Both were said to be cheerful and in a relaxed mood, which pleases me very much after these dreadful months…

I got to see Ursel and Dorothee here quite by chance. That H.W. was refused a visit is one of those things which I shall note carefully. I think it an underhand way of acting which should not be allowed to pass without comment. I thought that Dorothee looked well, but Ursel was still rather thin. I’ve now asked for a picture of the little boy and am waiting for it eagerly…

Just fancy, I’ve suddenly, by an odd chance, taken up graphology again, and am enjoying it very much; I’m now working through Ludwig Klages’ book. But I’m not going to try it on my friends and relatives; there are enough people here who are interested in it. I’m convinced of the thing’s reliability. I expect you know that I was so successful at it in my student days that it became embarrassing and I gave it up. That was almost 20 years ago. Now, having, I think, got over the dangers of psychology, I’m very interested in it again, and I should like to discuss it with you. If it gets unpleasant again, I shall drop it at once. I think it is possible that you might be very successful at it, as it needs two things, the
second of which you have in much greater measure than I: sensitivity, and an acute power of observation. If you like, I will write to you again about it.

In the 800-page biography of Klopstock by Karl Kindt (formerly G[erman] Christian), 1941, I found some very striking extracts from Klopstock’s play
Der Tod Adams,
which is about the death of the first man. The idea is interesting enough, and the play itself is powerful. I had sometimes thought of trying to rehabilitate Klopstock, so the book interests me very much.

Maria’s birthday is on 23 April. Will you perhaps send her a brief greeting? She would certainly like it very much…Well, that was simply a narrative letter which arose solely from a desire to talk to you this morning (in other times we would have made glorious music today) and not to leave you without news.

I have here a very detailed map of the environs of Rome; I often look at it when I’m thinking of you, and imagine you going round the streets with which you are familiar from long acquaintance, hearing the sounds of war not very far away, and looking at the lake from the mountains.

God bless you today wherever you go. Faithfully, with all my heart,

Your Dietrich

To Ruth von Wedemeyer

[Tegel] 10 April 1944

Dear mother,
¹⁸¹

While you are celebrating your birthday in a large circle of family and friends with joy and thankfulness, you must know and feel that from the quietness of a closed cell unceasing good thoughts and wishes go out to you…I’ve looked up the readings for 19 April.
¹⁸²
They point us towards those who call to us from eternity and are with us, to father and to Max.
¹⁸³
They will be very much in your thoughts, and yet at the same time you will also be thinking of us and those who need you on this earth. The time between Easter and Ascension has always been particularly important to me. Our gaze is already directed to the last thing of
all, but we still have our tasks, our joys and our sorrows on this earth and the power of living is granted to us by Easter. I say nothing but what I have experienced when I thank you today for going before us on this way between Easter and Ascension; it is the blessing that father and Max have left behind for you and for us. I too want to go this way with Maria, quite prepared for the last thing, for eternity, and yet wholly present for the task, the beauties and the troubles of this earth. Only on this way can we be completely happy and completely at peace together. We want to receive what God bestows on us with open, outstretched hands and delight in it with all our heart, and with a quiet heart we will sacrifice what God does not yet grant us or takes away from us…

Thank you for everything that you have done for me in the past year. God preserve you in the coming year for us and your whole house.

Your grateful son, Dietrich

My parents felt so happy with you and you were so particularly good to them that I was very pleased indeed about it. They have the feeling that they get on particularly well with you. Thank you most particularly for those days.

Report on Prison Life after One Year in Tegel

The formalities of admission were correctly completed. For the first night I was locked up in an admission cell. The blankets on the camp bed had such a foul smell that in spite of the cold it was impossible to use them. Next morning a piece of bread was thrown into my cell; I had to pick it up from the floor. A quarter of the coffee consisted of grounds. The sound of the prison staff’s vile abuse of the prisoners who were held for investigation penetrated into my cell for the first time; since then I have heard it every day from morning till night. When I had to parade with the other new arrivals, we were addressed by one of the jailers as ‘blackguards’, etc. etc. We were asked why we had been arrested, and when I said I did not know, the jailer answered with a scornful laugh, ‘You’ll find that out soon enough.’ It was six months before I got a warrant for my arrest. As we went through the various offices, some NCOs, who had heard what my profession was, wanted now and then to have a few words with me. They were told that no one was to talk to me. While I was having a bath an NCO (I do not know who he was) suddenly appeared and asked me whether I knew Pastor N. [Martin Niemöller], When I said that I did, he exclaimed, ‘He is a good friend of mine’, and disappeared again. I was taken to the most isolated single cell on the top floor; a notice, prohibiting all access without special permission, was put outside it. I was told that all my correspondence would be stopped until further notice, and that, unlike all the other prisoners, I should not be allowed half an hour a day in the open air, although, according to the prison rules, I was entitled to it. I received neither newspapers nor anything to smoke. After 48 hours my Bible was returned to me; it had been searched to see whether I had smuggled inside it a saw, razor, or the like. For the next twelve days the cell door was opened only for bringing food in and putting the bucket out. No
one said a word to me. I was told nothing about the reason for my detention, or how long it would last. I gathered from various remarks—and it was confirmed later - that I was lodged in the section for the most serious cases, where the condemned prisoners lay shackled.