Dietrich Bonhoeffer prayed, wrote, and resisted Hitler from this house

Laura M. Fabrycky weaves her experiences working as a guide in German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s house with vignettes of his deeply moral life.

|
Courtesy of 1517 Media
“Keys to Bonhoeffer's Haus: Exploring the World and Wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” by Laura M. Fabrycky, Fortress Press, 280 pp.

American author Laura M. Fabrycky has an unusual perspective on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and Christian anti-Nazi dissident who many consider a martyr. 

After her family moved to Germany in 2017 during her husband’s diplomatic mission, she served as a tour guide at Bonhoeffer-Haus in Berlin. This was where Bonhoeffer wrote parts of his book “Ethics” and where his manuscript about the resistance movement was found after the war. 

Fabrycky’s “Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus: Exploring the World and Wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” is not a typical biography. The author interweaves her story as an American living abroad with the story of a man who crossed oceans to study theology.

Those unfamiliar with Bonhoeffer will be left wanting to know more details about the man whom the Nazis executed in April 1945. The book provides more of Fabrycky’s internal process of discovery as she gave tours of his house rather than a straight chronological telling of his story. 

As a Christian in Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer faced the challenge of trying to live as a moral man in an immoral society. This struggle to live according to his conscience placed him in difficult circumstances. He wrestled with whether or not to participate in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. 

He gave his consent. The plot failed.  

To those readers who disliked the memorization of names and dates in history class, Fabrycky’s narrative provides an alternative. She provides “keys” to understanding Bonhoeffer at the beginning of each of the seven chapters.

One such key: “When we hold on to the truth, we find the truth holds onto us, even when we are tempted to despair.”

In that chapter, titled “The Watchwords,” Fabrycky integrates an anecdote of a relationship she had with a German neighbor over a garden wall into a chapter primarily about Bonhoeffer’s daily scriptural study and his decision to leave Nazi Germany in 1939, only to return a few weeks later. 

While such juxtapositions between her story and Bonhoeffer’s may seem trite, the “keys” she provides are anything but, and the author delivers them with humility.

In attending to the minutiae of Bonhoffer’s environment, retracing his path, and studying, Fabrycky has an appreciation for what the man endured. This process makes her own story a vital contribution to the book rather than an interlude. 

“Bonhoeffer is a hero, without question,” she writes. “But when his story is told in ways that make it thrilling and dramatic – which in parts it was, no doubt – that narrative easily neglects the many smaller deaths and lesser sufferings he experienced.”

In discovering Bonhoeffer’s house, Fabrycky’s own sense of place becomes clearer, as does her purpose in writing – to spur others to action. 

“Looking at my own place of belonging, the American experiment is predicated on ideas and ideals that have yet to be fully realized in the lives of its citizens,” she writes. Later, she adds, “Our civic house begs for attention, and those of us who belong to the small centers of a house can make a difference.”

With her book, Fabrycky makes a contribution – a contribution vitally needed as the work of creating a better “civic house” for the world continues, 75 years after Bonhoeffer. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Dietrich Bonhoeffer prayed, wrote, and resisted Hitler from this house
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2020/0402/Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-prayed-wrote-and-resisted-Hitler-from-this-house
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe