The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer
SOURCE (Amazon affiliate link): John W. de Gruchy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), xxiv–xxvi.
- 1906, 4 February, Dietrich Bonhoeffer born in Breslau, Germany
- 1912 Family moves to Berlin, where Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s father, takes up a position at Berlin University
- 1913 Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins gymnasium studies
- 1916 Family moves to the suburb of Grunewald
- 1918 Walter Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s brother, dies on the western front
- 1921 Dietrich and twin sister, Sabine, are confirmed
- 1923 Begins theological studies at Tübingen
- 1924 Continues theological studies at Berlin; travels to Rome and north Africa with elder brother Klaus
- 1927 Qualifies for licentiate with his doctoral dissertation, Sanctorum Communio (DBWE 1)
- 1928 Curate in Barcelona
- 1929
- Summer lectures in systematic theology, Berlin;
- assistant pastor in Berlin
- 1930
- Completes second dissertation, later published as Act and Being (DBWE 2);
- Sloane Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1930-1)
- 1931
- July: first meeting with Karl Barth
- August: lecturer in theological faculty, Berlin
- September: appointed Youth Secretary of World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches Conference, Cambridge
- October: chaplain at Technical College, Berlin
- November: takes confirmation class in Berlin-Wedding
- 1932 Winter lecture course on ‘Creation and Sin’ (later published as
Creation and Fall (DBWE 3))
- 1933
- January: Hitler becomes Chancellor
- February: The Reichstag is burnt
- April: Aryan civil-service legislation is passed, dismissing Jews from public office
- Ludwig Müller appointed Reichsbischof
- Summer lectures in Berlin, on Christology
- September:
- Pastors’ Emergency League organised, with aid of Martin Niemöller;
- Brown Synod dominated by German Christians is held
- October: Bonhoeffer moves to London to take up pastorate of two German-speaking churches
- 1934
- May: first synod of the Confessing Church is held at Barmen; Adoption of Barmen Declaration
- August: Ecumenical Conference, Fanö
- 1935
- April: becomes director of Preachers’ Seminary, Zingst
- June: seminary moves to Finkenwalde
- September: Nuremberg Laws are passed
- October: family moves to Charlottenburg, Berlin
- December: Confessing Church seminaries declared illegal
- 1936
- February: members from Finkenwalde visit Denmark and Sweden
- August: authorisation to teach at Berlin University is withdrawn
- 1937
- September: Finkenwalde is closed down by Gestapo
- November: The Cost of Discipleship (DBWE 4) is published
- December: begins collective pastorate in Köslin and Gross-Schlönwitz
- 1938
- January: expulsion from Berlin
- February: makes first contact with leaders of the resistance movement
- April: all pastors required to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler
- September: writes Life Together (DBWE 5) while in Göttingen
- November: Crystal Night (Kristallnacht)
- 1939
- June: travels to America for the second time;
- returns to Berlin in July
- August: becomes a civilian agent of the Abwehr (military intelligence)
- September:
- German troops invade Poland;
- formal Allied Declaration of War
- 1940
- March:
- illegal seminary in Köslin and Gross-Schlönwitz closed down by the Gestapo
- Begins to write his Ethics (DBWE 6)
- March:
- November:
- becomes member of Abwehr staff in Munich
- Stays at Benedictine monastery in Ettal;
- continues work on the Ethics
- 1941
- February-March: travels to Switzerland to meet with Karl Barth and Visser’t Hooft
- August: second visit to Switzerland
- October: the first Jews are deported from Berlin
- 1942
- April: travels to Norway and Sweden
- May: visits Switzerland for third visit
- May/June: meets Bishop George Bell in Sweden
- 1943
- January: becomes engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer
- April: arrested, placed in Tegel Prison, Berlin
- December: writes Christmas essay, ‘After Ten Years’
- 1944
- April: first of the ‘theological letters’ from prison
- July: assassination attempt on Hitler
- September: incriminating evidence on the Abwehr is uncovered by the Gestapo
- 1945
- February: moved to Buchenwald concentration camp
- April: moved to Regensburg and then Schönberg and finally to Flossenbürg
- 8 April: court-martialed
- 9 April: executed at Flossenbürg
Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography
SOURCE (Amazon affiliate link): Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, ed. Victoria J. Barnett, trans. Betty Ross, Frank Clarke, and William Glen-Doepel with Eric Mosbacher, Peter, Revised edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 1025–1027.
- 1906 4 February, Dietrich Bonhoeffer born in Breslau
- 1912 Father appointed to Berlin University; family moves to Berlin
- 1923 Theological studies in Tübingen
- 1924 Further theological studies in Berlin
- 1927 Qualifies for licentiate under R. Seeberg with Sanctorum Communio
- 1928
- 17 January, first theological examination;
- 15 February, assistant pastor in Barcelona
- 1929
- Assistant to W. Lütgert in Berlin (until 1930)
- 1930
- 18 July, qualifies as university teacher with Act and Being;
- 5 September, leaves for New York to study at Union Theological Seminary
- 1931
- In July first meeting with Karl Barth in Bonn;
- after 1 August, lecturer at the theological faculty in Berlin;
- 1–5 September, attends World Alliance Conference in Cambridge where he is appointed youth secretary;
- 15 November, ordination; winter 1931–1932, lecture course “The History of Systematic Theology in the Twentieth Century” and seminar “The Concept of Philosophy and Protestant Theology”;
- from November (until March 1932), in charge of a confirmation class in Berlin-Wedding
- 1932
- In the summer term, lecture course “The Nature of the Church” and seminar “Is There a Christian Ethic?”;
- buys a hut in Biesenthal;
- July and August, attends ecumenical meetings in Ciernohorské, Kúpele, Geneva, and Gland;
- winter term, lecture courses “Creation and Sin” (published in 1933 as Creation and Fall) and “Recent Theology,” and seminar on “Problems of a Theological Anthropology”
- 1933
- 1 March, radio talk “The Führer Principle”;
- April, article “The Church and the Jewish Question”;
- summer term, lecture course “Christology”;
- August, pamphlet “The Aryan Clause in the Church”;
- September, preliminary work with Niemöller on Pastors’ Emergency League pledge;
- 17 October, begins London pastorate
- 1934
- 22–30 August, ecumenical conference in Fanö;
- 28 August, becomes co-opted member of Universal Christian Council for Life and Work;
- 4–8 September, with Jean Lasserre in Bruay;
- 5 November, London parishes repudiate the Reich church government
- 1935
- March, visits Anglican communities;
- 15 April, farewell visit to Bishop Bell in Chichester;
- 26 April, preachers’ seminary opens in Zingst (by the Baltic);
- 24 June, seminary moves to Finkenwalde;
- July, article “The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement”;
- 6 September, establishment of a brothers’ house proposed to Provisional Church Administration
- 1936
- February, last Berlin faculty lecture “Discipleship”;
- 29 February–10 March, preachers’ seminary visits Denmark and Sweden;
- 22 April, lecture in Finkenwalde “On the Question of the Church Community”;
- 5 August, authorization to teach at university withdrawn;
- 20 August, Life and Work meeting in Chamby
- 1937
- February, last participation in an ecumenical conference in London;
- 1 July, Niemöller arrested;
- end of September, preachers’ seminary closed by police;
- November, twenty-seven former Finkenwalde seminarians arrested,
- Discipleship published;
- 5 December, beginning of collective pastorates in Köslin and Gross-Schlönwitz (later Sigurdshof)
- 1938
- 11 January, expulsion from Berlin;
- February, first contacts with Sack, Oster, Canaris, and Beck;
- 20 June, meeting of former Finkenwaldians in Zingst, Bible study “Temptation”;
- September, Life Together written in Göttingen;
- 26 October, lecture “Our Way according to the Testimony of Scripture”
- 1939
- 10 March, journey to London for talks with Bishop Bell, Visser ’t Hooft, Niebuhr, and Leibholz;
- 2 June, leaves for United States;
- 20 June, letter of refusal to Leiper;
- 27 July, back in Berlin
- 1940
- 15 March, end of term in Köslin and Sigurdshof;
- two days later Gestapo orders closure;
- June and July, visitations in East Prussia;
- 14 July, dissolution of study conference in Blöstau;
- August, talks with Oster and Dohnanyi on military exemption and work for the Abwehr office;
- 4 September, forbidden to speak in public and required to report regularly to the police;
- September and October, work on Ethics at Klein-Krössin;
- 30 October, assigned to Abwehr office in Munich;
- from 17 November, visits to the Benedictine abbey in Ettal
- 15 March, end of term in Köslin and Sigurdshof;
- 1941
- 24 February–24 March, first journey to Switzerland;
- 27 March, forbidden to print or publish;
- 29 August-26 September, second journey to Switzerland, together with Visser ’t Hooft writes to W. Paton on The Church and the New Order;
- October, first deportations of Jews from Berlin, “Operation 7”
- 1942
- 10–18 April, journey with Moltke to Norway and Stockholm;
- May, third journey to Switzerland;
- 30 May–2 June, flies to Stockholm to meet Bishop Bell
- 1943
- 17 January, engagement to Maria von Wedemeyer;
- 13 March and 21 March, attempted assassinations of Hitler;
- 5 April, house search and arrest, sent to Tegel prison;
- at the same time, Hans von Dohnanyi and Müller arrested with their wives;
- 29 April, arrest warrant drawn up, charged with “subversion of the armed forces”
- 1944
- January, chief interrogator Roeder dismissed;
- February, Canaris dismissed and the Abwehr incorporated into the Reich Central Security office;
- 6 March, first big daylight air raid on Tegel;
- 30 April, first theological letter;
- May, charge indefinitely postponed;
- 20 July, von Stauffenberg’s attempt on Hitler’s life;
- 22 September, Gestapo commissar Sonderegger discovers files in the Abwehr bunker in Zossen;
- early October, escape plan;
- 5 October, plan abandoned because of fear of reprisals following arrests of Klaus Bonhoeffer, Schleicher, and Perels;
- 8 October, taken to the Gestapo prison in the cellar at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse
- 1945
- 7 February, sent to Buchenwald concentration camp;
- 3 April, removed from Buchenwald to Regensburg;
- 5 April, execution ordered at Hitler’s midday conference;
- 6 April, moved to Schönberg;
- 8 April, moved to Flossenübrg; during the night, summary court-martial;
- 9 April,
- executed together with Oster, Sack, Canaris, Strünck, and Gehre;
- Hans von Dohnanyi killed in Sachsenhausen;
- 23 April, Klaus Bonhoeffer, Schleicher, and Perels killed in Berlin