Bonhoeffer Timeline: A Chronology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life

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)
• 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
• 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