Letters and Papers From Prison (12 page)

I’ve just come back from visiting time. Once again it was marvellous; I am so grateful for it. My thoughts are particularly with Renate … I’m so pleased. By the way, Goethe’s mother was barely eighteen when he came into the world. Special greetings to her. Greetings, too, to all the family; I don’t think that there is anyone of whom I don’t think once a day. I was particularly pleased to hear that things are going so well with grandmother
again. If only you can soon get rid of the worry and travel. That’s my constant wish. Once again, thank you for everything, and much love from

your Dietrich

From his father

Charlottenburg, II July 1943

Dear Dietrich,

…Have you found anything useful in Heidegger’s
Phenomenology of Time-Consciousness?
It is difficult, almost too difficult reading for a clinical psychiatrist. You will find it less hard as you are up in the latest philosophy. I prefer Stifter’s
Nachsommer
that you recommended. The chapter about the stay reminds me very much of
Great-grandfather’s Portfolio,
where he also introduces a visit to a strange house with a charming garden scene. Maria wrote that she had asked for permission to visit. I hope her wish is granted. We hope for a letter from you soon. Mother sends her love. She will be writing very soon. Much love,

Father

From his mother

Charlottenburg, 14 July 1943

Dear Dietrich,

Your letter of the 5th only arrived today. They say that it is no longer being sent via Florastrasse, and yet it took so long. But it was good that we found you fit and well when we visited you in the meantime.

Don’t worry yourself about the air-raid shelter. I have spoken with the NCO in charge of the matter and he will arrange a gas door and gas window that can be opened and shut. Of course there is still a lot of work, as we first have to clear everything out…

Father, the family and friends all send their love and continually wish you all the best. With much love.

Your Mother

From Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer

[Leipzig] II July 1943

Dear Dietrich,

Hope refuses to be put to shame! Every time I sit down to write to you, I hope that you will not get the letter but will have come out in the meanwhile. Since I last had business in Berlin the parents have spoken with you; I expect that it was the event from which you have been living in the last week. I was very glad that the impression that you made on them set their minds at rest and evidently did them good.

At the moment I’m a grass widower. Grete went off to Tempelburg with the children the day before yesterday. The train left with them all standing together in the corridor in a dreadful crush. They all spent a day and a night with the parents in Berlin; I hope that it wasn’t just a strain, but also brought them a degree of pleasure. It was quite an invasion. I’m enjoying the complete quietness and lack of interruptions and have spent the day working over my lecture again and ‘modernizing’ it. I also worked in the garden for a couple of hours. Our pear tree hadn’t borne fruit before and we were going to cut it down last year, but this year there is fruit all over it. The pears are dangling down vertically from the thin branches right at the top of the tree and are now bound to break off at the first storm. I’ve built a tall framework round the tree from clothes props and other things nailed together and hope that this will save some fruit and the tree. The crop of berries isn’t bad this year, either, but they aren’t sweet because there hasn’t been enough sun. That at least is a consolation for you: you haven’t lost too much sunshine recently…Warmest greetings.

Your Karl-Friedrich

To his parents

[Tegel] Sunday, 24 July 1943

Dear parents,

So you came here yesterday in all the heat to bring me the parcel! I hope it was not too much of an effort for you. Thank you very
much for coming, and for all the things that you brought. The summer produce is particularly welcome here, of course. Fancy the tomatoes being ripe already! Just lately I’ve been feeling the warmth for the first time. It’s not too uncomfortable here in the cell, especially as I keep fairly still most of the time. But one longs more and more for fresh air. I should just like to spend an evening in the garden again. Of course, it is good to have half an hour’s walking every day, but it’s not enough. I suppose the various things associated with a cold - aches, catarrh, and so on - won’t go till I can get into the fresh air again. The flowers are always a great blessing; they bring some colour and life into this dreary cell. Thank you very much for your letters with the news of the family. I hope that everyone has had good holidays; they all need them. I had another very nice letter from Susi, which pleased me very much. She is quite right; this time of separation first makes it clear that often we take too little trouble to get together in normal times. Precisely because we do not feel it necessary to ‘cultivate’ the obvious family relationships, many things are often neglected, and that is a pity. Thanks, too, to Walter for his card. I’m particularly grateful to Susi again for bringing the parcel so often; it’s such a chore for her. Still, despite all the trouble you have with the parcel, I do want you to know that I savour each bit of it with very great thankfulness and with a really good appetite. So far I’ve kept in very good fettle as a result. I always arrange things so that it lasts exactly a week, and in this way I have a good remembrance of you which gives me strength. Even at breakfast I feel surrounded by you all, and that is all the better, as inwardly I find that the morning is the most difficult time of the day for me to get over.

Two splendid letters from Maria and one from her mother - dated the 27 June! perhaps it’s been lying around somewhere? - have given me great delight. Let Maria ride as much as she wants; I’m glad about that and only envy her it. From her refusal to take up my suggestion that she should give me riding lessons I assume that she regards me as a hopeless case - but perhaps she’s even wrong about that!? If, though, she should think that riding is not suitable for a pastor, I beg to differ…

In my reading I’m now living entirely in the nineteenth century.
During these months I’ve read Gotthelf, Stifter, Immermann, Fontane, and Keller with new admiration. A period in which people could write such clear and simple German must have had quite a healthy core. They treat the most delicate matters without sentimentality, the most serious without flippancy, and they express their convictions without pathos; there is no exaggerated simplifying or complicating of language or subject matter; in short, it’s all very much to my liking, and seems to me very sound. But it must have meant plenty of hard work at expressing themselves in good German, and therefore plenty of opportunity for quiet. By the way, the last Reuters were as fascinating as ever; I’m delighted and surprised at their equipoise, which often extends to the language itself. An author’s style is often enough to attract or repel the readers.

Special thanks, too, for the trouble you take over something to smoke and to all the kind donors of cigarettes.

How are things with Renate? Please give her my love and thank her very much for her greetings.

Each time I write, I hope it will be my last letter to you from prison. Of course, this really becomes more likely every day; and one gradually gets sick of being here. I do so wish for all of us that we could have a few more of the lovely summer days together.

Father, have you really allowed yourself to be included in the ‘Film of Personalities’? That would be very nice. And surely in that way we could get a series of good photographs of you?

So once again, many thanks for everything that you keep doing. Much love to Maria, mother, grandmother and the new in-laws, and of course to all the rest of the family. Love and thanks,

your Dietrich

From his father

Charlottenburg, 28 July 1943

Dear Dietrich,

I’ve been wanting to write to you all day and something has always been getting in the way. In this respect you are more
master of your time, so even in your situation there are places where one can speak of freedom. There was a telephone call here early this morning to say that Maria will be allowed to talk with you the day after tomorrow. We are both very pleased. My letter will only reach you after you’ve talked to her, so I need not report what we and the rest of the family are doing. You will hear the essential news from her. On Sunday the Leipzig party and the Schleichers are coming back from Tempelburg; I expect we shall have another large but amusing invasion unless the Leipzig party continue their journey in the evening. Emmi
⁶⁰
has already come back with her three and Suse’s time at Friedrichsbrunn will also be coming to an end soon. Spring and summer are passing. We think of you a great deal these hot days in your cell under the roof. One small comfort to us is the memory of those hot September days when we visited you in Barcelona,
⁶¹
when you visited us in the early morning you asked whether we had frozen in the night. You would have taken the blanket, whereas we spent the night wondering how to protect ourselves from the heat.

You will soon have been out there for four months. I trust that we can now hope that things have been satisfactorily cleared up and that we shall soon have you with us again. It would be fine if we could spend some time together at Friedrichsbrunn. But one dare not think of such idylls in this troubled, bomb-threatened time. It’s very beautiful even in the garden; if only mother hadn’t to cope with the whole housekeeping, one could be quite content with it. It is very often the case - I keep hearing it from patients - that people are glad to be home again because in the end they can feed themselves better then. Of course there is nothing to beat a walk through the woods at Friedrichsbrunn and a fine afternoon in the fields, and I hope that I shall experience that once again. Much love from mother and

your Father

[Pencil note from D. Bonhoeffer in the margin of the letter: airraid protection, travel, Reuter, Captain on leave, Hans cannot take the heat!]

To his parents

[Tegel] 30 July 1943

Dear parents,

At today’s interview at the War Court Dr Roeder gave me permission to write to you and Rüdiger Goltz
⁶²
about my defence.
⁶³
As I don’t know Rüdiger’s address in Bavaria, I wanted to ask you to get in touch with him. I think that it is questionable whether he can take the case himself because of the damage to his leg, which as far as I know has become much worse again. But he will surely be able to recommend a suitable person. Dr Roeder thought that the counsel for the defence would need one day for the brief, one day for discussion with me and one for the trial, i.e. three days. That is not very much. But I expect that you, father, know many lawyers, too. I’m sure that you know Dr Sack from the Lubbe trial.
⁶⁴
However, it’s questionable whether such a big name would take on a case that seemed to him to be so petty, and besides, he is said to be frightfully dear. I only wanted to remind you; I cannot judge myself. I have in mind a quiet, experienced, older man, not tied up in church politics, whom one can trust as a person and in whom one can confide one’s case. I know no one myself,
⁶⁵
but you’ll find the right person. It would be good if you could clear up the matter soon.

By the way, I’m now allowed to write to you every four days; that is very splendid for me. I think that I will always alternate between you and Maria.

Many thanks for everything and please don’t be worried. Love to you and the family. Your Dietrich

NOTES

1.
31 March 1943.

2.
Renate Schleicher, grand-daughter of Karl Bonhoeffer, and Eberhard Bethge.

3.
For several months the censor only allowed letters to his parents, at ten-day intervals.

4.
Maria von Wedemeyer, from the Pätzig estate in the Neumark.

5.
Older brother, Professor of Physical Chemistry, at that time in Leipzig.

6.
A supreme court judge, at that time a ‘special leader’ with the military
Abwehr
(Military Intelligence Department) in Berlin. He was married to Bonhoeffer’s sister Christine; husband and wife were arrested together on 5 April 1943, the latter being held for several weeks. Dohnanyi was murdered on 9 April 1945.

7.
Written in the WUG (Wehrmacht Investigation Prison) for officers, Berlin-Moabit, Lehrter Strasse 64.

8.
i.e. To
have had
companions in trouble is a comfort, but to
have
them is a burden (quotation from Vergil,
Aeneid).

9.
Bonhoeffer was confronted by Dohnanyi and his wife Christel during the investigations.

10.
Ursula Schleicher, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sister, who lived with her family next door to the parents’ house, Marienburger Allee 42.

11.
Summer house of the Bonhoeffer parents at Friedrichsbrunn, in the east Harz.

12.
Ruth von Kleist-Retzow in Klein-Krössin, see DB, pp.358f.

13.
This is really a reference to Eberhard Bethge. Bonhoeffer avoided mentioning him directly during the first six months in Tegel, so as not to draw attention to the relationship between them and Bethge’s exemption from military service, also for the
Abwehr.

14.
Brother, killed in France in 1918.

15.
Youngest sister, wife of the Dahlem pastor Prof. Lic. Walter Dress.

16.
Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law, ministerial adviser and Professor of Air Law in Berlin, arrested 4October 1944, murdered 23April 1945.

17.
Son of the Schleicher couple.

18.
Renate, Dorothee and Christine Schleicher; Barbara, Klaus and Christoph von Dohnanyi.