Dietrich Bonhoeffer (
February 4,
1906 -- April 9,
1945) was a
German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi, and founding member of the
Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (the
German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate
Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in
April 1943 by the
Gestapo and executed by hanging in
April 1945, 23 days before the Nazis' surrender. His view of
Christianity's role in the secular world has become very influential.
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ]; 20 April 1889 -- 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the
National Socialist German Workers Party (German:
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (
NSDAP), commonly referred to as the
Nazi Party). He was chancellor of
Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of
Nazi Germany (as
Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945.
Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in
Europe,
World War II, and the
Holocaust.
Krista Tippett (née Weedman, born
November 9,
1960) is a broadcaster, journalist, and author. She is best known for creating and hosting the public radio program
On Being (formerly
Speaking of Faith), distributed and produced by
American Public Media. The program is currently broadcast on more than
200 public radio stations in the
United States and globally via
NPR Worldwide, its website, and its podcast. Tippett's first book, Speaking of Faith — Why
Religion Matters and How to
Talk about It, was published In 2008. Of the book, the author
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, "Her intelligence is like a salve for all who have been wounded or marginalized by the God
Wars
On Being (also known as
Krista Tippett on Being, formerly known as Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett) is a weekly public radio program about "religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas", produced by American Public Media. Initially launched as a monthly broadcast in
2001 with
Minnesota Public Radio, the program became a national weekly broadcast in
2003 airing on NPR stations across the United States. Operating from a neutral position, the program explores the relationship between religion and the human experience around the world.
Speaking of Faith was awarded its first
Webby Award in
2005—the first public radio program to win the juried prize—and a second in 2008. That same year, the program was given a
George Foster Peabody Award for its radio and online production of "
The Ecstatic Faith of
Rumi" in
2007. Tippett believes that "what most
Americans want, whether they are religious or not, is for the religious voice in our public life to be more constructive—to reflect the capacity religion has to nourish lives and communities." The radio program also spawned the book Speaking of Faith — Why Religion Matters and How to Talk about It. Written by Tippett, it was published in 2007.
Ethics and the
Will of God:
The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer [02.02.
2006]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life spanned the rise and fall of
Hitler's Germany, offers us a model of personal morality and conscience in the most troubled and immoral of times. His resistance of
Nazi ideology, while much of the German church succumbed, is a testament to his moral vision and faith. Krista speaks with producer
Martin Doblmeier, whose 2003 documentary chronicled
Bonhoeffer's life and thought, about the legacy of this unusual theologian.
Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 with his twin sister
Sabine to a prominent middle-class family in
Breslau (
Wrocław), the sixth of eight children. His father,
Karl Bonhoeffer, was one of the most distinguished neurologists in Germany as a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the
University of Berlin and the director of the psychiatric clinic at
Charité Hospital in
Berlin. His mother,
Paula von Hase, was a daughter of
Klara von Hase, a countess by marriage who had been a pupil of
Clara Schumann and
Franz Liszt, and a granddaughter of
Karl von Hase, the distinguished church historian and preacher to the court of
Kaiser Wilhelm II. His sister
Christel married
Hans von Dohnanyi, one of the conspirators against Hitler. His twin sister Sabine married
Gerhard Leibholz, a notable jurist of
Jewish descent who had been baptized as a child.
Expected to follow his father into psychiatry, Bonhoeffer surprised and dismayed his parents when he decided as a teenager to become a theologian and later a pastor. When his older brother told him not to waste his life in such a "poor, feeble, boring, petty, bourgeois institution as the church", fourteen-year-old Dietrich replied, "If what you say is true, I shall reform it!"
This
German theologian wrestled with religious principles in the thick of political and personal crisis during
Hitler's regime
. Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier explores Bonhoeffer's religious creativity and the present-day resonance of his ideas.
© "On Being" Podcast 2006
© "The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer"
Art by 'On Being' 2006
- published: 06 May 2012
- views: 24830