LETTERS AND PAPERS FROM PRISON - Softcover

Dietrich. Bonhoeffer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0020839200 ISBN 13: 9780020839200

Publisher: Scribner, 1972

Synopsis

CONTENTS: PROLOGUE: 1.) After Ten Years. A Reckoning made at New Year 1943 ------------ PART I: Time of Interrogation. April to July 1943 -- 1.) Letters from 11 April to 30 July 1943 -- 2.) Notes, May 1943 -- 3.) A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell, May 1943 -- 4.) Outlines of letters. To the Judge Advocate, Dr Roeder, during the interrogations ------------ PART II: Waiting for the Trial. August 1943 to April 1944 -- 5.) Letters from 3 August 1943 to 10 April 1944 -- 6.) Testament of 20 September 1943 -- 7.) Testament of 23 November 1943 -- 8.) Prayers for Fellow-Prisoners, Christmas 1943 -- 9.) Report on Experiences during Alerts -- 10.) Report on Prison Life after One Year in Tegel -- 11.) Lance-Corporal Berg. A Narrative ------------ PART III: Holding Out until the Overthrow. April to July 1944 -- 12.) Letters from 11 April to 18 July 1944 -- 13.) Thoughts on the Day of the Baptism of Dietrich Wilhelm RĂ¼diger Bethge, May 1944 -- 14.) The Past. A poem -- 15.) Notes: June 1944 -- 16.) Sorrow and Joy. A poem -- 17.) Notes: July 1944 -- 18.) Who am I? A poem -- 19.) Christians and Pagans. A poem -- 20.) Night Voices in Tegel. A poem ------------ PART IV: After the Failure. July 1944 to February 1945 -- 22.) Letters from 21 July 1944 to 28 February 1945 -- 23.) Stations on the Road to Freedom. A poem -- 24.) Miscellaneous Thoughts -- 25.) Notes: July/August 1944 -- 26.) Outline for a Book -- 27.) The Friend. A poem -- 28.) Jonah. A poem -- 29.) Powers of Good. A poem ------------ * Epilogue -- 1.) Memories of a Survivor. Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer to his children, June 1945 ------------ * APPENDIX -- 1.) The Other Letters from Prison by Maria von Wedemayer-Weller

About this title

Review:

Letters and Papers from Prison is a collection of notes and correspondence covering the period from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's arrest in 1943 to his execution by the Gestapo in 1945. The book is probably most famous, and most important, for its idea of "religionless Christianity"--an idea Bonhoeffer did not live long enough fully to develop, but whose timeliness only increases as the lines between secular and ecclesial life blur. Bonhoeffer's first mention of "religionless Christianity" came in a letter in 1944:

What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience--and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by "religious."

The pleasures of Letters and Papers from Prison, however are not all so profound. Occasionally, Bonhoeffer's letters burst into song--sometimes with actual musical notations, other times with unforgettable phrases. Looking forward to seeing his best friend, Bonhoeffer writes, "To meet again is a God." --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau in 1906. The son of a famous German psychiatrist, he studied in Berlin and New York City. He left the safety of America to return to Germany and continue his public repudiation of the Nazis, which led to his arrest in 1943. Linked to the group of conspirators whose attempted assassination of Hitler failed, he was hanged in April 1945.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1972
• ISBN 10: 0020839200
• ISBN 13: 9780020839200
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448