The Summer of Decision

The Journal of Military History, 1997

CRES Seminar, 2025

In this presentation, I explore Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to kill Hitler and compare it with the stance taken by Helmut von Moltke in his resistance to the Nazi regime.

Central European History, 2012

period, give powerful accounts of a collapsing world, riddled with uncertainty, growing fear, and deepening despair. This volume ought to put to rest many of the hoary clichés concerning the responses of Germany's Jews to their persecution. Along with the callow optimism, willful denial, and self-delusion on display in these documents, there is plenty of the opposite as well: hard-headed, intelligent analysis, an unflinching weighing of options, and clear recognition of just how dire the situation had become.

The Bonhoeffer Legacy: An International Journal, 2018

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s reputation, as far as the secular world is concerned, is based on his well-known opposition to the Nazi regime and the martyrdom he suffered because of it. Less well known is the fact that Bonhoeffer’s motivation for joining in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler was his revulsion at Nazi Jewish policy and his repudiation and revision of the anti-Judaistic theology prevalent in his church practically since Luther’s time. While Luther’s enunciation of the theology of justification had established the so-called Protestant principle and thus given the non-Roman and non-Orthodox Christian world an irrefutable raison d’être, Luther also bequeathed to his church a stubborn anti-Judaistic theology that demanded Jews submit to baptism or be driven out of the land. That Bonhoeffer’s revolutionary theology and its significance is not very well understood is evidenced by the fact that no less a scholar than Saul Friedlaender in 1997 could accuse Bonhoeffer of an unreconstructed theological anti-Semitism that is assumed to have ‘moulded some of his pronouncements’ on the Jewish question.

2006

Reviews in Religion & Theology, 2011

are -but eminently accessible to the reader. It would have been nice to see the same level of transparency and openness in the other essayswhich would have reflected better the colloquium's theme, if not its milieu. Nevertheless, I think this volume marks a valuable contribution to theological studies, to the engagement between theologians, philosophers, literary critics, and all those who question, suspect, and, perhaps, seek to push further a uniquely theological discourse.

PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 2007

Theology Today, 2014

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's association with the conspiracy to overthrow the Nazi regime and kill Hitler is a stumbling block for many Christians who find it difficult to reconcile this with his book Discipleship and his writings on peace. This book, written for general and academic audiences by a professor of theology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, a professor at Prairie Bible College, and an Eastern Mennonite graduate now serving in the ministry, attempts to address this issue historically and theologically. The book will arouse controversy because of its claim that Bonhoeffer did not really support the conspiracy and its plans to assassinate Hitler. The most valuable sections of the book examine how Bonhoeffer's peace writings, especially his extensive reflections on the Sermon on the Mount, remained foundational for his theology up to the end of his life. This is not new territory, but the authors' analysis of the continuities between Discipleship and Ethics is sound, and their reading of Bonhoeffer through the lens of a peace tradition is interesting. Despite their internal coherence, however, these writings cannot be read in isolation from other equally central aspects of Bonhoeffer's thought, particularly the development of his thinking on church and state issues, which is crucial for understanding Ethics, his wartime writings, and his attitudes toward the resistance. The authors do not address these aspects and their tensions with the peace writings. Moreover, there are passages throughout Bonhoeffer's theological lectures that complicate a purely pacifist reading. To cite two striking examples from the Discipleship period, in Bonhoeffer's 1935 lectures on the Augsburg Confession, he systematically reviewed the theological foundation for tyrannicide (using that very word), and in 1936 Bonhoeffer told his seminarians that there was no ''final answer'' as to whether a Christian could participate in war, warning them equally against militarism and what he called ''doctrinaire pacifism.'' It is perfectly legitimate to offer new theological interpretations, and readers can decide whether the authors have made their case here. Challenging an established historical narrative, however, requires either new evidence or a very convincing argument. The book's provocative title sets up a ''straw man'' argument. Responsible scholars (including his biographer Eberhard Bethge) have never