Letters and Papers From Prison (17 page)

Your Mother

Mother hasn’t left me much room. But she’s told you all the important news, so that all that remains is for me to send you best wishes. I’m drying tobacco leaves at the moment. I hope you will be out again by the time they’re smokable. Zacharias
³⁶
has kept bringing me cigarettes from his own planting, which tasted very good. Warmest greetings.

Your Father

Testament
³⁷

In the event of my death…

I can give my parents nothing but thanks. I write these lines in the grateful consciousness of having lived a rich and full life, in the assurance of forgiveness and in prayer for all those named here.

Berlin, 20 September 1943

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Eberhard is not to distress himself over my burial. I am quite
happy if Ebeling, Rott, Kanitz, Schönherr, Dudzus, Fritz,
³⁸
Walter,
³⁹
Asmussen, Dibelius, Böhm, Jannasch or Lokies see to it.

To his parents

[Tegel] 25 September 1943

Dear parents,

Yesterday, mother, you left another splendid parcel for me. Your imagination really is inexhaustible; the warm food in the thermos flask was a special surprise – and it was marvellous; but thank you and everyone else who contributed for everything else. I do hope that you will soon be spared this trouble. The rain seems to have gradually settled in outside, and to match it I have a running cold, and my lumbago is back. I think that the reason is simply the lack of fresh air. The brief half hour, from which the hasty NCO is very fond of docking a few minutes, because otherwise he cannot get his duty done, is far too little, especially if one catches chills as easily as I do. That’s only a burden because it prevents one from doing the only things that one can do here, reading and writing. But it’s not serious, and certainly shouldn’t make you worry. It’s just a nuisance, and quite incidental.

A very nice letter came from Renate a few days ago; I’m very grateful to her for it. It’s now become a real wartime marriage for her to endure, with many deprivations and difficulties. But the two of them will not lose heart as easily as all that. At any rate, they had a couple of very good months together. Perhaps I will soon face a similar decision.
⁴⁰
If one can foresee that we can be together for at least a couple of months, then I would be in favour of marriage; on the other hand, I think that only a two-day honeymoon is too short, particularly for the woman, so I think it better to wait – but how long? Still, one can only make a decision about these questions when the time comes, and not beforehand. I’m so sorry for Maria, with the shocking delay over my case. Who could have envisaged it in April? I wish very much that one were told at the outset how long a business like this is likely to last. Even in my work here there is a good deal that I could have done differently
and more profitably. In fact, people being as they are, every week, every day is precious. Although it may sound paradoxical, I was really glad yesterday when at last permission for a lawyer and then the warrant for my arrest came. So it seems that the apparently purposeless waiting will soon be over. At the same time, being in custody for so long has brought me experiences that I shall never forget. I keep reading the unusual books that you brought me from Karl-Friedrich with great delight, in between my work proper. For the rest, I’m doing some writing, and noticing that I also enjoy doing free-lance, non-theological writing. But I’m realizing for the first time how difficult the German language is and how easily one can murder it.

Many thanks to Ursel for what she sent recently. But she should really use
all
of it for her two soldier sons!

On reading this letter through, I think it sounds a bit disgruntled. That is not what I intend, and it wouldn’t represent my state of mind. Much as I long to be out of here, I don’t believe a single day has been wasted. What will come out of my time here it’s still too early to say; but something will come of it.–

Please give my love to Maria, to all the family and the children. I’ve only had Renate’s letter recently. Keep well in these autumn days. With all my love and thanks,

your Dietrich

From Christoph von Dohnanyi

[Sakrow] 28 September 1943

Dear Uncle Dietrich,

Today I’ve taken something to father. Then after I’d bought something else in town, I went home again about mid-day.

My flute teacher has now come back again. He’s been in Spain. I can go to him tomorrow. He lives in Steglitz. That’s not exactly the best place for air raids. He takes his fourteen flutes – I believe that’s the number he has – with him into the cellar each time there’s an alert.

Our little goat - I believe that you were here when she was born – is growing with tremendous speed; already she’s almost as
big as the old one. The two of them are making quite a lot of work. First there is clearing out the stalls, and secondly the question of fodder is not at all easy to solve. We can’t give the animals our own potatoes. They have to be outside a great deal and eat greenstuff. They’re both very fond of that, and afterwards the old one always gives much better milk. However, as a result the garden is losing its attractiveness. Still, milk today is more important than an attractive garden and two into one won’t go.

Now I have to stop and clean up those stalls, which are already very messy.

All the best.

Your grateful Christoph

From his parents

[Charlottenburg] 3 October 1943

Dear Dietrich,

Your letter of 31 August came the day before yesterday – a record: one month for a distance of 13 kilometres! – evidently as a result of the move of the Reich War Court to Torgau. That is a pity. I hope that the request for permission to visit will not take so long. I asked for it about ten days ago. Tomorrow it’s six months since we had your arrest, with the flowers from my seventy-fifth birthday celebrations still around. It’s good news to us that you have the capacity to concentrate on your work, at least for a time, to such a degree that you can quite forget the situation of the moment. I’m eager to read your study on the experience of time. When one lives with certain dates in mind, as we do from Friday to Friday, when we take your weekly parcel, the weeks seem short, and in reminiscences what has been experienced seems to go quickly back into the past. Perhaps the latter is something to do with old age, but perhaps it is also connected with the abundance of new impressions with which one is confronted in the present times. I’m not particularly good at being able to work. Too many things come upon one. The garden is now taking less time. We shall be picking three apples and no pears. On the other
hand, the vintage is a good one this time. I think that we shall be able to see to a sample for you on Friday.

Yesterday the day was filled with glass work. We had to nail in the panes ourselves and put the putty on, after the glass man had shown us. It looks easier than it is. Still, we now have everything in order except for one pane in the dining-room. Mother will write to you on the other side about the family and the house and give you all the news. Warmest greetings and good courage for the rest of your time of trial.

Your Father

Dear Dietrich,

It is a handicap to writing letters when one assumes that they will be outdated by the course of events before they reach the person to whom they’re sent. For instance, I would very much like to give you some advice about what to do for your catarrh; I see that you have it from your request for some Ems pastilles. But as unfortunately they aren’t to be had any more, the question doesn’t arise. I only hope that you can get some advice from a doctor…

You can’t imagine how difficult it is to get the Fontane and the Stifter. Renate says that you had two volumes of Stifter in your library, and
your
Fontane. But I haven’t any possibility of getting anything out of your library anyway, as we took everything from the attic down to father on the ground floor and on to the first floor, where it is piled up in cupboards. When I saw how often it was that the top floor of a house was burnt out, I didn’t really want to do it, but resolved to. I can, however, send Raabe’s
Hungerpastor
to you. Let me know what Stifter and Fontane you already have there; the things often go to Hans, and then I’m no longer in the picture about where they were…Always let me know what you want. I would so like to make your position as comfortable as possible within our powers. It really is a quite improbable situation for members of our family. But I can say one thing. I have always been proud of my eight children, and I am now, more than ever, when I see the dignity and respect they maintain in such an indescribable situation. I’m also convinced, though, that this time of trial for your patience has a meaning for you, and go on entrusting you to the divine guidance. He will
make things well. So we must go on waiting and working, to make this evil time pass quickly. That is sometimes a blessing of work. Thank God you can do some in the intellectual sphere; there is no lack of work for me here at home and with the family, and I will be cheerful as long as I can.

All the best, my good boy.

Your old Mother

To his parents

[Tegel] 4 October 1943

Dear parents,

Many thanks for your letter of the 20 September, which arrived here simultaneously with one from Maria of the 2 September…, three days ago! Could you please let Maria know straightaway that I’ve only just received her letter; otherwise she won’t understand why I haven’t replied to it; a later one, dated 13 September, arrived earlier.

Outside it’s lovely autumn weather, and I wish that you – and I with you – were at Friedrichsbrunn, and also Hans and his family, who are all so specially fond of the cottage. But how many people must there be in the world today who cannot have their wishes met? I certainly don’t agree with Diogenes that the greatest happiness is the absence of desire, and that the best place to live in is a tub; why should we be fooled into believing that kind of thing? But I do believe that it may be good for us, especially when we are young, to have to wait for what we want, although we ought not to go so far as to give up wishing for anything and grow apathetic. But I’m in no danger of that at present…

A letter from Christoph has just come. It’s surprising how he keeps thinking of writing. What a view of life a fourteen-year-old must get when he has to write to his father and godfather in prison for months on end. He cannot have many illusions about the world now; I suppose all these happenings mean the end of his childhood. Please thank him very much for his letter; I’m greatly looking forward to seeing him again.

I am glad you were able to get hold of Hartmann’s
Systematic
Philosophy.
I’m getting down to it properly, and it will keep me busy for several weeks, if the interruption that I hope for does not occur in the meantime.

Maria wrote so nicely about her hours with you in her last; letter. She feels very much at home with you, and of course I’m. infinitely glad about that. Thank you very much for always making things so pleasant for her. I would find the thought that she should relieve you of the household work very attractive, mother, thinking of my return also; I believe that the worst time for air raids is past, but of course I wouldn’t want to take the responsibility.

I’m looking forward to the next visit that you’ve applied for. Can’t one of the family come with you some time? How are things with Renate and her husband now? Of course I’m thinking of them a great deal. Please give my love to them and all the others. With much love, your grateful Dietrich

Would you please try to get for me: Ortega y Gasset, ‘System der Geschichte’ and ‘Vom römischen Imperium’, two articles which appeared in 1943 from the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart.

To his parents

[Tegel] 13 October 1943

Dear parents,

I have in front of me the gay bunch of dahlias that you brought me yesterday; it reminds me of the lovely hour that I was able to have with you, and of the garden, and in general of how beautiful the world can be in these autumn days. One of Storm’s verses that I came across the other day just about expresses this mood, and keeps going through my head like a tune that one cannot get rid of:

Undgeht es draussen noch so toll,

unchristlich oder christlich,

ist doch die Welt, die sch
ö
ne Welt

so g
ä
nzlich unverwüstlich.
⁴¹

All that is needed to bring that home to one is a few gay autumn flowers, the view from the cell window, and half an hour’s ‘exercise’ in the prison yard, where there are, in fact, a few beautiful chestnut and lime trees. But in the last resort, for me at any rate, the world’ consists of a few people whom I should like to see and to be with. The occasional appearances of you and Maria, for a brief hour as though from a great distance, are really the thing for which and from which I principally live. If, besides that, I could sometimes hear a good sermon on Sundays –I sometimes hear fragments of the chorales that are carried along by the breeze – it would be still better. By the way, Karl-Friedrich or Ursel ought to apply some time for permission to accompany you on one of your visits; that would be a great delight.

I was very pleased about your last letter of 3 October, which came with surprising speed. In the meantime you have convinced yourselves that things go well with me, and I really thought that this time you looked a little better. Thank you very much for the grapes from the garden; they certainly are excellent and I’m only sorry, father, that you yourself are not eating them now.

I’ve again been doing a good deal of writing lately, and for the work that I have set myself to do, the day is often too short, so that sometimes, comically enough, I even feel that I have ‘no time’ here for this or that less important matter! After breakfast in the morning (about 7 o’clock) I read some theology, and then I write till midday; in the afternoon I read, then comes a chapter from Delbrück’s
World History,
some English grammar, about which I can still learn all kinds of things, and finally, as the mood takes me, I write or read again. Then in the evening I am tired enough to be glad to lie down, though that does not mean going to sleep at once.