Letters and Papers From Prison (53 page)

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel, postmark 27 July 1944]

Dear Eberhard,

Just a brief note and thanks for your letter of the 16th.
⁶
I’m glad that you’re not suffering too much with the heat. It’s become almost cool here. It must be a relief to your mind that you have plenty to do; at any rate, I should suppose so.

Your summary of our theological theme is very clear and simple. The question how there can be a ‘natural piety’ is at the same time the question of ‘unconscious Christianity’, with which I’m more and more concerned. Lutheran dogmatists distinguished between a
fides directa
and a
fides refiexa.
They related this to the so-called children’s faith, at baptism. I wonder whether this doesn’t raise a far-reaching problem. I hope we shall soon come back to it.

Things are unchanged in the family. You can go on writing as you’ve been doing so far. Everyone is glad of a letter. Have you got the poems (3)?
⁷
Enough for today.

All best wishes. Keep well. Watch out for malaria with those mosquitoes!

All the very best, always.

Your Dietrich

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel] 28 July [1944]

Dear Eberhard,

I haven’t thanked you yet for the nice little photograph which gave me great pleasure in its Italian frame. Quaint - can one photograph in Italian and in German? and the most remarkable thing is that this can be the case with such a nondescript picture. Why don’t you get a comrade to take a picture some time that shows all of you in your natural surroundings. It’s very reasonable that you’re now working in shirt sleeves.

You think the Bible hasn’t much to say about health, fortune, vigour, etc. I’ve been thinking over that again. It’s certainly not true of the Old Testament. The intermediate theological category between God and human fortune is, as far as I can see, that of blessing. In the Old Testament - e.g. among the patriarchs -there’s a concern not for fortune, but for God’s blessing, which includes in itself all earthly good. In that blessing the whole of the earthly life is claimed for God, and it includes all his promises. It would be natural to suppose that, as usual, the New Testament spiritualizes the teaching of the Old Testament here, and therefore to regard the Old Testament blessing as superseded in the New. But is it an accident that sickness and death are mentioned in connection with the misuse of the Lord’s Supper (‘The cup of
blessing,
I Cor. 10.16; 11.30), that Jesus restored people’s health, and that while his disciples were with him they ‘lacked nothing’? Now, is it right to set the Old Testament blessing against the cross? That is what Kierkegaard did. That makes the cross, or at least suffering, an abstract principle; and that is just what gives rise to an unhealthy methodism, which deprives suffering of its element of contingency as a divine ordinance. It’s true that in the Old Testament the person who receives the blessing has to endure a great deal of suffering (e.g. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph), but this never leads to the idea that fortune and suffering, blessing and cross are mutually exclusive and contradictory - nor does it in the New Testament. Indeed, the only difference between the Old and New Testaments in this respect is that in the Old the blessing includes the cross, and in the New the cross includes the blessing.

To turn to a different point: not only action, but also suffering is a way to freedom. In suffering, the deliverance consists in our being allowed to put the matter out of our own hands into God’s hands. In this sense death is the crowning of human freedom. Whether the human deed is a matter of faith or not depends on whether we understand our suffering as an extension of our action and a completion of freedom. I think that is very important and very comforting.

I’m getting on all right, and there’s nothing fresh to report about the family. Hans is completely laid up with his diphtherial paralysis but there seems to be good hope for him. Good-bye, and keep your spirits up as we’re doing; and look forward, as we’re doing, to meeting soon.

With all my heart.

Your faithful Dietrich

Nenes Lied,
no. 370, 3-4.
⁸

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Giordano Bruno:
‘There can be something frightening about the sight of a friend; no enemy can be so terrifying as he’ - Can you understand that? I’m trying hard, but I can’t really understand it. Does ‘terrifying’ refer to the inherent danger of betrayal, inseparable from close intimacy (Judas?)?

Spinoza:
Emotions are not expelled by reason, but only by stronger emotions.

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.

We are so constituted that we find perfection boring. Whether that has always been so I don’t know. But I can’t otherwise
explain why I care so little for Raphael or for Dante’s
Paradiso.
Nor am I charmed by everlasting ice or everlasting blue sky. I should seek the perfect’ in the human, the living, and the earthly, and therefore not in the Apolline, the Dionysian, or the Faustian. In fact, I’m all for the moderate, temperate climate.

The beyond is not what is infinitely remote, but what is nearest at hand.

Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humour.

The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one’s life towards a goal. Without such a goal, chastity is bound to become ridiculous. Chastity is the
sine qua non
of lucidity and concentration.

Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.

Please excuse these rather pretentious
‘pensées’.
They are fragments of conversations that have never taken place, and to that extent they belong to you. One who is forced, as I am, to live entirely in his thoughts, has the silliest things come into his mind - i.e. writing down his odd thoughts!

From his parents to Eberhard Bethge

[Sakrow] 30 July 1944

Dear Eberhard,

On this peaceful Sunday morning which we’re enjoying here on the veranda at Sakrow with our great grandson contentedly beside us wriggling and chattering in his cot … we want to send you a good letter and tell you that your offspring is getting on very well and is delighting us with his attractive temperament and that all is well with Renate, too.

You will be getting regular news of the goings on of the rest of the family. I was able to see Hans last week. He is in a pitiful state
as a result of the dreadful paralysis from his diphtheria; his face and throat have improved somewhat, but it is still advanced in his arms, legs and back, making him almost impossible to move. One can certainly expect that he will recover again, but it’s a severe affliction and trial of patience for both him and Christel. Dietrich’s health is good; we hope to talk to him very soon. He will be suffering very much from his isolation in this fast-moving time and have trouble in concentrating on Dilthey, which he is now studying for his ethics. Of course our thoughts are very much with you and your comrades in Italy, and we are very much preoccupied with the movement of the fronts in East and West. I hope that the V-I will soon bring us peace, before winter comes.
⁹
I myself think that we ought to get a cease-fire this year, but I can’t say that my prophecies have always been right. I hope that this year will then bring us together again. One can’t begin to imagine in detail what that will be like. I wonder whether we shall be able to celebrate such fine family feasts as in previous years? But perhaps you will surprise us by an unexpected leave before then, and we shall celebrate that as far as the times still allow.

Grandmother wants to write, too. So I’ll stop and keep the rest of the news until we can talk about it. Keep well and God bless you.

The Great-grandfather

Dear Eberhard,

… Everything was already going well, but now Perels thinks that prospects have become much more difficult, if not impossible.
¹⁰
In any case, it would have been a great exception. But one never knows what things are good for. We’ve seen that now with our two.
¹¹
Man thinks and God directs. That now seems so clear to one, and yet we go on thinking and thinking how we can do everything in the best and wisest way. It’s the same with the various young families and their children. The women don’t know how to divide themselves between their children and their husbands. Is it right to leave the children in Friedrichsbrunn or Stawedda or is it better now for the families to stay together in Berlin or Leipzig? These are the questions which occupy us a
great deal. We recently took Dietrich some patience cards! It’s a hard time for the two of them.

I hope that everything won’t last too long now and that God will allow us to keep our heads up. When you come home you will have enormous delight in your wonderful son. My thoughts are very much with you. God bless you. Your Grandmother

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel] 3 August [1944]

Dear Eberhard,

Today your child is six months old. You will be at home by the time he begins to speak. What a good thing that you know where you’re going on your return. It’s better to wait for something definite than for something indefinite. I expect that Maria will go back to the Red Cross again when her foot is right. Where we shall see each other then one can’t know. Sometimes I think that I’ve laid too heavy a burden on her. But who could have guessed that? And if things had gone as I wanted, my situation even today would have long been a different one. But you mustn’t think that I feel any bitterness about it. I sometimes wonder myself at how ‘composed’ (or should I say ‘blunted’?) I am.

I wonder whether you will be moved again soon, and if so, where to. I should like to know whether you’ve read my poems. You must read the very long one (in rhyme), ‘Night Voices in Tegel’, some time later. I’m enclosing the outline of a book that I’ve planned. I don’t know whether you can get anything from it, but I think you more or less understand what I’m driving at. I hope I shall be given the peace and strength to finish it. The church must come out of its stagnation. We must move out again into the open air of intellectual discussion with the world, and risk saying controversial things, if we are to get down to the serious problems of life. I feel obliged to tackle these questions as one who, although a ‘modern’ theologian, is still aware of the debt that he owes to liberal theology. There will not be many of the younger men in whom these two trends are combined. How very
useful your help would be! But even if we are prevented from clarifying our minds by talking things over, we can still pray, and it is only in the spirit of prayer that any such work can be begun and carried through.

I’ve been reading about ‘tropical heat’ in Italy. Is it very bad? How will you be celebrating your birthday? Do you remember the evening ice in Florence on 28 August 1936? At that time I don’t think that I had given you a present, because we didn’t have any money. Have you seen San Gimigniano this time? And do you remember that on that occasion too you also went on strike about making the detour because of the heat? Or won’t you admit that nowadays? Or could my memory really be so wrong? There’s nothing to report about the family. I’m always glad when I can write that. Good-bye. When you’ve got through the Cicerone, you will later be a glorious guide to Italy. I’m looking forward to that.

All the very, very, best, each day and for ever. God bless you.

Faithfully, your Dietrich

Notes

[July/August 1944]

The forcing of God out of the world is the disqualification [?] of religion
live without God
But how, if Chr[istianity] were not a religion at all?
Worldly, non-religious interpretation of Christian concepts.
Christianity arises from the enco[unter] with a particular man:
Jesus. Experience of transcendence
The educated? Col[lap]se of Christian ethics

No social ethics
Confessional
‘I only believe what I see’
God - not a relig. concept [?]
Return to the M[iddle] A[ges]

Unconscious Christianity: the left hand does not know what the
right hand is doing. Matt. 25.
We know not what to pray.
Motto: Jesus said to him: ‘What is it that you want me to do?’

Outline for a Book

I should like to write a book of not more than 100 pages, divided into three chapters:

1. A Stocktaking of Christianity.

2. The Real Meaning of Christian Faith.

3. Conclusions.

Chapter 1
to deal with:

(a) The coming of age of mankind (as already indicated). The safeguarding of life against ‘accidents’ and ‘blows of fate’; even if these cannot be eliminated, the danger can be reduced. Insurance (which, although it lives on ‘accidents’, seeks to mitigate their effects) as a western phenomenon. The aim: to be independent of nature. Nature was formerly conquered by spiritual means, with us by technical organization of all kinds. Our immediate environment is not nature, as formerly, but organization. But with this protection from nature’s menace there arises a new one - through organization itself.

But the spiritual force is lacking. The question is: What protects us against the menace of organization? Man is again thrown back on himself. He has managed to deal with everything, only not with himself. He can insure against everything, only not against man. In the last resort it all turns on man.

(b) The religionlessness of man who has come of age. ‘God’ as a working hypothesis, as a stop-gap for our embarrassments, has become superfluous (as already indicated).

(c) The Protestant church: Pietism as a last attempt to maintain evangelical Christianity as a religion; Lutheran orthodoxy, the attempt to rescue the church as an institution for salvation; the Confessing Church: the theology of revelation; a δóς
μoί πoῦ στῷ
over against the world, involving a ‘factual’ interest in Christianity; art and science searching for their origin. Generally in the Confessing Church: standing up for the church’s ‘cause’, but little personal faith in Christ. ‘Jesus’ is disappearing from sight. Sociologically: no effect on the masses - interest confined to the upper and lower middle classes. A heavy incubus of difficult traditional ideas. The decisive factor: the church on the defensive. No taking risks for others.