Eberhard BethgeCritiques

PR-7

Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. The Nazi Regime executed him by hanging on 9 April 1945.

A massive biography of an incredible man. Although not for the casual inquirer into Bonhoeffer's life (A Spoke in the Wheel is much better for this) it contains information that you will not find in any other source. In my opinion it is well worth the hours spent in reading to encounter in such a full way the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and to give a fuller context to his work than even the comments in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Works editions are able to do.½

The 100th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's birth occasions this revised edition of a 1987 Fortress Press book, updated and expanded with never-before-published photographs of the German theologian and his family. The book offers a helpful introduction to Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) through word and image: his ancestors, his childhood and education, his work as a pastor and professor, and the conflict with the Nazi regime that culminated in Bonhoeffer's 1945 execution. Brian McNeil's translation from the German uses formal, even somewhat stilted, language, but the real joy here is in the book's rare photographs. There are childhood photos of Bonhoeffer with his twin sister, Sabine, who died in 1999; facsimiles of family letters; copies of minutes from meetings of the Christian resistance in London and Germany in the 1930s; and arresting images of the prisons and camps where Bonhoeffer spent his final days. Some of the photos reveal one of the editor's ties to the subject: Renate Bethge is the niece of Bonhoeffer and the wife of his friend and biographer, Eberhard Bethge. Bonhoeffer missed their May 1943 wedding because he had been imprisoned the month before. This substantive coffeetable offering makes a fine presentation of Bonhoeffer's life and work.
From Publishers Weekly

Eberhard Bethge's exhaustive biography of Bonhoeffer is recognized throughout the world as the definitive biography. Victoria Barnett has now reviewed the entire translation for this edition, correcting hundreds of mistakes and omissions, and adding in sections from the German, for example, on Bonhoeffer's childhood, that have never before appeared in English.

"Some words Gorky used about Tolstoy come into my mind: 'Look what a wonderful man is living on this earth!' . . . Bethge has produced a monumental study of him which will surely stand as the definitive and authoritative work on the subject. Reading . . . it is a spiritual experience." Malcolm Muggeridge, The Observers