Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (dē`trĭkh bôn`höfər), 1906–45, German Protestant theologian. Bonhoeffer, influenced early by the thinking of the young Karl Barth Barth, Karl (bärt), 1886–1968, Swiss Protestant theologian, one of the leading thinkers of 20th-century Protestantism.
..... Click the link for more information. , urged a conformation to the form of Jesus as the suffering servant in a total commitment of the self to the lives of others. His ethical thinking led him to become an outspoken leader in the breakaway Confessing Church in Germany that openly declared its theological oppositon to Nazism in the Barmen Declaration of 1934. After the state cracked down on the church, Bonhoeffer continued his ministry underground and eventually became involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler; he was imprisoned for two years and hanged for his role in the plot. His writings, which have had considerable influence on postwar ethics and theology, include The Cost of Discipleship (tr. 1948), Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison (tr. 1953), and Ethics (tr. 1965).

Bibliography

See biographies by E. Bethge (1967, rev. tr. 1999) and A. Dumas (1971), and studies by L. Rasmussen (1989) and R. Wind (1992).

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

(born Feb. 4, 1906, Breslau, Ger.—died April 9, 1945, Flossenbürg) German Lutheran pastor and theologian. He attended the Universities of Berlin and Tübingen, and from 1931 he lectured in theology at the University of Berlin. He became a leading spokesman for the Confessing Church and was active in the resistance movement under the guise of employment in military intelligence. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1943. The discovery of documents connecting him with the 1944 attempt on Adolf Hitler's life led to his execution a month before the end of World War II. One of the most insightful theologians of the 20th century, he argued for a new vision of Christianity that would abolish the division between the sacred and profane and abandon the traditional privileges of the church in favour of active involvement in the world's problems. His best-known works include The Cost of Discipleship (1937), Ethics (1949), and Letters and Papers from Prison (1951).