On 9 April the Church of England remembers Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a Lutheran Pastor who was martyred in 1945. Bonhoeffer has written one of my favourite, and most challenging, of books The Cost of Discipleship.

But who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

Bonhoeffer was born at Breslau in Silesia (now the Polish city of Wroclaw) in 1906. The family moved to Berlin in 1912 when his father became Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Berlin University. He received his theological education at the universities of Tübingen and Berlin and was greatly influenced by the work of Karl Barth.

After serving (1928–9) as an assistant pastor in a German-speaking congregation in Barcelona, and a further year of study at Union Theological Seminary in New York, he became a lecturer in theology in Berlin in 1931.

An outspoken opponent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Bonhoeffer joined the Confessing Church, which had formed in opposition to the infiltration and takeover of the German Lutheran Church by Nazi sympathizers. They sought to be the authentic voice of the gospel in Germany and to oppose attempts to force anti- Semitism on Church and society.

Leaving Berlin in protest, he spent two years (1933–5) as pastor of German-speaking congregations in London. While in England he became friendly with Bishop George Bell of Chichester.

Returning to Germany in 1935, Bonhoeffer became director of the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwald in Pomerania. But this institution quickly incurred the wrath of the Nazi authorities, who closed it down in 1937.

Bonhoeffer was in America when war broke out in 1939, but returned to Germany, explaining

I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.

He became involved with the underground anti-Nazi opposition, no small step for a Lutheran accustomed to believe in the God-given nature of the Church–State relationship. In 1942 he attempted to put the German underground in touch with the British government via Bishop Bell. But the net was closing in and he was arrested in April 1943 and imprisoned at Tegel prison in Berlin.

The involvement of many of his contacts in the July 1944 plot to kill Hitler may well have sealed his fate, and he was moved several times, finally to Flossenberg concentration camp close to the Czech border.

It was as American troops were approaching the camp in April 1945 that Bonhoeffer was hanged. His writings, and especially his Letters and Papers from Prison have been an inspiration to many who have sought to make sense out of persecution and needless suffering.

On New Year’s Day 1945 he wrote a poem that included the following verse:

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving even to the dregs of pain at thy command, we will not falter, thankfully receiving all that is given by thy loving hand.

Extract from Saints on Earth: A biographical companion to Common Worship by John H Darch and Stuart K Burns

A Prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer From Letters and Papers from Prison.

At times of disaster and crisis, it can sometimes be difficult to find the right words to pray. Many Christians find it helpful to use prayers that have been created and prayed by others. This prayer from Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, written in jail, has helped many Christians in their prayer in times of crisis.

In me there is darkness,
But with You there is light;
I am lonely, but You do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help;
I am restless, but with You there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience;
I do not understand Your ways,
But You know the way for me.
Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
When all men fail me;
It is Your will that I should know You
And turn to You.
Lord, I hear Your call and follow;
Help me. Amen.