CHAPTER 25
BONHOEFFER SCORES
A VICTORY

If there are men in Germany also ready to wage war against the monstrous tyranny of the Nazis from within, is it right to discourage or ignore them? Can we afford to reject their aid in achieving our end?

— BISHOP GEORGE BELL TO BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER ANTHONY EDEN

Von Moltke and Bonhoeffer met for the first time during their trip to Norway, which had recently been handed over to Hitler by the Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling, whose surname became an improper noun, meaning “traitor.” For his treachery, Quisling was made prime minister of the new puppet government on February 1, 1942. But on the day he took office, Quisling struck a belligerent pose with the Norwegian church, forbidding one of its leaders, Provost Fjellbu, to hold a service at the nationally symbolic Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. This caused a firestorm of resistance and linked the Norwegian church to the wider Norwegian resistance in a way that was publicly disastrous for the new puppet government and the Nazis in general. In April, the Abwehr decided to send Bonhoeffer to Norway to help the situation, although of course he was going there to do precisely the opposite.

Quisling removed Fjellbu from office on February 20. But unlike what had happened in Germany, the Norwegian church leaders were both united and firm: every Norwegian bishop immediately severed his connections to the government. In March Quisling overreached again, establishing a Norwegian version of the Hitler Youth. A thousand teachers immediately struck in protest.

In April it was again the church’s turn to oppose Quisling. On Maundy Thursday, Bishop Berggrav, the heroic leader of the pastors’ resistance, was put under house arrest. So on Easter, April 5, every pastor in Norway did what their bishops did six weeks earlier and what Bonhoeffer had begged the German pastors to do in July 1933: they went on strike. Bonhoeffer had been in Kieckow and Klein-Krössin during March, working on his Ethics. But when Berggrav was imprisoned, Dohnanyi summoned him to Berlin and briefed him on his new assignment.

The bravery of the Norwegian church during this episode cheered Bonhoeffer. He was eager to travel there and encourage them, offering the benefit of his experience. On April 10, he took the train from Stettin to Sassnitz on the northern coast. He and Dohnanyi were to meet von Moltke there and then take the ferry to Trelleborg in Sweden.

Von Moltke was among those who did not believe assassinating Hitler was permissible morally and who thought it would make a martyr of him and lead to a worse government under his vile lieutenants. His principal interest was in having plans ready for a socialistic, democratic government when the Nazi regime collapsed. Four weeks hence, a group would begin discussions about this at Moltke’s estate in Kreisau; it would be the first of the Kreisau Circle. Bonhoeffer couldn’t attend because he would be going to Switzerland then, but he and Moltke would have plenty of time to discuss their views since the ferry they missed was the last one that day. So they dined together and saw a movie.

The next morning, with no word on the ferry, they took a long walk to clarify their game plan for Norway. Von Moltke and Bonhoeffer walked four miles north along the coast to the chalk cliffs of Stubbenkammer and four miles back, not seeing a soul the entire time, save one solitary woodsman. After the three-and-a-half hour walk, they returned to the hotel to learn that there was still no news of the ferry. They decided to have lunch. Von Moltke was a year younger than Bonhoeffer, but had been married ten years. In a letter to his wife, Freya, he wrote, “As we were sitting at table (!), the ferry appeared suddenly in the window, coming out of the fog. It was truly marvelous. So we rushed to the harbor, where we were told that the ship would depart two hours later, so we should hurry.”

They caught this ferry, but it got stuck in the ice for two hours, causing them to miss the last train from Malmö to Oslo. They stayed overnight in Malmö and in the morning continued to Oslo. Bonhoeffer’s experience in the German church struggle gave him special authority with the Norwegian church leaders. He took the same stand that he had taken years earlier in Germany, but this time his advice was heeded. He told them that this was an opportunity to show the world—and everyone in Norway—just how brutal the Nazis were. They mustn’t back down. According to Berggrav’s account years later, Bonhoeffer “insisted on bitter resistance—even as far as martyrdom.” Neither Bonhoeffer nor Moltke was able to meet with him in his prison cell, but they got a message to him, and their mission to persuade the Norwegian government to free him was successful. The day they left Stockholm, Berggrav was released.

Bonhoeffer and Moltke returned to Berlin and reported to Dohnanyi. They had enjoyed each other’s company, but a few weeks later, when the Kreisau Circle met for the first time, Bonhoeffer was on his third journey to Switzerland for the Abwehr.

The Third Trip to Geneva

When he arrived in Geneva, Bonhoeffer was disappointed that Visser ’t Hooft was not there, not least because he wished to talk to him about his recent trip to Norway. He learned that Visser ’t Hooft was traveling in Spain and England, and in England he presented to a gathering called the Peace Aims Group the memorandum that Bonhoeffer had drawn up the previous September, although by this time it had become somewhat dated due to changed circumstances. The main reason for being in England was to meet with Sir Stafford Cripps, who had a prominent position in Churchill’s War Cabinet. He gave Cripps a memorandum written by Adam von Trott zu Solz, who worked at the Foreign Office and would become a vital figure in the Kreisau Circle.^* His memorandum was meant to make its way through Cripps to Churchill. Bonhoeffer knew little about the Trott memorandum or about Visser ’t Hooft’s intended contact with Cripps since all of that had come out of the world of the Kreisau Circle rather than from the world of the Abwehr conspiracy. The lack of communication between the two groups was unintentional; it was typical in the secret world of military intelligence and wartime conspiracies.

In Geneva, Bonhoeffer again visited with Erwin Sutz. He also spent time with Adolf Freudenberg, who had been the second pastor at St. George’s in London, where he helped Rieger and Hildebrandt with German refugees. One evening at the Freudenbergs’, Bonhoeffer saw Frau Visser ’t Hooft and others in the ecumenical movement. But he did less important things too. He spent one delightful afternoon shopping with Frau Freudenberg. Adolf Freudenberg remembered that his decision to go slumming at a certain eatery did not meet with Bonhoeffer’s approval:

We knew a romantic but rather dingy beer garden situated above the murmuring waters of the Arve, which had been a great success with all our guests. But not with Dietrich: the waitress, the way she served the meal, the importunate animals, like a cat, a dog, an old duck, a half-naked turkey, begging for food and pestering the customers—all this offended his sense of beauty and dignity, and we soon left.

The Trip to Sweden

During this rather aimless visit to Geneva, Bonhoeffer learned something on May 23 that would lead to his greatest success in the new field of foreign policy: Bishop Bell would be in Sweden for three weeks. Such information was hard to come by during the war, especially for Germans, so to coordinate plans with someone like Bell was impossible. That Bell would be in neutral Sweden where Bonhoeffer might see him was too good to pass up since it presented the possibility of getting word of the conspiracy to the British government. Since Bell had direct connections to the Churchill government, Bonhoeffer must do everything possible to catch him before he left Sweden.

Bonhoeffer must leave Geneva immediately. Arrangements would have to be made through the Abwehr, which could always be complicated, not to say dangerous. Bonhoeffer hustled back to Berlin to speak with Dohnanyi and Oster. Canaris got Bonhoeffer a special courier pass through the Foreign Ministry, and on May 30 he boarded a plane for Stockholm.

In the tangled huggermuggery of secret intelligence missions, one hand often didn’t know what the other was doing. And no one was sure whom to trust. A sometime opponent of Bonhoeffer named Hans Schönfeld was at that moment in Sweden and had met with Bishop Bell on the twenty-fourth. Schönfeld and Bonhoeffer had a number of conflicts over the years. Schönfeld was not connected to the Confessing Church, and in the ecumenical sphere he had been in league with the perfidious Bishop Heckel. He was at Fanø when Bonhoeffer gave his peace speech and was quite upset, hoping to hear something more pro-German. He even thought Bonhoeffer should have used the opportunity to defend the racist Volk theology that many Germans adopted. Of course Bonhoeffer did nothing of the kind, knowing it was anti-Semitism in clerical robes. But suddenly Bonhoeffer and Schönfeld found themselves on the same side of the conspiracy against Hitler.

When Bell and Schönfeld met, Bell was wary since he knew of Schönfeld’s connection to the Reich church government. Schönfeld’s general attitude was a bit like the attitude that Churchill cynically associated with German “peace feelers.” They wanted Britain to go easy on Germany when the war was over, and they didn’t want to concede the territories that they had conquered using their barbaric methods. There was little humility or shame for what their government had been doing. That was why Churchill wouldn’t give Germans the time of day, even those claiming to represent a conspiracy against Hitler. Schönfeld was not quite like that, but since Bell didn’t know him, Bell was cordial, though ultimately cool and noncommittal.

But now Bonhoeffer was on his way. On Whitsunday, May 31, he arrived in Stockholm, where he learned that Bell was in Sigtuna at the Nordic Ecumenical Institute. Bonhoeffer hurried there, surprising his old friend. They hadn’t seen each other since the spring of 1939, just before Bonhoeffer left for New York. It seemed that several lifetimes had passed for both men, and yet here they were, as if they had only seen each other yesterday.

Bell brought Bonhoeffer welcome news of Sabine and Gert. The Bonhoeffer family had been anxious about the Leibholzes and vice versa; there had been no communication in three years. Bell told Bonhoeffer that the last he heard, Bonhoeffer was a soldier on his way to fight in Norway! A mutual friend knew that Bonhoeffer had been in Sweden and assumed that he must have been on his way to fighting in Norway. After all, what else would a German be doing in Sweden? After the two old friends caught up on personal news, they moved to the subject of the conspiracy.

Bonhoeffer now learned that Schönfeld was in Sigtuna too. It was initially confusing, but in the end it proved fortuitous because, from a slightly different point of view, Bonhoeffer could corroborate most of what Schönfeld had said. And he could add to it, giving Bell names of those in the conspiracy whom Schönfeld hadn’t known. Bonhoeffer knew through Oster and Schlabrendorff that the two generals who would initiate the coup were Field Marshals von Boch and von Kluge. Such details made it clear to Bell—and would make it clear to his contacts in London—that there were reality and depth to the conspiracy. But how Schönfeld and Bonhoeffer should both come to meet with Bell on behalf of the conspiracy is unknown.

Bonhoeffer observed that despite their differences, Schönfeld had changed in some ways and was fundamentally trustworthy. Indeed he was risking his life to be here, speaking covertly to the representative of an enemy nation about a plot to assassinate Hitler. His connection to the conspiracy seems to have been with the Kreisau Circle, since he spoke of a future post-Nazi government along socialistic lines. Bonhoeffer spoke of more conservative possibilities, including a return to a Hohenzollern monarchy with the Prussian prince, Louis Ferdinand, to whom he was connected via his brother Klaus.^*

Bonhoeffer and Schönfeld diverged in their general attitude. Schönfeld presented an attitude of German strength and sought favorable peace terms. He suggested, for example, that the British could not win the war, so it was in the best interests to cut a deal with the conspirators. Bonhoeffer came from a position of deliberate weakness, one that hoped to appeal to a sense of Britain’s justice and mercy. He expressed deep humility and shame over Germany’s sins, and he felt that he and every German must be willing to suffer for those sins. They must show the world that they were seriously repentant. He wanted to demonstrate to the world the sincerity of their grief and their solidarity with those who had suffered and were suffering. He had no desire to minimize the evils committed in the name of Germany: “Christians do not wish to escape repentance, or chaos, if it is God’s will to bring it upon us. We must take this judgement as Christians.” Christians must be like Jesus in their willingness to suffer for others, and Germany must now do this before the world. God could be trusted to sort out the details. Christians were obligated, like Christ, to pay the price for the sins of others, to lead the way in that. He knew Germany would never recover unless the Germans adopted an attitude of repentance. It was his, and the wider church’s, role to exhort them in that.

Bell minced no words in letting both men know that they should not get their hopes up regarding Churchill’s response to their overtures. The odds had become increasingly long. Nonetheless, they discussed such specifics as how they would communicate with Britain if she wished to communicate, including codes and locations. At first Sweden was to be the place, but Bishop Björquist, who was the head of the Nordic Ecumenical Institute, didn’t think that was possible because of Sweden’s neutrality. Switzerland would have to be the meeting place for representatives of Britain and the German conspiracy. Bethge stated that Björquist’s attitude may have stemmed from a fundamental uneasiness with Bonhoeffer as a result of the ten-day trip to Sweden in 1936 with his Finkenwalde ordinands. Björquist was close to the Reich church and to Bishop Heckel, and was himself an advocate of Volkskirche theology. Like many mainstream Lutherans then, Björquist regarded Bonhoeffer as an Episcopal bishop might today regard an evangelical, and going out on a limb with him seemed a bit frightening.

While in neutral territory, Bonhoeffer wrote Sabine and Gert. He wrote in English, possibly to avoid raising suspicions if the letter fell into the wrong hands:

June 1, 1942
My dears,
What an indescribable joy to have heard from you through George! It still seems to me like a miracle. . . . You will have heard, of course, as we have here in Sweden, that all persons of non-aryan descent who are outside of Germany have been in general expatriated. As far as I can tell the future of your fatherland that is a good thing for you and will make your return only easier on that day for which we are all longing. So I hope, you do not worry about it.

My heart is full of thanks for these last days. George is one of the very great personalities I have met in my life. Please, give my love to the girls. . . . Charles and his wife will go to the countryside in the north to friends of mine for several weeks. That will do them good.

Much love
from Dietrich

“Charles and his wife” was one of the code names the family used during the war. It referred to his parents, Charles being the English cognate for Karl. They were going to Pomerania as guests of Ruth von Kleist-Restow at her estate in Klein-Krössin. Bonhoeffer couldn’t have dreamed that in one week he would be there, and that as a result, his life would change forever.

That same day he wrote Bishop Bell, also in English:

June 1, 1942
My Lord Bishop, Let me express my deep and sincere gratitude for the hours you have spent with me. It still seems to me like a dream to have seen you, to have spoken to you, to have heard your voice. I think these days will remain in my memory as some of the greatest of my life. This spirit of fellowship and of Christian brotherliness will carry me through the darkest hours, and even if things go worse than we hope and expect, the light of these few days will never extinguish in my heart. The impressions of these days were so overwhelming that I cannot express them in words. I feel ashamed when I think of all your goodness and at the time I feel full of hope for the future.

God be with you on your way home, in your work and always. I shall think of you on Wednesday. Please pray for us. We need it.

Yours most gratefully, Dietrich

Bishop Bell well knew the level of Churchill’s cynicism to German overtures, but his meeting with Bonhoeffer had strengthened his resolve to do what he could. That Visser ’t Hooft had been in London to present Trott’s memorandum also encouraged him. On June 18, Bell sent a letter concerning the Sigtuna meetings to Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and requested a meeting:

Dear Mr. Eden,
I have just got back from Sweden with what seems to me very important confidential information about proposals from a big opposition movement in Germany. Two German Pastors, both of them well known to me for 12 years or more (one of them an intimate friend), came expressly from Berlin to see me at Stockholm. The movement is backed by leaders of both the Protestant and Catholic Churches. They gave me pretty full particulars, and names of leading persons in the civil administration, in the labour movement and in the Army, who are involved. The credentials of these pastors are such that I am convinced of their integrity and the risks they have run.

Bell met with Eden on June 30 and presented a long memorandum with the details of his discussions with Schönfeld and Bonhoeffer. Two weeks later, having heard nothing, he bumped into Sir Stafford Cripps. Cripps gave him encouraging news about his own meeting in May with Visser ’t Hooft and about the general reception of Adam von Trott’s memorandum. Cripps said he would put in a good word with Eden. But when it came, four days later, the news was very bad: “Without casting any reflection on the bona fides of your informants, I am satisfied that it would not be in the national interest for any reply whatever to be sent to them. I realize that this decision may cause you some disappointment, but in view of the delicacy of the issues involved I feel that I must ask you to accept it.”

There is no doubt that the bitter British refusal to help these Germans in fighting Hitler had much to do with Churchill’s desire to mollify Stalin, with whom Churchill’s government had that May signed a treaty of alliance. Bethge said that “London carefully avoided anything that might resemble a lack of loyalty to the alliance.” Ironically, the future coiner of the term Iron Curtain was being sensitive to its future architect.

But Bell did not give up. He wrote Eden on July 25, still pressing his suit:

I found much evidence on many sides in Sweden, in addition to my information from the two Pastors, of the existence of a sharp distinction between the Nazis as such and a very large body of other Germans. It is the drawing of this distinction (with its consequences) by the Government in the most emphatic way which is so anxiously awaited by the opposition. . . .

Mr. Churchill said in his first speech as Prime Minister in the House of Commons on May 13th, 1940 that our policy was “to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crimes,” and that our aim was “victory at all costs.” If there are men in Germany also ready to wage war against the monstrous tyranny of the Nazis from within, is it right to discourage or ignore them? Can we afford to reject their aid in achieving our end? If we by our silence allow them to believe that there is no hope for any Germany, whether Hitlerite or anti-Hitlerite, that is what in effect we are doing.

Gerhard Leibholz had been in close touch with Bell and knew what they were up against. In a letter to Sutz about Bell’s efforts, he wrote that “unfortunately, many of his friends and ours do not possess his breadth of judgment, and will have difficulty freeing themselves from erroneous prejudices.” As a Jew, Leibholz was keenly aware of the anti-Semitism in Britain, which accounted for some indifference to the plight of European Jewry; as a German, he was keenly aware of anti-German attitudes that were no less racially motivated. According to journalist Joachim Fest, “there was the conviction in Britain, by no means confined to readers of the gutter press, that Germans were innately evil, or at any rate inclined to be so, as result of their historical and cultural heritage.”

Leibholz urged Bell to take the memorandum to the American ambassador in Britain, John Gilbert Winant. Bell did so on July 30, and Winant was more encouraging. He promised to pass the information to Roosevelt, but Bell never heard from him again. Roosevelt had bluntly rebuffed other overtures from those connected to the German conspiracy.

On August 4, Eden posted his obtuse reply:

My dear Lord Bishop,
Thank you very much for your letter of July 25th about the German problem.

I am very conscious of the importance of what you say about not discouraging any elements of opposition in Germany to the Nazi regime. You will remember that in my speech at Edinburgh on May 8th I devoted quite a long passage to Germany and concluded by saying that if any section of the German people really wished to see a return to a German state based on respect for law and the rights of the individual, they must understand that no one would believe them until they had taken active steps to rid themselves of their present regime.

For the present I do not think that it would be advisable for me to go any further in a public statement. I realize the dangers and difficulties to which the opposition in Germany is exposed, but they have so far given little evidence of their existence and until they show they are willing to follow the example of the oppressed peoples of Europe in running risks and taking active steps to oppose and overthrow the Nazi rule of terror I do not see how we can usefully expand the statements which have already been made by members of the Government about Germany. I think these statements have made it quite clear that we do not intend to deny to Germany a place in the future Europe, but that the longer the German people tolerate the Nazi regime the greater becomes their responsibility for the crimes which that regime is committing in their name.

Yours sincerely,
Anthony Eden

Diplomatic decorum prevented Eden from expressing his true sentiments, but he jotted them in the margin of Bell’s letter for posterity: “I see no reason whatsoever to encourage this pestilent priest!”

On the positive side of things, Heydrich was dead. At the end of May, the albino stoat had been ambushed by Czech Resistance fighters while he was riding in his open-topped Mercedes. Eight days later, the architect of the Final Solution fell into the hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

* . Trott was a descendant of John Jay, the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

* . Ferdinand had befriended Henry Ford and for a time worked in a Ford factory in Detroit. He was also friendly with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.