Eberhard Bethge ( 28 of August of 1909 , Warchau, Germany - 18 of March of 2000 , Wachtberg, Cologne , Germany ) theologian and writer, friend of the martyr of the Nazi resistance Dietrich Bonhoeffer ; Married to Bonhoeffer’s niece, was a member of the German Resistance against Hitler’s regime .
Biography
He was born in Warchau, near Magdeburg , studied in seminaries of theology in Pomerania where he met Bonhoeffer who taught courses in the Confessing Church , part of the resistance against the Nazis .
He was recruited in World War II where he was featured in the Abwehr in Italy .
He married in 1943 with Renate Schleicher-Bonhoeffer (daughter of Rüdiger Schleicher and Ursula Bonhoeffer) they had three children (one man and two women).
He was arrested for being involved in the plot of July 20 to assassinate Hitler . He was imprisoned by the Gestapo between 1944 and 25 April 1945 when he was released (Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi had been executed on 9 April and two days after his release Klaus Bonhoeffer and his father-in-law Rüdiger Schleicher ).
After the war he continued as pastor in the German-speaking congregation of London where Bonhoeffer had served between 1933-35.
Between 1961 and 1975 he was director of Pastoral College in evangelical schools Rhine .
He accepted academic positions at Harvard Divinity School, Chicago Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary New York; Was appointed honorary professor in Bonn .
He gave lectures until the year 2000.
He wrote the biography considered definitive about his friend: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage and edited Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison and Friendship and Resistance: Essays on Dietrich Bonhoeffer .
You can see it in the documentary of the year 2003 Bonhoeffer directed by Martin Doblmeier 1 and in the world in war , chapter Prisoner of the Gestapo (1973) 2
References
- Back to top↑ «Bonhoeffer (2003)» .
- Back to top↑ ” ” The World at War “(1973)” .