Movie Review

Journey Films Directed by Martin Dobelmeier, 90 minutes, 2000.

This documentary tells the story of a tragic romance, espionage and a heroic search for justice. It is a compelling story of an obscure German theologian who was executed by order of Hitler at the very end of World War 2 and whose writings have been required reading for Christians in the West since the Fifties. Among his disciples are Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King Jr.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 into well-fixed circumstance as a twin and youngest boy in a family of eight children. His father, Karl, was a psychiatrist in Berlin and they lived in the fashionable suburb of Grunewald. His family home was a social centre for lawyers, doctors and intellectuals. In 1914 his brother Walter went off to war and was killed within two weeks of shipping out. Dietrich observed the devastation in the family and says that it was the source of his pacifism.

He surprised and shocked everyone by deciding to study theology and received his doctorate at the age of 21. At the time Karl Barth was teaching in Berlin and propounding the startling view that the Word of God judges all human pretentiousness. It was startling because the churches had been easily co-opted into support of the state's waging war. Bonhoeffer was not an active churchgoer at the time and indeed the pursuit of theology and ministry didn't seem to require it. This changed radically when in 1930 at the age of 24 he went to New York on a teaching fellowship at Union Seminary.

He was introduced to Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church where Adam Clayton Powell Sr. was the preacher and his life was changed forever. In huge contrast to his then experience here was a church that was emotional, socially engaged and justice oriented. He returned to teach in Berlin and introduced much of the informality and social engagement that he had learned from Reinhold Niebuhr (whom he did not like because he was not Christo-centric enough!).

Even though the Confessing Church had been formed by then, he was the first Evangelical pastor to speak out about "the Jewish Question" in his famous quote "Only he who cries out for the Jews can sing Gregorian Chant." He propounded three principles for The Church acting toward the state: 1. Ask the state whether its actions are legitimate, 2. Aid the victims, 3. Jam a spoke in the wheel.

The Confessing Church had established a seminary in the village of Finkenwald and asked Bonhoeffer to be its leader. He established a community of students focussed on mutual service, prayer and study. Bonhoeffer even checked to see whether the beds were made! He advocated a new monasticism for the new church. Caught completely by surprise Bonhoeffer fell in love with the granddaughter of a local aristocrat who supported the seminary. Her name was Maria von Wedemeyer.

The supreme test of Bonhoeffer's ethics was his involvement in the Resistance Movement and through his brother and brother in law, in a plot to assassinate Hitler As we know, the plot was discovered; Bonhoeffer was jailed and executed at the very end of the war on April 9, 1945. His parents found this out some six weeks later when they heard of it on a radio broadcast from Britain.

This film has uncovered many photos and letters from the Bonhoeffer family and friends. Interviews with his students and great friend Eberhard Bethge were the last ones conducted in their lives. It seamlessly weaves together Bonhoeffer's thought, the events of his life and the reflections of friends and family. It is very touching but it is also a cautionary tale about the church's role in society; a review of dramatic events that have formed society and the church in the third millennium. If you know a lot about Diettrich Bonhoeffer you will enjoy this film. If he is a little known character I commend this movie to you.