#andwerehoff Berlin Museums: Bonhoeffer House - Topography of Terror - Jewish Museum

Bonhoeffer House is tucked into a upper middle class neighborhood in northwest Berlin. It is the house that the Bonhoeffer's moved into after Dietrich's father retired. Karl Bonhoeffer had been a prominent Psychiatrist and continued to use portions of the ground floor for waiting patients and consultations. This is not the house Dietrich grew up in, but is the house he lived in as a young adult, and where he wrote Ethics, and where he was arrested in 1942. Dietrich's parents were in the upper class, very educated, lived in the realm of the mind, and were more comfortable with the natural than the supernatural, the academy instead of the church. They thought Bonhoeffer was a little crazy to go and study theology. They had nannys for their children who were from Moravia, and were Herrnhuter. They introduced the Daily Text to Bonhoeffer as he grew up, which provided him a profoundly scriptural spirituality which he would always use. His book on the Psalms and Life Together are reflective of this kind of spiritual life. I imagined him praying the scriptures in the rooms we were in today.

Here were the very appropriate texts for today:

You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit. Psalm 30:3 (NIV)

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Colossians 1:13

These texts made me think of Bonhoeffer's martyrdom, and his martyr's crown.

Early in Bonhoeffer's ministry, he poured his life into a group of very poor confirmands. He couldn't get control of the class, until he remembered his father telling stories to a rapt audience of his brothers and sisters. From then on he used the narrative approach to instruct now interested students. He paid for them all to go on a retreat with him, and paid himself for their robes so they would stick out of the normal.

This famous picture of a typical town's warning that Jews are not welcome has implications for the King of the Jews (INRI). Our very able docent commented, "Where Jews are not welcome, Jesus Christ is not welcome." #true

Bonhoeffer's grandmother, Judy (?), when she was 91 marched up to a blockade of officers who were keeping people from shopping at Jewish merchants, and broke through their imposing line. They said, "You can't purchase anything from them anymore." She kept walking and said, "I purchase my goods from those I've always purchased my goods." Not only that, when she had done all her shopping, she returned past the same guards as if to say, "Look how much I bought!" Maybe courage is catchy? #goodness

Here are the professors at the Confessing Church seminary that Bonhoeffer led. It was out of this Biblical community that the ideas behind "Life Together" were developed.

We ended the time in the museum in his attic room. This was his Clavichord which we were able to play (some better than others :). 

This was his actual desk and chair.

Peter and I took turns taking pictures of each other.

The art on the walls was not original to the room, but are reproductions from the art that hung on the walls at the Confessing Church Seminary. I loved this one of Mary and Jesus. #beautiful

Bonhoeffer's lived right next door to extended family, the house to the right. After the conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler, Bonhoeffer telephoned a co-conspirator from his room and received no answer. He knew his time was short. He walked to his friends and family next door and asked if he could share lunch and a glass of wine with them for lunch. As they were dining, his father came over and said, "There are some men here to see you." He never returned. Please read more about Bonhoeffer. Or better yet, read Bonhoeffer. Start with his book on the Psalms: The Prayerbook of Jesus. Next, read Life Together. Both of these are very accessible. Next, The Cost of Discipleship.

On our way through Alexanderplatz, we happened by some public art from the GDR days. Marx and Engels. It is interesting what the East did with history, and it is interesting what we do with history. Some art has superimposed explanation over it. Some has other pieces added to it to supply more of the story. In this case, the original statues were supplemented with modern towers with pictures of the overthrow of oppressive regime. #interesting

We also went through the Topography of Terror (one of the most worthwhile free museums I have ever been to), and the visually and artistically haunting Jewish Museum which covered the history of mostly European Judaism from early days. I didn't takes pictures, but that doesn't mean they weren't worth seeing. Dinner at an Italian place across the street and we watched the first part of the Italy-Germany soccer game. We were wondering what the crowd at and Italian place would be like. Still cheering Germany. How we hear air horns and fireworks whenever Germany does something great. We are staying in a 1970's East German high rise that looks like uninspiring communist architecture. We are 2 blocks from the Jewish Museum and 3 blocks from Checkpoint Charlie. Cool location!