Bonhoeffer-Haus

The Heerstraße estate in western Charlottenburg was established in the 1920s and 1930s as a suburb for professional people, and since then it hasn’t really changed. It is very leafy with lots of birds, which sing very loudly. Other than that it is very quiet, which is surprising considering what surrounds it. In the 1930s the government built the Olympia Studium to the north-west, and the Avus autobahn/grand prix racetrack to the south-east. The Bonhoeffer family moved to the house at Marienburger Allee 43 in 1935, when Karl Bonhoeffer retired from practice and teaching as a psychiatrist. It became the focus for the large Bonhoeffer family, and Dietrich always lived there whenever he was in Berlin. The house is now a ‘Memorial and Place of Encounter’ where people can visit to learn about Bonhoeffer and research his theology and his involvement in the resistance against Hitler.

We had arranged to visit the Bonhoeffer-Haus simply by emailing Dr Knut Hämmerling, the house coordinator. Knut is very laid back while preserving all the formalities. He met us at the door and showed us the best bit of carpet to dry our shoes on so we wouldn’t track moisture through the house. The hallway was full of shoes; part of the house is used as accommodation for pastoral students, so I felt right at home.

Knut took us through to what was once the dining room and is now the office, with an enormous collection of works and other material by and about Bonhoeffer, in a number of languages. Swapping my theologian brain for the uni administrator one, I realised that as a research centre with a very limited budget it must be a tough job keeping on top of all the Bonhoeffer research and publications, but they do their best.

The living room is unfussy and full of light, not filled with the overstuffed décor and furniture I had expected but simple, stylish and warm, with copies of family portraits on the wall and a view into the back garden.

When you know the story of a family, to stand in their house is like being invited into their lives, a privilege, not like standing in a museum or even the Buddenbrooks House. You are where their joys and sadnesses occurred. When Karl Bonhoeffer retired he still saw private patients, and when not in professional use his consulting rooms on the left side of the house were the place of many family celebrations. One famous one was the celebration of Professor Bonhoeffer’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1943. While the extended family ate and drank and played Bach for their father, the brothers Klaus and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and their brothers-in-law Rüdiger Schleicher and Hans von Dohnanyi were sweating it out waiting to hear the outcome of a plan to assassinate Hitler. To stand in that room knowing that, and what happened later...

These rooms have now been converted into a large seminar room with an exhibition about Bonhoeffer’s life and work. Nine large panels line the sides of the room with photos and documents but no explanatory labels. This allows the guide to adjust the level of commentary and explanation to the knowledge and understanding of the visitors. Since we already knew a lot about Bonhoeffer, Knut let us ask questions about the things that interested us.

Upstairs in the attic is the study where Bonhoeffer wrote part of his Ethics and the essay ‘After Ten Years’ (on the need to take action against Hitler), and where he was arrested by the Gestapo on 5 April 1943. It’s a room I could quite happily work in. Some of his own furniture is still here: a simple desk, with a stylish lamp and chair; his harmonium (he was an accomplished musician), still playable but in need of tuning; and the original bookshelves, lined with copies of the works he owned (the originals are in the Stadtbibliothek with Bonhoeffer’s papers). The window overlooks number 42 next door, where his sister and her husband lived with their children. Dietrich would watch the children playing in the yard and throw sweets to them. A single bed has been placed in the same position as Bonhoeffer’s to show how the bachelor theologian lived.

While standing in the study I recalled how his parents wrote to him in prison to ask which books he wanted taken down to the cellar to be protected from the air raids, and I can imagine the trouble it took to move the harpsichord down the winding stairs. I’m not surprised he wrote to them saying ‘Don’t go to too much trouble.’

Back downstairs we signed the guest book, and Knut very kindly showed us where Kevin Rudd signed when he visited a couple of years ago. Bonhoeffer would be embarrassed by some of the attention he gets, but he would be grateful that people like KRudd (and me) are taking his ideas seriously and trying to put them into practice.

*7/8/2011: Actually the attempt happened during preparations for the party some time earlier - you get confused when you're writing on the run. But my point still stands.