After Ten Years (Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1942/3)

[struggle4progress]

... But just as the capacity to forget is a gift of grace, the recalling of lessons we have learnt is also part of responsible living ...

One may ask whether there have ever before in history been people with so little ground under their feet -- people to whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable, repugnant, and futile ... The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all of our ethical concepts ... The 'reasonable' people's failure is obvious. With the best intentions and a naive lack of realism, they think that with a little reason they can bend back into position the framework that has got out of joint ... The fanatic thinks that his single-minded principles qualify him to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull he rushes at the red cloak instead of the person ... Then there is the man with a conscience ... Evil approaches him in so many respectable and seductive disguises that his conscience becomes nervous and vacillating, till at last he contents himself with a salved instead of a clear conscience ... Here and there people flee from public altercation into the sanctuary of private virtuousness. But anyone who does this must shut his mouth and his eyes to the just around him ... Civil courage, in fact, can only grow out of the free responsibility of free men ...

Although it is certainly not true that success justifies an evil deed and shady means, it is impossible to regard success as something that is ethically neutral ... Simply to ignore the ethical significance of success is a short-circuit created by dogmatists who think unhistorically and irresponsibly ... We will not and must not be either outraged critics or opportunists, but must take our share of responsibility for the moulding of history in every situation and at every moment, whether we are the victors or the vanquished ...

Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force ... Against folly we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use ... What will matter is whether those in power expect more from people's folly than from their wisdom and independence of mind ...

We must allow for the fact that most people learn wisdom only by personal experience ...

... What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain honest straightforward men ...

Letters and Papers from Prison
Enlarged Edition
Edited by Eberhard Bethge
Touchstone: 1997

[Jim__]

1. Does Bonhoeffer have any advice for us?

He was clearly a man of great courage. But, after World War I, Germany was a place without hope. Does he see any way it could have turned out differently? I'm not sure that plain honest straightforward men would have made a difference in post-WWI Germany.

[struggle4progress]

2. I'm not at all sure that "Germany was without hope after WWI"

The War was fought mainly in France, and a whole generation of French men simply vanished into its battlefields

Germany itself was essentially untouched. But the original German war-strategy failed, and by the summer of 1918 the German generals knew that defeat was inevitable. Germany was at the time still semi-feudal in some respects, and the costs of the war were probably borne unequally by the population, depending on social class. In particular, food shortages developed, which led to some popular discontent with the war. On the other hand, propaganda was wide-spread and effective: the sudden negotiation of peace surprised many Germans who had previously believed that their country was on the verge of victory. Revolution began about the same time Germany surrendered, and a number of returning soldiers joined. Germany, then only a few decades old as a country, became a weak democracy plagued by street battles between various political factions. The liberal Social Democrats, in an effort to reduce the chaos, had right-wing troops suppress by violence various local governments sympathetic to the revolution, with the predictable result that the Communists never cooperated with the Social Democrats. It is true that the hyperinflation of the early 1920s was very hard on many people, but Germany seems to have recovered from that within a few years. Political violence remained common throughout the Weimar era, and groups like the Nazis fomented it and then propagandized themselves as the only solution to it. On the other hand, Weimar was also culturally productive. I suspect an accurate picture of Germany in that era would be extremely complicated