“He was opposed to any form of nationalism”
Tobias Korenke, the great-nephew of the theologian and Nazi opponent Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on the impact that his ancestor - who was executed 80 years ago - still has in the USA.
Interview: Josefine Janert,
07.04.2025 
Dr Korenke, 80 years ago, on 9 April 1945, your great-uncle Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis. After the Second World War, resistance fighters did not immediately receive due acknowledgement in Germany. What was that like for your family?
Dietrich was the younger brother of my grandmother Ursula. Besides him, Ursula’s husband Rüdiger Schleicher, that is to say my grandfather, her older brother Klaus Bonhoeffer and her brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi were also executed, as well as many of their friends. The period after 1945 was difficult for my grandmother, my mother and her siblings. They never got over the fact that their beloved relatives had been murdered by Germans. A large part of the German public - which I provocatively call the Republic of the Block Wardens (the people employed by the Nazis to keep an eye on local residents) - dismissed the role played by the resistance fighters. Their fate reminded them that there had in fact been people who had followed their conscience during the Nazi era. Many people also thought to themselves, well, the Bonhoeffer family, those conspirators led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and others, they failed. In other words, resistance to Hitler could not be successful, meaning there was no reason to attempt it.
Many people said: we simply weren’t heroes.
But Dietrich didn’t want to be a hero either! The way he is portrayed as a martyr in Todd Komarnicki’s movie “Bonhoeffer” is unbearably kitschy. The execution scene is just excruciating. It’s set on a hill, in a romantic landscape. Clearly it’s supposed to recall the death of Jesus at Golgotha. The scene makes it appear as if Dietrich had been positively yearning for death. Quite apart from the fact that his final minutes at Flossenbürg concentration camp were brutally different to the way the film makes out, Dietrich absolutely loved life. He loved his fiancée Maria, his family, his friends, music, good food. He simply wanted to live a decent life, which is why he took a stand against injustice, marginalisation, persecution and dictatorship. Church representatives in particular often put him up on a pedestal and in doing so make him unreachable. However, we can only learn from him if we understand that he was a human being, that he was one of us, someone who was also continually plagued by doubt: Am I really doing the right thing?
You say that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is also exploited by Christians in the US for their own gain. In what sense?
Evangelicals who sympathise with the right-wing politics of Donald Trump portray him as an evangelical saint, as a champion of nationalism. Their theory is that Nazis occupied Germany against the will of the German people, and that woke activists are occupying the US today. They believe they should fight this with force if necessary - citing Bonhoeffer as an example. Last autumn, the new biopic “Bonhoeffer. Pastor. Spy. Assassin” was released along these lines in the US. Clearly the film was advertised aggressively during the US presidential election campaign, among other things using a poster showing Dietrich with a gun. He was a pacifist and opposed to any form of nationalism, however.
A few years ago, a Bonhoeffer biography was published by Eric Metaxas and became a bestseller in the US. What do you think of it?
It is well written but it paints a misleading picture of an evangelical saint. Metaxas has become radicalised in recent years and, in connection with the Bonhoeffer film, called for people today to oppose woke ideas and Democrat politicians in the same way that Dietrich resisted the Nazis. In a post on X, Metaxas equated former US President Joe Biden with Hitler. When my family published an open letter in the autumn of 2024 opposing the appropriation of Bonhoeffer by evangelical nationalists, he accused us of being exactly the kind of people that Dietrich had fought against. Incidentally, other evangelicals even accused us of anti-Semitism. Our letter received a huge response in the US - from both supporters and opponents.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer supported freedom and the rule of law. He sided with those who are weaker in society.
In evangelical circles, there are even invented Bonhoeffer quotes that paint a black-and-white picture of the world. How does that make you feel?
Naturally we are delighted that people in the US were already enthusiastic about Bonhoeffer in the 1950s! But we resolutely oppose the fact that he is portrayed in a false light by nationalists, who lie about him and cite fake quotes. He found the marginalisation of people intolerable. During both his stays in the US, he forged close ties with black communities and denounced racism. He supported freedom and the rule of law. He sided with those who are weaker in society.
What connects you to the US?
I love the country - and its citizens’ humour, politeness, openness and love of freedom. I think the uncomplicated way people engage with one another is wonderful! And yet we are currently experiencing how more and more authoritarian - or indeed, as the historian Jason Stanley puts it - fascist mindsets are asserting themselves. At last, people are beginning to resist this - though not yet to a sufficient extent.
