Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Life in Pictures

The 100th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's birth occasions this revised edition of a 1987 Fortress Press book, updated and expanded with never-before-published photographs of the German theologian and his family. The book offers a helpful introduction to Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) through word and image: his ancestors, his childhood and education, his work as a pastor and professor, and the conflict with the Nazi regime that culminated in Bonhoeffer's 1945 execution. Brian McNeil's translation from the German uses formal, even somewhat stilted, language, but the real joy here is in the book's rare photographs. There are childhood photos of Bonhoeffer with his twin sister, Sabine, who died in 1999; facsimiles of family letters; copies of minutes from meetings of the Christian resistance in London and Germany in the 1930s; and arresting images of the prisons and camps where Bonhoeffer spent his final days. Some of the photos reveal one of the editor's ties to the subject: Renate Bethge is the niece of Bonhoeffer and the wife of his friend and biographer, Eberhard Bethge. Bonhoeffer missed their May 1943 wedding because he had been imprisoned the month before. This substantive coffeetable offering makes a fine presentation of Bonhoeffer's life and work.