Who Am I? by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

Who Am I? by Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a Squire from his country house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders,
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectations of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

About Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his twin sister, Sabine, were born on February 4, 1906, in Breslau, Germany.  Bonhoeffer studied in Germany and at Union Theological Seminary in New York and participated in the European ecumenical movement.  He was considered to have a comprehensive grasp of German and English language theology. 

In 1927, he earned a doctorate with honors at the University of Berlin. The following year, 1930-1931, he did postgraduate work for a year at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and in August 1931 became a lecturer in theology at the University of Berlin. In the winter semester of 1931-1932, Bonhoeffer published his lectures on Creation and Fall. In the summer of 1933, He published his final lecture courses as “Christ the Center” and taught a seminar on the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel. His position on the faculty of the University of Berlin was withdrawn on August 5, 1936.

Bonhoeffer was ordained in November 1931 and served in pastoral ministry until 1939. During those years, he also served as youth secretary of the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches and was a member of the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work

Bonhoeffer’s theologically rooted opposition to National Socialism first made him a leader, along with Martin Niemueller and Karl Barth, in the Confessing Church and an advocate on behalf of the Jews. In 1943, he helped a group of Jews escape to Switzerland and was imprisoned for it.

Bonhoeffer was hanged in the Flossenburg concentration camp on April 9, 1945, for participating in the Protestant resistance movement. The letters he wrote from 1943 until his death in 1945 were posthumously published by his student and friend, Eberhard Bethge, as “Letters and Papers from Prison.” His correspondence with his fiance, Maria von Wedermeyer, was published as “Love Letters from Cell92.”