Dietrich Bonhoeffer som motståndsman och Svenska kyrkan. Ett påbörjande av en kartläggning av deras kontakter och motståndsrörelsen i allmänhet

Abstract

The overall purpose of the essay is to initiate a survey and highlight, on the basis of sufficiently material, the dealings between Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a member of the resistance and the Swedish Church and/or its representatives. The purpose of the survey is to structure Dietrich Bonhoeffers activities in Sweden and highlight its implications.

The following research questions have been used:

1: What was Dietrich Bonhoeffer doing in Sweden and what persons did he meet? 2: What was the role of the Swedish Church during the Second World War? 3: What was the impact of Dietrich Bonhoeffers visits to Sweden?

In conclusion, this study of the contacts between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Swedish Church has shown: Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in Sweden on two occasions. He met representatives of the Swedish Church, which was engaged in issues related to ecumenism, resistance and peacework. Although the persons he met were representatives of the Swedish Church they sometimes acted as individuals with a Christian philosophy. A Philosophy I find consistent with Dietrich Bonhoeffers philosophy. The Swedish Church acted together with the Nordic folk churches during the Second World War. They were engaged in both moral and practical support of the resistance movements against Nazism. Together with representatives of the resistance movement, they came to design guidelines for an innovative. As I see it, the Swedish Church was not fully in line with the official political policy in Sweden; that Sweden was a neutral state, in order to, if possible, avoid to become directly involved in the war. One of the most provoking conclusions I have drawn is, that the opinion I had when I started my work, that Dietrich Bonhoeffers efforts in the resistance was of a decisive nature for the resistance movement as a hole, was in fact post-release constructions. I don’t mean that Dietrich Bonhoeffer didn´t contribute as a member of the resistance. But the ambiguity I have seen has created a vacuum in which his contributions are enlarged. I believe, according to this, it fully reasonable to assert these necessary corrections of the wrong interpretations and misinterpretations of Dietrich Bonhoeffers efforts. This would explain Dietrich Bonhoeffers real actions. I know that this claim can be considered controversial and imply that Dietrich Bonhoeffers status as a resistance fighter demoted. But the closer study I made of my sources, the stronger this image emerges. Although I still believe that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a member of the resistance, the image I had of his work when I started my work on the essay has changed. A finding I think adds another dimension of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and correlations not previously observed.