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DIETRICH BONHOEFFER:  A BIOGRAPHY by Eberhard Bethge   ($29, paper) 
            Revised, re-edited by Victoria Barnett.  This is the definitive, authoritative biography of Bonhoeffer.  Sections missing in the original English translation are now restored.  Bethge was a close friend, confidant and relative of the martyred Bonhoeffer.

THE CUP OF WRATH by Mary Glazener   ($17, paper)
            This historical biographical novel telling the story of DB is very accurate and told without hype.  It is an excellent introduction to the life story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.     

THE BONHOEFFERS:  PORTRAIT OF A FAMILY by Sabine Leibholz-Bonhoeffer   ($12, paper) 
            This is an excellent introduction to the Bonhoeffer family written by his twin sister.

MATRIARCH OF CONSPIRACY:  RUTH VON KLEIST by Jane Pejsa   ($17, paper)) 
            Ruth von Kleist-Retzow was the grandmother of Dietrich's fiancé Maria von Wedemeyer. She supported his “illegal” seminary in Finkenwalde, a suburb of Szczecin, Poland (Stettin, Germany, then).  Ruth often worshipped at the seminary bringing her grandchildren along.   

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL by Renate Wind   ($13, paper)
            This is a brief (180 pages), accurate and descriptive biography of DB written in an easy-to-read popular style.  The title is based on a Bonhoeffer quote, "The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to personally put oneself like a stick into the spokes of the wheel."  

FRIENDSHIP AND RESISTANCE, ESSAYS ON DIETRICH BONHOEFFER by Eberhard Bethge  ($9, paper) 
            This is a collection of essays by his closest friend.  These essays range from biography to interpretation:  the 1934 expulsion of Eberhard and others from the Wittenberg seminary; a sermon delivered at Plotzensee on the 50th anniversary of 20 July 1944; how the prison letters survived; Crystal Night 9-10 November 1938; the Bonhoeffer family; DB's theology of friendship; and Eberhard's presentation in Bonn on 1 November 1993 "against forgetting".

A TESTAMENT TO FREEDOM (The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer) edited by Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson   ($18, paper) 
            An excellent revised and expanded introduction to Bonhoeffer's writings, sermons,  lectures, doctoral dissertations, articles, books, letters and poems via excerpts.  A quick resource.  Over 500 pages!  A “Best Buy” especially for those who do not purchase DBWE volumes.             

THE OTHER BONHOEFFER by George Huntemann  ($12, hardcover)  
            The author is professor of Protestant Theology at the Free Protestant Academy in Basel, Switzerland.  In the Introduction he writes, "I will attempt to understand Bonhoeffer in the context of his time and against his time, for our time and against our time." 

PAUL SCHNEIDER:  THE WITNESS OF BUCHENWALD by Rudolf Wentorf   ($8, paper) 
            In July of 1939, during his return to Germany from the United States, while visiting his twin sister in London, Dietrich Bonhoeffer learned of Paul Schneider’s death.  Sabine states in THE BONHOEFFERS:  PORTRAIT OF A FAMILY, “Pastor Rieger entered in a state of great shock and brought him the terrible news of the death of Pastor Paul Schneider in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. ... I remember that he had difficulty with his breathing, and that he turned to the children and said, ‘Listen carefully children.  This is a name you must not forget.  Paul Schneider is our first martyr.’  Then he told them about him.”   Rudolf Wentorf, a friend and companion of Paul Schneider, tells the important story of this remarkable parish pastor.

DBWE, VOL. 1, SANCTORUM COMMUNIO, Dietrich Bonhoeffer   ($25, hardcover) 
            This is the first of his doctoral writings known as "habilitation".  He deals with original sin, predestination, universal sinfulness, practical concerns for Worship, the need for private confession of sin, references to his contemporary social situation, e.g., Hitler Youth Movement, interest in the church "reaching out".  The marginal notes and comments by Reinhold Seeberg, his advisor, add color!

DBWE,  VOL. 2, ACT AND BEING, Dietrich Bonhoeffer  ($24, hardcover) 
            This is the second of his doctoral writings.  In ACT AND BEING he presents his theological basis for "revelation" as opposed to "philosophy" as the way to know the LORD God. The being of God is known through His own acts as revealed in the Biblical witness.   

DBWE, VOL. 3,  CREATION AND FALL, Dietrich Bonhoeffer  ($22, hardcover) 
            He sought to look beyond the "critical" tools to ask the question of the text:  what is the Word of God in the Biblical text addressed to us today?  The entire Bible is the book of the Church.  Jesus cannot be separated from his Old Testament/ Jewish roots.  The Bible speaks of  good and evil because it knows the Cross in the middle.

DBWE, VOL. 4, DISCIPLESHIP (formerly The Cost of Discipleship)   ($16, paperback) 
            The editors’ Afterword states “DISCIPLESHIP is much more closely linked with Bonhoeffer as a person than a work usually is with its author.  It is, therefore, a book which no Bonhoeffer scholar can disregard”.  It is here that one reads of the conflict between “costly grace” and “cheap grace”, “only the believers obey” with the necessary correlation “only the obedient believe”, the proper understanding of Paul and James regarding “faith” and “good works”, the need for Ephesians 2. 8, 9 and 10 being held together.  The notes also direct attention to struggle for the Church within the State Church and beyond involving the Nazis.

DBWE, VOL. 5, LIFE TOGETHER & PRAYERBOOK OF THE BIBLE, Dietrich Bonhoeffer  ($24, hardcover) 
            LIFE TOGETHER is DB's reflections upon the two years that his illegal seminary functioned in a building, no longer standing, in Finkenwalde.  PRAYERBOOK OF THE BIBLE is a brief commentary on Psalms, which he considered to be the prayerbook of Jesus and that the Psalms should be understood in this way.  

DBWE, VOL. 7, FICTION FROM TEGEL PRISON, Dietrich Bonhoeffer   ($26, hardcover) 
            This is as close as we get to an autobiography by DB.  Renate Bethge comments in her “Afterword” that “Bonhoeffer had no intention of writing a memoir of his youth or of his life” but “anyone who wanted to find autobiographical references in these texts and knew Bonhoeffer’s biography, found them”.  Here is an unfinished drama/play, the novel which is a re-worked version of the drama, and a short story.  There is description describing the friendship between Christoph (DB) and Ulrich (Eberhard Bethge), the meeting of Renate (Maria von Wedemeyer) and Christoph (DB), adversarial discussion between Major von Bremer (Maria’s father) and Christoph (DB).