Hitler’s central and most consistent policy was a brutal racist one, especially his anti-Semitism. This policy began to be implemented immediately on his accession to power. Because Christians for centuries had been too often involved in anti-Jewish expressions, because most people did not take Hitler’s brutal statements at their obvious meaning, and because Hitler—like most psychopaths—could be devilishly clever in seeking his goals, the churches were tragically flawed in their response to the Nazi brand of racial anti-Semitism.

Bonhoeffer was one of the very few who reacted quickly and well to this challenge. In a paper written April 1933, just two months into Hitler’s time in power, Dietrich protested the application of the “Aryan clause” to the Christian ministry, and appealed for solidarity with all Jews—secular, Christian, as well as those in Judaism. It was this paper that he said that if a government fails in its responsibility and becomes either tyrannical or permits anarchy, it is the duty of the church not only to bind up the wounds of the oppressed but “to put a spoke in the wheel” of the failed government. When he read this paper before a group of Lutheran pastors in Berlin some left the room in protest against its revolutionary implications.

The steady increases of laws eroding Jewish life Germany arrived at a new stage of violence with a carefully prepared nation-wide pogrom the nights of November 9-10, 1938. It has become known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) because of the broken glass in hundreds of destroyed Jewish stores and the 250 burned synagogues. The two pictures on the left are from that night of terror. At the time Bonhoeffer was in north Germany and heard the news by radio. Included in his devotional reading that day was Psalm 74. He put the date (European style) in the margin by verse 8 and an explanation point beside verse 9. That page in his Bible is shown on the right. The two verses in English read:

They burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.

To their credit, the Christian churches had more success than any other institution of Germany in resisting Nazi control (“coordination”), but to their shame they were tragically deficient in speaking out against Hitler’s racial barbarism. Bonhoeffer was one of the few who did. According to his biographer the “persecution of the Jews in Germany was the main reason for Bonhoeffer’s decision to take an active part in political conspiracy.” There is evidence that his reflections and prayers in the days following Kristallnacht were important for him in arriving at that decision.