Bonhoeffer Haus in Berlin

Visit the House

Bonhoeffer House: Place of Memorial and Encounter

The house was built in 1935 as a retirement home for Prof. Karl Bonhoeffer (1868-1948) and his wife Paula (1874–1951). Previously, the family lived in Wangenheimstr. 14 in Berlin-Grunewald. Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, their 90-year-old grandmother, Julie Bonhoeffer, and their unmarried son, Dietrich moved into the new house.

The plan was to be close to the family of the eldest daughter Ursula (1902-1983) and her husband Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Schleicher (1895, shot dead on April 23, 1945 / lawyer, pioneer of aviation law). Both houses were built by the architect Jörg Schleicher, brother of Rüdiger. Dietrich’s older brother Klaus B. moved with his family to Eichkamp in 1936, a district close to Grunewald, where Hans v. Dohnanyi and Dietrich‘s sister Christine Bonhoeffer (married in 1925) already lived.

The house was the place for family celebrations with the 18 grandchildren as well as the place of the resistance movement against the National Socialists with the decisive participation of family members.

In Dietrich‘s attic room, the chapter on Ethics and the analysis of resistance “After Ten Years“ were written.

Thinking about this house, Bonhoeffer wrote: “What a house can mean has been forgotten by most people, but it has become particularly clear to the rest of us in our time. It is a kingdom in the middle of the world, a castle in the storm of time, a refuge, yes, a sanctuary,“ and he describes his own relationship to this house in the baptismal letter to his grandnephew: He is “endeavored to prove himself everywhere in the spirit – as he understands it – which he sees embodied in the house of his parents, your great-grandparents.“

After Karl Bonhoeffer’s death in late 1948 and the death of his wife in 1951, the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg acquired the house with Swedish help as the seat of the student pastor – at that time Eberhard Bethge – and the student community at the Charlottenburg Universities (TU). The house next door was sold privately by Ursula Schleicher a few years later.

Today, the house is open to all visitors – individuals and groups (up to 25 people).

Please make contact early enough to arrange an appointment for your visit or if you need assistance in preparing your trip to the Bonhoeffer Haus.

Want to know more about the Bonhoeffer Haus? Check out this book by Laura Fabrycky.

In Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus, Laura M. Fabrycky, an American guide of the Bonhoeffer-Haus in Berlin, takes readers on a tour of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s home, city, and world. She shares the keys she has discovered there–the many sources of Bonhoeffer’s identity, his practices of Scripture meditation and prayer, his willingness to cross boundaries and befriend people all around the world–that have unlocked her understanding of her own life and responsibilities in light of Bonhoeffer’s wisdom.