Customer Reviews

Love Letters from Cell 92: The Correspondence Between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria Von Wedemeyer, 1943-45

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I had a difficult time reading this book. It is quite time-consuming (because of it's unusual format) and emotionally difficult due to its content. However, I'm glad I've read this book. It gave me a wonderful insight into a couple's very devoted relationship even though they were separated very soon into their relationship. The way their story plays out is heart-wrenching and difficult to read. But because this was an actual relationship, it's very worth-while.

This book is the collection of letters between Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian, and his fiancee, Maria Von Wedemeyer, during Bonhoeffer's imprisonment by the Nazis during WWII. I'm a huge Bonhoeffer fan, and only "knew" him through his rather brilliant theological writings. Those theological tomes are astonishing, knowing that he wrote everything before he turned 40 (he was executed at the age of 39). These love letters between mathemetician Maria, 18 years his junior, and the pastor are beautiful and heart wrenching. They were engaged shortly before the Nazis took him to prison for his part in an assassination plot againts Hitler. The love they express is profoundly deep- and has the elements of play and joy, as all true love ought. When she writes that she is picking out furniture for the apartment in which they will live after he is freed and the war is over it is just as beautiful, but oh so tragic. We all know the rest of the story- he dies just weeks before V-E day. If you're at all interested in Bonhoeffer, or if you have just one romantic bone in your body, buy this book, then read it with your lover.

Maria Weller, as I knew her in Boston in the early 1970's, was a marvellous person who worked with me at Honeywell Information Systems. My wife and I became good friends of Maria's and saw her frequently both before and during her illness. We knew her two sons and her daughter.

Ruth-Alice Von Bismark, Maria's sister, came to visit us after Maria's death to find our more about Maria's life in Boston and about her Boston friends.

I found the book fascinating, both for the letters and for Ruth-Alice historical notes that helped me to better understand Maria and Dietrich Bonhoffer.