Who am I?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany, was a staunch critic of Hitler and a resistor of Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. In April 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison in Berlin for a year and a half. He was then transferred to the Flossenburg concentration camp.

On April 4, 1945, the diaries of Admiral William Canaris, head of the Abwehr, were discovered. In a rage after reading them, Hitler ordered that the Abwehr conspirators be executed. Bonhoeffer's name was in the diaries.

At Flossenburg, Bonhoeffer was led away just as he concluded his final Sunday service and asked an English prisoner Payne Best to remember him to Bishop George Bell of Chichester if he should ever reach his home: "This is the end-for me the beginning of life."

Bonhoeffer and other conspirators were hung April 9, 1945. In his captivity he penned this poem.

Who Am I?

by Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell's confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a Squire from his country house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equably, smilingly, proudly,

like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectations of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the Other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

I would suggest dear friends, this is all that really matters.