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Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works Books in Order

Part ofDietrich Bonhoeffer Books in Order

Discover the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, with volumes listed in order, concise outlines of each book, editorial background, and help choosing where to begin.

Last updated: December 22, 2025

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17 books

1

Indexes and Supplementary Materials

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2014

This reference volume provides master indexes, chronologies, and a comprehensive list of documents for the multi-volume Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works edition, along with additional letters and essays that help readers trace his life, themes, and major texts.

2

Ecumenical Academic Pastoral Work

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2012

This Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works volume collects his lectures, sermons, and correspondence from 1931–1932, when he returned from the United States to Berlin, entered the ecumenical movement, and began challenging rising National Socialism from the pulpit and the classroom.

3

London, 1933–1935

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2007

This volume documents Bonhoeffer’s pastorate in two German-speaking congregations in London, including sermons, letters, and reports that show how his time abroad deepened his resistance to the Nazified German church and strengthened his international ecumenical ties.

4

Conspiracy and Imprisonment 1940-1945

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2006

Here readers follow Bonhoeffer through the years of active resistance, arrest, and imprisonment, through hundreds of letters, official documents, and final theological fragments written as he participated in the conspiracy against Hitler and awaited execution.

5

Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928–1931

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2003

This Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works volume traces his development as a young pastor and theologian through letters, sermons, and journals from his service in Barcelona, his Berlin lectures, and his formative year at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

6

Theological Education Underground: 1937-40

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1998

After the Gestapo closed his Finkenwalde seminary, Bonhoeffer continued training Confessing Church pastors in secret. This volume gathers their letters, circulars, lectures, and Bible studies, revealing a hidden network preparing ministers for costly discipleship under dictatorship.

7

Berlin: 1932–1933.

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1997

Focusing on the crisis years surrounding Hitler’s rise to power, this volume presents Bonhoeffer’s university lectures, sermons, and essays from Berlin, showing how he grappled with the church’s identity while Nazism reshaped German society and theology.

8

Theological Education at Finkenwalde, 1935-1937

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1996

Drawing on lectures, circular letters, and sermons, this volume portrays Bonhoeffer’s illegal seminary at Finkenwalde, where he trained young pastors in Scripture, worship, community life, and pastoral care as the Confessing Church faced increasing repression.

9

The Young Bonhoeffer, 1918–1927

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1952

This early volume of letters, sermons, and student papers follows Bonhoeffer from the end of World War I through his doctoral work, revealing a precocious mind already wrestling with church, community, and the meaning of Christian responsibility.

10

Letters and Papers from Prison

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1951

Written during two years of imprisonment, these candid letters, theological notes, and poems show Bonhoeffer thinking through suffering, guilt, and 'religionless Christianity', while staying connected to family, friends, and the wider church he could no longer see.

11

Fiction from Tegel Prison

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1950

During his first year in Tegel prison, Bonhoeffer drafted an unfinished play, a novel fragment, and a short story. These imaginative pieces draw on his own experience to explore conscience, compromise, and courage under totalitarian rule.

12

Ethics

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1949

Left unfinished at his death, Ethics gathers Bonhoeffer’s mature reflections on responsible action before God in a world marked by guilt and ambiguity, asking what it means to tell the truth, protect life, and serve neighbors under unjust regimes.

13

Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1939

This volume pairs Bonhoeffer’s beloved meditation on Christian community, Life Together, with his short guide to praying the Psalms, offering a picture of shared worship, confession, work, and Scripture that shaped his underground seminary and still guides churches today.

14

Discipleship

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1937

This critical edition of Discipleship presents the original text of The Cost of Discipleship with extensive notes, tracing how Bonhoeffer’s reading of the Sermon on the Mount formed his call to costly grace and visible obedience to Christ.

15

Creation and Fall

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1937

Based on lectures on Genesis 1–3, Creation and Fall explores the goodness of creation, the reality of sin, and the meaning of human freedom, setting classic biblical themes in conversation with modern questions about power, knowledge, and responsibility.

16

Sanctorum Communio

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1930

Bonhoeffer’s doctoral dissertation argues that the church is a concrete social community where Christ is present, drawing on sociology and theology to describe how believers share life, guilt, and forgiveness as one body.

17

Act and Being

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1930

In this demanding but important study, Bonhoeffer examines how human thinking and acting relate to God’s self-revelation, criticizing both individualistic and purely intellectual accounts of faith and insisting that real knowledge of God happens in the church’s life.

Series background & context

The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series is the standard English edition of his writings, carefully translated and arranged so readers can follow his life from early student papers to the letters he wrote from prison. Each volume focuses on a particular period or theme and includes introductions, annotations, and helpful indexes.

The early volumes gather Bonhoeffer’s academic work in the 1920s, including his studies of the church in Sanctorum Communio and the relationship between human thought, action, and revelation in Act and Being. They also include youthful sermons, reviews, and correspondence that show how quickly his interests moved from classroom debates to the concrete life of congregations.

Subsequent books trace his movements through Barcelona, Berlin, New York, and London in the early 1930s. Collections from those years let you listen in as he preaches to expatriate congregations, mentors students, and begins to confront the racism and nationalism shaping both church and society. The seminaries at Finkenwalde and in the 'underground' period are documented through circular letters, lecture notes, Bible studies, and personal reflections on community.

These volumes also contain the critical editions of his most influential theological works. Creation and Fall expounds Genesis 1–3 in conversation with modern questions, Discipleship and Life Together grow directly out of his experience training pastors, and Ethics presents his unfinished, mature thinking on responsible action in a world marked by guilt and ambiguity. Reading them in the context of surrounding sermons and letters helps you see how tightly his theology was woven into daily practice.

The later volumes cover the years of open resistance, conspiracy, and imprisonment. They gather his involvement in the ecumenical movement, his reports from inside the Confessing Church, and the intense correspondence from 1940–1945 with family, friends, and fellow conspirators. You see the same voice preaching to congregations, advising students, and then writing from a cell about hope, fear, and the future of the church.

Alongside the main texts, the editors provide timelines, maps, explanatory notes, and an index volume that pulls together names, subjects, and documents from across the whole series. That supporting material makes it possible to trace a single theme—such as discipleship, community, or political responsibility—across decades of Bonhoeffer’s work.

For readers new to Bonhoeffer, individual volumes can be read on their own as collections of sermons, letters, or a single major book. For students, pastors, and serious lay readers, working through the series chronologically offers a rich way to watch his thought mature as the political situation in Germany darkens. Taken together, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works volumes give a full, textured picture of a theologian whose ideas were continually tested in the pressures of real history.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 17 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works Books in Order (2026)