page_title: Von guten Mächten
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Von guten Mächten / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Von guten Mächten; Schreibmaschinenabschrift eines Unbekannten aus dem Jahr 1945 mit einigen Textvarianten gegenüber dem Autograph. Diese Version war der gebräuchliche Liedtext bis zur Veröffentlichung des Autographs 1988
context_page_description: "Von guten Mächten" is a Christian poem which Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in 1944 when he was in a Gestapo prison because of his resistance to the Nazis. It is his last theological text before he was executed on 9 April 1945. It became a frequently sung hymn, with different melodies, which has appeared in current German hymnals. The incipit is Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben. The seventh and last stanza, Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen, has been used as a refrain in a popular version.
context_section_description: Bonhoeffer was arrested as a prominent opponent of the Nazi regime on 5 April 1943, and was kept at different prisons. His writings in prison showed a new dimension in his theology. From mid-1944, around the time of the 20 July plot, he began to also write poems.
  He was transferred to the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin on 8 October 1944. From there he wrote on 19 December 1944 to his betrothed Maria von Wedemeyer, adding the poem with the comments "ein paar Verse, die mir in den letzten Abenden einfielen" (a few verses that occurred to me the last evenings) and "als ein Weihnachtsgruß für Dich und die Eltern und Geschwister" (as a Christmas greeting for you and the parents and siblings). The poem refers both to his own situation and that of his family: he had to face possible execution, his brother Klaus and his brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher were in prison, his brother Walter had died as a soldier, and his twin sister Sabine had left the country with her Jewish husband Gerhard Leibholz.
  Bonhoeffer's letters to Maria were not intended to be published. She made a copy for relatives for Christmas 1944. A derived typed copy appeared first in Geneva in 1945 in the ecumenical Gedenkschrift (memorial writing) Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Das Zeugnis eines Boten. This version was believed to be authentic when Eberhard Bethges included it in his collection of Bonhoeffer's letters, Widerstand und Ergebung ('Resistance and Resignation'), in 1951. It differs from the original in four instances and served as the basis for hymn versions. When the original letter was published in 1988, it was printed then in the critical edition, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke, vol. 8 (1998). The Protestant hymnal Evangelisches Gesangbuch of 1993 used the original text, followed by other hymnals and song books.
caption: Typed version of 1945, which was believed to be authentic until 1988
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