Mark Lindsay asks:

> My question is this; given that Bonhoeffer's work
> and life stand testament to his self-sacrificial
> compassion on behalf of precisely such people as
> these "ignoble and despised", does he not, thereby,
> stand at some distance from the Nietzschean superman?
> Granted, he may well have been influenced by FN in
> his formative years, but is it not possible that 
> the 'frontier situation' of World War Two and the
> Nazi regime as such caused him to rethink this early
> influence and to reorient himself to a position of
> far greater solidarity with his fellow-humans than
> that which can be read from Nietszche?

To suggest that subsequent to the adoption of Nietzsche
by the Nazis, Nietzsche's writing became less meaningful to
Bonhoeffer, is to underestimate Bonhoeffer's independence
of mind and soul.

Ever since I read, many years ago, Nietzsche's letter written
from beyond sanity and reason, which he signed: "Der Gekreuzigte",
I have interpreted Nietzsche's life as a monumental Passion Play,
granted, like the rest of them, in questionable taste, bizzare,
eccentric, and possibly perverse; but driven nonetheless
by the Christian's inveterate penchant for the Imitatio Christi,
des Christen unausloeschliche Sehnsucht zur Nachfolge, which,
it seems to me, was a vital element also in Bonhoeffer's life.
I find it natural that Bonhoeffer should have felt an affinity
for Nietzsche. In the framework of Bonhoeffer's theory of
truth: (Was heiszt die Wahrheit sagen?) there was ample room
to accommodate Nietzsche's spiritual expressionism. The articulation
of scandalous ideas is, after all, also a part of the New
Testament, of Jesus' legacy to us. "Selig ist, der sich nicht
aergert an mir."

As for our own relationship to Nietzsche, the role in his
Passion Play that he assigns to us is one that befits our
ecclesiastical status:

    "Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying,
     He has spoken blasphemy; what further need have
     we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his
     blasphemy.

     What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty
     of death."

                                       Ernst Meyer