Mark Lindsay recently wrote:

> 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?

I believe the answer to Mr. Lindsays question is readily
derived from the following excerpt from Bonhoeffer's Ethik.

     Nietzsche hat ohne es zu wissen im Geiste des Neuen Testaments
     gesprochen, wenn er gegen das gesetzlich-philisterhafte 
     Miszverstaendnis des Gebotes der Naechstenliebe mit den Worten
     angeht: "Ihr draengt euch un den Naechsten und habt schoene
     Worte dafuer. Aber ich sage euch: eure Naechstenliebe ist eure
     schlechte Liebe zu euch selber. Ihr fluechtet zum Naechsten
     vor euch selbst und moechtet eine Tugend daraus machen: aber ich
     durchschaue euer 'Selbstloses' ... Rathe ich euch zur Naechstenliebe?
     Lieber noch rathe ich euch zur Naechsten-Flucht und zur Fernsten-
     Liebe." Hinter dem Naechsten, den uns der Ruf Jesu anbefiehlt, 
     steht auch fuer Jesus der Fernste, naemlich Jesus Christus selbst.
     Wer hinter dem Naechsten nicht diesen Fernsten weisz und diesen
     Fernsten zugleich als diesen Naechsten, der dient nicht dem Naechsten,
     sondern sich selbst, der fluechtet sich aus der freien Luft der
     Verantwortung in die enge bequemerer Pflichterfuellung.

                                        Bonhoeffer, Ethik, 295-296

According to Bonhoeffer's editors, this text was composed in the
first half of 1942, or the summer of that year, when the Nazi terror
had almost reached its apogee, a time when Bonhoeffer might well have
had occasion

      "to rethink (Nietzsche's) 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?"

The passage I quoted clearly indicates that Bonhoeffer did not
turn away from Nietzsche in those trying times, but turned to him
in support of an interpretation of Christian morality. It is
instructive to review the pages in "Also sprach Zarathustra"
from which Bonhoeffer excerpted the passage which he quoted.
It turns out, if my interpretation is correct, that Bonhoeffer
and Nietzsche are in fact addressing different issues. Bonhoeffer
is concerned with the "legalistic-philistine misinterpretation"
of the Biblical injunction for love of ones neighbor (Naechstenleibe)
and endorses Nietzsche's modification of this injunction to replace
love for him who is closest with love for him who is most remote,
(Fernstenliebe). Bonhoeffer, if I understand him correctly, construes
Jesus in his divine perfection, as being infinitely remote from humankind,
and postulates that it is only by virtue of an individual's love for God
that he becomes capable of loving his fellow men. Nietzsche on the other
hand is concerned with the actual observed poverty and corruption 
of the purported love for ones neighbor (Naechstenliebe), which
he stigmatizes as camouflaged self-love. The substitute "Fernstenliebe"
love of those who are most remote, seems to me first of all a poetic play
on words, as is so prominent in "Also sprach Zarathustra", and to some
extent the expression of a romantic longing for what is distant and
unattainable. To my mind, Nietzsche's observation concerning love of
ones neighbor is eminently truthful. Charity in that sense is so rare
as to be virtually extinct, if, indeed it ever existed. It is invidious
or worse to accuse Nietzsche of disdaining "Naechstenliebe", because
he identifies the untruthful fraudulent substitute for the (self)
deception which it in fact is.