Amanda Barratt has captured the imagination of readers with her newest release, My Dearest Dietrich: A Novel of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Lost Love, penned with painstaking research and attention to detail to capture on the page the love story between Dietrich and Maria that blossomed shortly before his imprisonment and execution by the Nazi regime in 1945. I’m thrilled Amanda has taken the time to share about this powerful story – one of love, sacrifice, and faith.

Bookchat with Amanda

Please share a little about your real-life characters, Maria and Dietrich

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian, author, and pastor, known for his books The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together, both of which have risen to the heights of Christian classics. During Hitler’s ascension to power, rather than bowing to the heresy of the official Reich church, Dietrich became the director of an underground seminary, where he trained pastoral candidates in the truths of Scripture. In the midst of WWII, he took resistance a step further by becoming involved in the conspiracy against Hitler, which led to his arrest, imprisonment, and finally execution mere weeks before the war ended.

At the height of his involvement in the resistance, Dietrich became reacquainted with Maria von Wedemeyer, the granddaughter of an old family friend. She was eighteen when their romance developed, a striking, intelligent woman from a highly anti-Nazi family. Their relationship faced family gossip and expectations, the tragic deaths of Maria’s father and brother, and Dietrich’s arrest and imprisonment. In spite of the obstacles, their love left an indelible mark upon them both.

What inspired you to write their story?

When I discovered the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer through Eric Metaxas’s Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness, I was fascinated by the story of a pastor and theologian who stood boldly against the Nazi regime—a German pastor, no less. A few months later, I came across a quote from Love Letters from Cell 92, the book containing Dietrich and Maria’s correspondence. Instantly, a question begged to be answered: What kind of a woman would capture the heart of a man like Dietrich Bonhoeffer?  Though in the midst of other writing projects, I couldn’t stop thinking about this remarkable love story, and wondering why it had never been told in narrative form. I wanted to bring out Maria’s role in Dietrich’s life, and introduce readers to this extraordinary woman. Her strength and determination in the face of immense obstacles inspired and captivated me. I count it an honor to have, in some small way, paid tribute to her story.

Describe your book in 5 adjectives:

Poignant, romantic, thoughtful, dramatic, heartbreaking.

As you researched, what was something that surprised you about Dietrich?

I loved discovering him, not only as an author, pastor, theologian, and man of resistance, but as a very human, even flawed, man. Even our greatest saints are broken vessels. The Dietrich Bonhoeffer I discovered lived out costly discipleship and served God with all his heart, but he was also as human as the rest of us. A man who struggled with raw emotions of fear and uncertainty, who fell in love at the most unlikely time in his life, and who grappled with falling in love. In the end, that was the Dietrich Bonhoeffer who became most real to me, the whole person, not a cardboard cut-out labeled “brilliant theologian and martyr.”

A staggering love illuminating the dark corners of a Nazi prison…

Renowned German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is famous for his resistance to the Nazi regime and for his allegiance to God over government. But what few realize is that the last years of his life also held a love story that rivals any romance novel.

Maria von Wedemeyer knows the realities of war. Her beloved father and brother have both been killed on the battlefield. The last thing this spirited young woman needs is to fall for a man under constant surveillance by the Gestapo. How can she give another piece of her heart to a man so likely to share the same final fate? Yet when Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an old family friend, comes to comfort the von Wedemeyers after their losses, she discovers that love isn’t always logical.

Dietrich himself has determined to keep his distance from romantic attachments. There is too much work to be done for God, and his involvement in the conspiracy is far too important. But when he encounters a woman whose intelligence and conviction match his own, he’s unprepared for how easy it is to give away his heart.

With their deep love comes risk–and neither Dietrich nor Maria is prepared for just how great that risk soon becomes.

Based on detailed historical research, this is a true love story at once beautiful and heartrending. My Dearest Dietrich sheds new light on a world-famous theologian . . . and the woman who changed his life.

What was something about Maria that moved you?

During the course of my research, I discovered an interview Maria had done in 1974 for Malcolm Muggeridge’s documentary A Third Testament, just three years before her death from cancer at the age of fifty-three. Though Maria rarely spoke publicly about Dietrich in the years following the war, she agreed to this interview. Hearing the emotion in her voice as she shared about arriving at Flossenbürg concentration camp on foot, searching for her fiancé at the place where his life would be ended just two months later, spoke volumes to me of the depth of what she and Dietrich had shared. A very poised and restrained woman in front of the camera, it was what she left unsaid that affected me more than what was said. Discovering this interview lent her character so much texture as I wrote the novel.

How do you think their age difference impacted their relationship, if at all?

Becoming engaged to someone of Dietrich’s caliber and intelligence would have been a daunting prospect for any woman, much less one who was only eighteen. His entire family was remarkable—his father was one of the most renowned psychiatrists in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century, his siblings were all brilliant and highly educated, and Dietrich himself graduated with a PhD at the age of twenty-one. At the beginning of their relationship, Maria expressed uncertainties that she wasn’t “good enough” for him, but as time went on, both began to accept each other fully as equals. Reading their love letters and witnessing the unfolding of the relationship through them is absolutely beautiful.

Written correspondence was a significant part of their relationship. How do you think that shaped their connection?

Oh, it absolutely did! They grew together through those letters, and we are fortunate to have many of them available in the book Love Letters from Cell 92, which I relied heavily upon during my research. Dietrich and Maria became engaged in January 1943. On April 5, 1943, he was arrested and taken to Tegel Prison. In the eighteen months he was incarcerated at Tegel, the couple was permitted seventeen visits, each an hour long, all supervised by guards. Thus, the letters they exchanged became a lifeline to them both. It’s fascinating, but also bittersweet, to follow their progression and change in tone, as Dietrich and Maria grow closer, though still separated by prison walls. Reading the letters, especially the early ones, full of hopes and dreams for their future, it was impossible not to shed tears, knowing how the story ends.

Which character did you enjoy writing most?

Definitely Maria. I came to know, admire, and also relate to her on so many levels during the telling of this story.

Which character was the most difficult to write?

It was difficult not to be a bit awed when it came to capturing Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a fictional narrative. And though he died at the young age of thirty-nine, his life brimmed with so much fascination it was a struggle to decide what to keep and what to leave out. I could easily have written volumes.

What emotions do you think your story will generate in readers?

It’s my earnest prayer readers are impacted by the faith and courage with which Dietrich and Maria lived. Though imperfect people, they sought costly discipleship at a time when it would have been easier to turn a blind eye to the evil around them. Dietrich’s answer to the question “Who stands firm?” which he wrote in an essay titled After Ten Years, was simply this, “the [one] whose life will be nothing but an answer to God’s question and call.” I hope readers will be challenged to look at their own lives and faith, and not be afraid to ask themselves those hard questions.

How has writing Maria and Dietrich’s love story impacted you?

I can honestly say this story has changed me more than any novel I’ve written to date. Their courageous faith and self-sacrificial love inspired me deeply.

Please share a little about your recent meeting with Eric Metaxas, the author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.

Meeting the man whose biography of Bonhoeffer played such an integral role in the shaping of my own novel was an absolute honor and delight! Eric and his radio and television show The Eric Metaxas Show is such a voice of cultural truth and biblical encouragement, and it was a true joy to be interviewed by him about My Dearest Dietrich (you can watch it below!). For readers interested in an in-depth portrait of Bonhoeffer’s life, I highly recommend Eric’s remarkable biography.

Do you plan to write another biographical love story, or something else?

My next novel releases Summer 2020 from Kregel Publications. It’s the story of a group of German college students who dared resistance against the evils of Nazism. Many of them, including one of their leaders, a twenty-one-year-old young woman named Sophie Scholl, paid the ultimate price for their actions. I was deeply moved when I first heard Sophie’s story, and am looking forward to sharing it with readers next year.

Thanks Amanda – love that you have written this story!

ECPA best-selling author Amanda Barratt fell in love with writing in grade school when she wrote her first story—a spinoff of Jane Eyre. Now, Amanda writes romantic, historical fiction, penning stories of beauty and brokenness set against the backdrop of bygone eras not so very different from our own. Her novel My Dearest Dietrich: A Novel of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Lost Love released from Kregel Publications in June 2019.

She’s also the author of My Heart Belongs in Niagara Falls, New York: Adele’s Journey, as well as seven novellas with Barbour Publishing. Two of her novellas have been finalists in the FHL Reader’s Choice Awards.

Amanda lives in the woods of Michigan with her fabulous family, where she can be found reading way too many books, plotting her next novel, and jotting down imaginary travel itineraries for her dream vacation to Europe.

Connect with her on Facebook and visit her online at www.amandabarratt.net.

Relz Reviewz Extras
Visit Amanda’s website
Buy at Amazon: My Dearest Dietrich: A Novel of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Lost Love or Koorong