Free Letters and Papers From Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

greetings to Maria’s grandmother!
    Hardly an hour passes when my thoughts do not stray from my books to all of you. To see each other again in freedom is an unimaginably splendid thought. Until then we must go on being patient and confident. I’m so sorry that you aren’t travelling and can’t get a holiday. Is everything all right with you? All is well with me; I’m better again, have enough to eat, sleep fairly well and time keeps passing more quickly. Love to all the family, the children and friends. With love and many thanks,                                                     your Dietrich
    From his parents
    Charlottenburg, 8 June 1943
    Dear Dietrich…
    I get down to science less often than I would like; in the evening I sometimes read Gotthelf’s Berner Geist to mother. Recently I’ve had an invitation to have a sound film made of myself for the ‘Film Archive of Personalities’ which has recently been instituted in the Ministry of Propaganda, to ‘preserve a picture of me for later times’. I think that it will be enough if my picture is preserved in the family. Warmest greetings,
    Father
    Dear Dietrich,
    I wanted to add a greeting too, so that you also have it at Whitsun. The festivals will be particularly hard to feel in your situation, I expect. I will write at length when your letter comes. We think of you so much and I write to you daily in my thoughts, but one must not overburden the censor. May you have a blessed Whitsun. With all my heart.
    Your Mother
    From his mother
    Charlottenburg, 10 June 1943
    My dear boy,
    …Another parcel is going off to you tomorrow; we fill it with all our love. Each one thinks about what he can contribute, even the little ones. So today there are the few sweets. They all ask after you so much: when are you coming back? We’re so grateful that you’re healthy. After Whitsun we’re going to try again to see you at the Judge Advocate’s, as we did last time. Perhaps it will be possible. We aren’t really vexed in any way, but it really is taking Dr Röder too long. Anyway, I hope that it will be allowed. I wanted to send you Reuter’s Ut mine Stromtid, but couldn’t find it, so I’m now sending the Festungstid…
    I long to hug you.
    Your Mother
    From Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer
    [Leipzig] 12 June 1943
    Dear Dietrich,
    …What is one to tell you? Perhaps that despite everything we have plans for the summer and I have booked Grete and the children into Templeburg again for three weeks…Perhaps I shall go walking for a couple of days, if that is still possible with the billeting and does not use up too many calories. One cannot run up a great appetite…
    A small volume of Gerhard Ritter, Weltwirkung der Reformation (1942), has just come to hand; I’ve read it with great interest and have also read parts of it to Grete in the evenings. Next time I am in Berlin, I will try to find out whether you already know it, and then put it in the parcel; also perhaps a collection of articles on modern physics, or rather natural philosophy, which has just appeared. I must read the latter rather better, though, to be able to judge whether you will get anything out of it. Christoph recently ended a letter to Hans with the phrase, ‘Here’s to a speedy reunion’. To the same intent we both send best greetings and our love.
    Your Karl-Friedrich
    To his parents
    [Tegel] Whit Sunday, 14 June 1943
    Dear parents,
    Well, Whitsuntide is here, and we are still separated; but it is in a special way a feast of fellowship. When the bells rang this morning, I longed to go to church, but instead I did as John did on the island of Patmos, and had such a splendid service of my own, that I did not feel lonely at all, for you were all with me, every one of you, and so were the congregations in whose company I have kept Whitsuntide. Every hour or so since yesterday evening I’ve been repeating to my own comfort Paul Gerhardt’s Whitsun hymn with