In may 1940, the Nazis invaded Western Europe. Their totalitarian drive to hegemony pounded its fist all the way to the Atlantic. They exerted dominance over Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. In the same month, the SS created a work and extermination camp near the little German-occupied Polish town Oświęcem—in German, Auschwitz.
Adorned in Nazi red, how did evil’s dark triumph feel in 1940? Dizzying events had plunged the world into war, for the second time in 25 years. What did citizens of the conquered nations experience? What was it like at that point for Jewish residents and members of other groups the Nazis targeted? How did the Germans who were opposed to the Nazis feel?
After returning to Germany in 1939 from the United States, having rejected pleas to remain there, this is where Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself. In 1940 he published the little book Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. The book takes only a morning or afternoon to read. It is quiet, simple, and refreshing. “The disciples want to pray,” Bonhoeffer begins, “but they do not know how.” He suggests that the Bible’s prayer book furnishes speech clear and pure enough to tame the “confused speech of our heart.” Praying to God with God’s words to us, he reasons, makes the Psalms God’s training manual for prayer in bewildering times.
