By the conclusion of the twentieth century, the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer wore a venerable aspect. The words of the provocative young Lutheran theologian, who had participated eagerly in the German Church Struggle and had then become fatally embroiled in political resistance against the National Socialist state, were read, it seemed, the world over. His legacy had been loudly adopted, even paraded, by a new generation of theologians in his own Germany, in England, in the United States and later in South Africa. He was one of the very few Christian theologians whose books persisted beyond first editions, in a variety of popular and more sober guises, turning up time and again on the shelves of bookshops and in personal libraries. It was not exactly a cult, rather a fascination, an enthusiasm.