I read this brief but interesting article on FaithWorld today, about how the German government wants to put archived materials relating to theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer online:

Germany is launching an appeal to save thousands of valuable letters and manuscripts which had belonged to Protestant theologian and Nazi resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer by digitalising them.

The Berlin state library says it needs 40,000 euros to save the documents which it counts as one of its most prized collections. It wants to put about 6,200 pages of his work on the Internet to make them more widely available.

The papers include the farewell letter Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents before his execution in a concentration camp in 1945, just days before the end of World War Two, for opposing Hitler. He was 39.

Last summer, the library put the originals in non-corroding folders as the paper was in danger of falling apart and had been damaged by rusting paper clips. The collection also includes draft papers, sermons he held in Barcelona and New York as well as fragments from his book Ethics.

• Theology