This chapter turns away from the exegetical and argumentative tasks of the previous chapters in the book. It looks at Bonhoeffer's own intellectual and theological formation in the context of post-war Weimar Germany, through examining the debates between key intellectual figures of the Weimar Republic, and Bonhoeffer's place in this. By situating Bonhoeffer in the context of his peers, this chapter seeks to illuminate the "crisis' thinking that pervaded the interwar years, and influenced Bonhoeffer's own theology, and highlights the danger of too readily invoking crisis language.