Who am I?

From wikipedia:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German: 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German pastor, theologian, spy, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has become a modern classic.

Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. Later he was transferred to a Nazi concentration camp. After being accused of being associated with the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was quickly tried, along with other accused plotters, including former members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office), and then executed by hanging on 9 April 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing.

From the Memoir  by G. Leibholz in The Cost of Discipleship:

We have heard that [Bonhoeffer's] fellow prisoners were deeply impressed by the calmness and self-control which he displayed even in the most terrible situations....Bonhoeffer stood, we have been told, like a giant before men.

But this is only one side of the picture. The other side is that Bonhoeffer was a man who lived in, and loved, this world. He, a giant before man, was but a child before God. While he was in the body, the fight between flesh and spirit, Adam and Christ, was going on in him. Sometimes he seemed to have become a riddle to himself. One day he gave expression to this conflict in his soul in a moving poem written from the prison-cell and entitled:

WHO AM I?

Who am I? They often tell me 

I stepped from my cell’s confinement 

calmly, cheerfully, firmly, 

like a Squire from his country house. 

Who am I? They often tell me 

I used to speak to my warders 

freely and friendly and clearly, 

as though it were mine to command. 

Who am I? They also tell me 

I bore the days of misfortune 

equably, smilingly, proudly, 

like one accustomed to win. 

Am I then really that which other men tell of? 

Or am I only what I myself know of myself? 

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, 

struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, 

yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds, 

thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness, 

tossing in expectation of great events, 

powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, 

weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, 

faint, and ready to say farewell to it all. 

Who am I? This or the Other? 

Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another? 

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, 

and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling? 

Or is something within me still like a beaten army 

fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? 

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. 

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

A short biography of Bonhoeffer