[1] Born in Breslau, he was an older brother of martyred theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

His father was neurologist Karl Bonhoeffer and his mother was Paula von Hase.

From 1923 to 1930 he was an assistant with Fritz Haber at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Elektrochemistry in Berlin Dahlem.

[2] In 1949, he was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Göttingen.

In 1929 Bonhoeffer, together with Paul Harteck, discovered the spin isomers of hydrogen, orthohydrogen and parahydrogen.