anniversaries
the fall of the berlin wall

The Catalyst
of Change
Among those who brought about the non-violent end of the regime, there were many Christians who risked prison, welcomed refugees, prayed for peace, and organized “the candlelight counter-revolution.” A journalist in German television was among them, and here are his recollections.

by Joachim Jauer*

The fall of the Berlin Wall was not an unexpected episode. In the forty years of the GDR, innumerable people opposed the regime, and ended up in the Stasi prisons. Among those who contributed to the non-violent end of the dictatorship, there were civil rights activists, socialist critics, environmentalists, scientists, and artists. And many Christians. For decades, the Communists of Eastern Europe battled the churches in their countries. In the ex-GDR, those who professed the faith were often excluded from the social ladder, blocked from graduating from high school, prohibited from attending university, and stymied at work. From the 1950s onwards, the Party, with promises or threats, pushed the faithful to abandon the Church.
In 1978, Christian resistance found an unexpected spiritual catalyst: Pope John Paul II (formerly Karol Wojtyla). In his first speech he insisted on human freedom and rights, announcing boldly, “Do not fear! Open–no–throw wide open the doors to Christ!”
In the summer of 1989, thousands of young East Germans hoped to find a chance to escape in Budapest. Many of them found refuge in the Church of the Holy Family in Budapest, through the work of Csilla von Boeselager, founder of the Maltese Service of Charity, and through Fr. Imre Kozma. It was the first center to harbor refugees from the GDR–a form of counter-revolution, dictated by love of neighbor.

Danger of contagion. For years, the Leipzig evangelicals had been praying for peace. Their public prayers were a provocation for the Party  which considered the GDR the “first peaceful State on German soil.” Though the Party had a military armed to the teeth,  it claimed to be the only proponent of peace. In the second half of the 1980s, dissidents began intervening in public, almost exclusively from the churches. In the early years, opponents were thrown directly into prison, but now they were arrested and then forced to choose exile, more or less voluntarily. The Party viewed them as a danger of contagion. Since it was impossible to exile an entire Church, the State tried to infiltrate the Christians or battle them openly. Church pews had their share of regime spies, but mostly they were filled with people seeking refuge in that place. A person who attended the Leipzig Nikolaikirche wrote in a letter, “Some aren’t convinced Christians, and others aren’t Christian at all. We’ve mixed in among the others to participate in the prayers for peace: we hope that others, too, will begin to criticize the State and society. We pity those who believe they can still change something in this country. We have only one thing in mind: away, away, away!” The Christians responded to the thugs of the Stasi and the people’s police with non-violence, and did so with such fervor that in the end, even the regime rejected such brutality. Of great importance was the candlelight counter-revolution that emerged from the Nikolaikirche with the cry, “We are the people.”

Between stones or candles. Naturally, in the countries of the ex-Soviet bloc there were many non-Christian opponents who aspired to political changes, risking their own safety. But at the basis of the dynamism that lead to the “die Wende,” the turning point, were Christians of many confessions. Without this pressure, the collapse of the dictatorship would have been much crueler: the Christians taught the protesters to use candles instead of stones.
Karol Wojtyla, who as a young man had witnessed the crimes committed by Nazism–Auschwitz is located in his diocese of Cracow – did not undertake a crusade against Communism. He merely encouraged counter-revolutionary thought, supporting the people on their knees. Looking back twenty years later, the simultaneous appearance of Gorbachev and John Paul II on the stage of history still seems like a miracle. The Polish pope opened the road to the end of Communism, and the General Secretary of the Party allowed it to happen.