East Germany’s secret police had plans to crush every threat to the communist regime “but it didn’t reckon on candles and prayers.”
The saying, by the head of the secret police in Leipzig is fictional and taken from a novel. But given how often it comes up in speeches and historical accounts it might as well be fact.
The revolution “which went off peacefully started in the church,” says Christian Fuehrer, 66, who retired last year after 28 years as pastor of Leipzig’s Protestant Nikolai Church.
A leading figure in the “Monday demonstrations” which helped bring down the communist regime, Fuehrer was among the first to open his church to the “peace prayer meetings” which later snowballed into mass rallies.
He first held “peace prayer meetings” in 1982 to protest the arms race. Then only half a dozen turned up. By 1988, he had invited small groups advocating political reform to hold public discussions at the church.
On Sept. 25, 1989, 7,000 turned up for a “no violence” vigil as the regime threatened to clamp down on growing protests.
By Oct. 9, 70,000 converged on the square outside the church for a rally at which demonstrators first took up the chant: “We are the people,” in a direct rebuke to leaders of the “people’s republic.”
The protest triggered a chain reaction which ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9 and the subsequent fall of the regime.
“For me, the church was obviously political, it deals with mankind. Jesus never hid away, he reached out to man,” Fuehrer says.
“Look to the Bible ... God frees the Israelites from their Babylonian exile ... The church ‘welcomes those who are persecuted,’” he says.
For Rainer Eppelmann, a former pastor of the East Berlin’s Samaritan church, who was later elected to parliament and who now heads a foundation researching East Germany’s dictatorship: “Prayer wasn’t enough, you had to get involved in politics.”
The reason for the success of the church meetings was that in East Germany every get-together had to be approved by the authorities, except for church services, he said.
Protestant churches, to which most East German Christians belonged, offered a haven for public discussions as Protestant pastors, unlike their Catholic brethren, did not need approval from church leaders on how to run their parishes.
“One speaks of a protestant revolution. It’s a little far-fetched but ... ,” says Eppelmann with a smile.
For Fuehrer, “a head-on collision with those in power was unavoidable. Dictatorship wants 100 percent of man, so logically it can’t tolerate God.”
Since reunification, Fuehrer has spent his time looking after the unemployed and leading other protests, against nuclear power and genetically modified crops.
“The rosy future promised by Kohl hasn’t come about, so there’s been plenty to do,” he says.
His church congretation has shrunk.
“But as a church, you don’t look for reward,” he says.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number