How Were the German Churches Involved in the Search for Unity to Overcome Conflicts of the Last Decades of the Last Century?
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HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422 Page 1 of 8 Original Research Unification and peace: How were the German churches involved in the search for unity to overcome conflicts of the last decades of the last century? Author: This article is a narrative reflection of the author’s perspective on the role of the Church in the 1,2 Gerhard Sauter unification process of Germany in the last part of the last decade. It is presented from his Affiliations: perspective of being a German citizen, as well a member of the church in Germany. The author 1Ecumenical Institute, situates this experience amidst the political and ideological movements shaping the binary University of Bonn, notions ‘East’ and ‘West’. Germany 2Department of Church History and Church Polity, Introduction: Confronted with unexpected events Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of On November 09 1989, the day the Berlin Wall collapsed, I was in Princeton (US) as a guest Pretoria, South Africa lecturer. In the late afternoon, by chance, I switched on the television set. To my wife’s and to my surprise we saw people cheering and waving flags while standing on the wall. I assumed it was a Research Project Details: Project Leader: W.A. Dreyer new American movie and admired the excellent scenery in what I took to be a set. Then other Project Number: 77370920 guests of the house entered the room, embraced us, and congratulated Germany on such a miraculous event. We felt as if we were dreaming. Throughout the weeks before, many others and Project Description: we had been afraid of political unrest and bloodshed. After all, there had been brutal repression Prof. Dr Gerhard Sauter is participating in the research in Beijing some months earlier. In early October we had just visited friends in East Germany. project, ‘Justice and Human They were very concerned, particularly about the reaction of the government to the demonstrations Dignity. A Reformed and to the refugees trying to escape to West Germany via Czechoslovakia, Hungary and even perspective’, as research associate of Prof. I.W.C. (Natie) Poland. van Wyk, under the direction of Dr W. Dreyer, Department Now the Wall had fallen; the symbol of the Cold War had been removed. Some days later at the of Church History and Church annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, I heard an American theologian remark Polity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of that he had had his doubts about the second coming of Jesus Christ, but not anymore. After the Pretoria. collapse of the Berlin Wall, he considered all things to be possible. Corresponding author: Wim Dreyer, Was this an appropriate conclusion to draw from this event? As an event, it was no doubt both [email protected] contingent and basically inexplicable. Of course, there were many attempts to account for what had happened. But I do not know of any serious politician, political expert, or journalist who can Dates: honestly claim that he or she had foreknown or predicted this event. After all, it is reasonable to Received: 26 Mar. 2018 Accepted: 15 June 2018 have thought that there would have been an omen of some sort. To be sure, the end of the Cold Published: 27 Aug. 2018 War did not come down from heaven. A great many people played parts in very different and divergent ways, often unsuspectingly or even contrarily to their own intentions and plans. We can try to list these factors, but the event as such cannot be sufficiently explained (cf. Rödder 2009). Which developments and changes had been thought to really be possible? It seemed sensible to expect at most a series of reforms in East Germany coming step by step and being politically achieved by opening the frontiers to the West with limited freedom for travelling, by allowing individuals to establish small businesses, by permitting independent workshops and trade, by increasing freedom of speech, and by ceasing political suppression of serious critics of the political system and of minorities, such as committed Christians. The vision was called ‘democratic socialism’ or ‘socialism with a human face’. That meant a ‘third way’ in contrast to Western Read online: capitalism and its free market economy as well as to a communist state-owned and planned Scan this QR code with your smart phone or How to cite this article:Sauter, G., 2018, ‘Unification and peace: How were the German churches involved in the search for unity to over- mobile device come conflicts of the last decades of the last century?’,HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 74(4), 4988. https://doi.org/10.4102/ to read online. hts.v74i4.4988 Copyright: © 2018. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. http://www.hts.org.za Open Access Page 2 of 8 Original Research economy. Critical but loyal East German citizens viewed the ideology of the Cold War and to the mutual condemnation ‘democratic socialism’ as the chance for and openness to a of the different economic and political conditions. Were the truly friendly coexistence with East Germany’s neighbours, people in both the East and the West prepared for such a kind especially with West Germany. West Germany would of common identity? recognise the new democratic state, formerly called ‘East Germany’, as a relatively independent and reliable, self- In fact, most of them were not at all prepared for, nor capable sustaining state, but, as such, further integrated into the of, this move. In November 1989 and during the following Eastern European distribution of production directed by the months, there was first a public outcry of demonstrators in Soviet Union, and even incorporated in the military union of the East: ‘We are the people’ – opposing the privilege of the the Warsaw Pact in the hope that through reform this would socialist state and his supporting party to alone represent the become a purely defensive alliance. people. Soon the slogan was changed into ‘We are one people!’ It was not said, ‘We are one country’, or even more, ‘We are This was even the vision of many East German citizens one nation’. When Chancellor Kohl heard the crowd in who were active in the movement for civil rights Dresden proclaiming, ‘We are one people!’ he perceived it as (Bürgerrechtsbewegung) that created local groups and networks a cry for political, even national, unification but without any of resistance against the suppression of civil rights nationwide kind of nationalism or even chauvinism. Kohl realised during the late 1980s. These people were in fundamental that the vision of two German states had failed, and from agreement with socialism as a hopeful experiment for a that point he worked for political unification, accepting that world with more social justice and peace, but they opposed an economic unification, or at least, the introduction of a the repressive, even totalitarian, political system. At the same common currency, would precede political change. time, they did not want to be dependent on the Western system of a free market economy; instead, they wanted to It may be argued that Kohl and many others only reacted to search for an alternative to both: inhumane capitalism and developments that seemed unavoidable. Afterwards, they the communist regulation of all parts of life. Many church saw that events had happened in a quite different way groups shared this vision, and local churches such as the than they had intended. There seemed to be no time to Nikolai Church in Leipzig and the Gethsemane Church in spare on trying to unify minds. This unification was thought East Berlin became prominent as places that gave opportunity of as a fruit or side effect of the economic and political merger. for a kind of public voice urgently demanding reforms. I will A former chancellor, Willy Brandt, a prominent Social refer to this convergence of Christian engagement and the Democratic politician and previous mayor of West Berlin, movement for civil rights later. phrased the quasi-biological slogan: ‘It must grow together what belongs together!’ (‘Es muss zusammenwachsen, was In 1989, many citizens and politicians in the West, even zusammengehört!’). But in what respect did Germans in 1989 Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democratic Union, really belong together? In 1949, the ‘Federal Republic of had the same or a similar opinion concerning the desirability Germany’ (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in the West and the of the political development of two German states, with that ‘German Democratic Republic’ (Deutsche Demokratische of the East based on democratic socialism. It was hoped there Republik, DDR) in the East had been founded. Germany would be a gradual economic stabilisation and improvement seemed to be finally divided in a way that many thought of because East Germany had nearly been bankrupt already in as the price of the lost war and a requirement for the complete 1987 and had survived only because West Germany had collapse of National Socialism and German imperialism. given enormous credits or loans and had paid a lot of fees for Many Christians had seen the division of Germany as the Eastern highways and train connections between West God’s punishment of the German people. But others asked, Germany and West Berlin, as well as for other facilities. The ‘Why are the East Germans more punished and have to pay a Western government had been prepared to provide this and much higher price than the West Germans?’ Subsequently, other kinds of support as the price of stabilisation and peace they viewed the political and economic, the psychological in the middle of Europe.