Prayer Breaks Down Walls

Prayer breaks down walls

WW2; Hitler; Berlin Wall; Division; Protection; Prayer; Pray; Revival; Peace; Hate; Freedom; Free;

After World War II, Berlin—the capital of Germany and headquarters of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich—was overseen by the four Allied nations that had united to defeat Hitler: America, Britain, France, and the (former) Soviet Union.  Growing political differences between the Soviets and the three Allied nations, however, caused the city of Berlin as well as Germany itself to be divided into East (German Democratic Republic) and West (Federal Republic of Germany).  As the West German sector prospered under capitalism, residents of East Berlin, languishing under Soviet oppression, began leaving East Berlin and emigrating to the Western sector.

In August 1961, to stop the human and economic drain from East Berlin, the Soviet government began building the infamous Berlin Wall, dividing the city physically and ideologically.  In 1953, the key East German city of Leipzig was the site of violent protests against communist rule, and these protests were crushed by Communist forces.  Violence accomplished nothing when it came to trying to gain freedom in East Germany.

But in 1989 people in Leipzig tried a different approach.  What became known as the Monday Demonstrations began with prayers for peace in the historic Nikolai church in the heart of Leipzig.  The prayer meetings grew into peaceful candlelight marches of ten thousand, thirty thousand, fifty thousand, and then half a million peole strong.  And those in Leipzig were joined by a million more in Berlin.

Finally, prayers for peace accomplished what violence had failed to do.  In November 1989 the Berlin Wall was taken down.  The hated symbol of the ideological Iron Curtain yielded to the power of prayer, and the people of East Germany tasted freedom for the first time in decades.

David Jeremiah, Signs of Life, p.  121