Breaking Down Barriers

Many were stunned by the fall of the Wall, but the event was far from sudden; people from all walks of life, including politicians, religious leaders, and Church members, labored diligently for decades to open" the Curtain by building trusting relationships with communist leaders of the Eastern Bloc. That, combined with a swell of civil unrest within Eastern Europe in the late 80s, created a social force so powerful that it could no longer be contained by barbed wire and steel beams.

World War II Aftermath
The carnage and destruction of World War II left thousands of European Saints cold and starving. "In the end, stores were giving away what they had so people could have something to eat," recalls Ingrid Azvedo, who now lives in California. "The houses I knew were bombed, and there were people and horses dead in the street - these are some of my earliest memories."

In December 1945, President George Albert Smith called Ezra Taft Benson to be the European mission president, charging him with great responsibility: "First, to attend to the spiritual affairs of the Church in Europe; second, to work to make available food, clothing, and bedding to our suffering Saints in all parts of Europe; third, to direct the reorganization of the missions of Europe; and, fourth, to prepare for the return of missionaries to those countries" (IE 50 [May 1947]: 293). Benson was one of the first U.S. civilians to administer relief in several war-torn regions. In total, two million dollars' worth of supplies was distributed to people desperate for relief.

The European Saints also made great efforts to ease suffering Church members, taking no thought of borders or politics. For example, the Nazis were especially cruel in the Netherlands. Yet the Saints there sent most of their large potato crop to members in Germany.

Soon after the War, Germany was divided among the Allied Powers. The U.S., Britain, and France jointly controlled West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany); East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) was governed by the Soviets. Berlin was also divided, but for years, no physical wall separated the West and East portions of the city. By the time construction of the Wall began in August 1961, 3.5 million people, including many Church members, had fled the GDR by taking advantage of the loose border between East and West Berlin.

"I recognize today that the Wall was the best thing that could have happened to us," says Elder Manfred Schütze, an area authority in Germany who served in many leadership positions in the Church during the existence of the GDR. "We had lost so many members prior to that time. They all went to West Germany and America, simply because they believed, and rightfully so, that conducting their lives in accordance with the principles of the Church was not always possible. They left by the dozens, yes by the hundreds. It appeared as if all the branches would die. But then it ended. That was a blessing, as bad as it sounds. We now had to focus on ourselves. I didn't understand that in 1961, not at all. Today, looking backwards, I understand it much better."

Saints behind the Curtain
Under communist rule, all Saints in the GDR experienced barriers to living as they wished, though they varied according to time and place. In some parts of the GDR, such as Chemnitz and Leipzig, where communism had been popular well before WWII, churches faced greater opposition than along the Czechoslovakian border in the south, where small protestant churches had long flourished and local officials were less restrictive. But some challenges were common to all citizens.

"Officially you had a right to live according to your beliefs, but in reality it was a little bit harder," says Schütze.

The most common disadvantage was in educational opportunity. Even if Church youth participated in state-sponsored programs like the Free German Youth or Jugendweihe (which were required for college admittance and caused some parents concern), youth had difficulty getting into college. "Religion was never admitted as being the cause - it was illegal to discriminate against religion - but it was done," says Raymond Kuehne, historian and author of Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State. Many eventually did get to college, but they had to go alternate routes, and it took longer.

But there was plenty of work to be done. "We always had something to do; it kept us busy. We had so much opposition that we had to learn what Church doctrine really was to have a strong faith," says Schütze. "We didn't have time to think about our problems."

Church members in the GDR were busy enough keeping the gospel alive, and Saints in other Eastern Bloc countries faced similar struggles. In Poland, for example, so many members left the country that the Church's only branch was discontinued in 1971. And after the Czechoslovakian government dissolved the missionary efforts there in 1950, members were prohibited from worshipping in public and were given limited contact with the Church outside its borders.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe was the absence of full-time missionaries. In East Germany, foreign missionaries could not reenter after World War II. Full-time missionaries from within the country were called, but this later hurt their chances for employment (the government labeled them "unproductive workers" for their service without pay). The Church then tried part-time missions, in which missionaries held full-time jobs and did service on evenings and weekends, but it was too difficult. After 1961, the number of converts in the GDR plummeted to six per year.

Even under an oppressive government, however, the Saints found peace and comfort through worship. "There was freedom and liberty within the walls of the Church," Schütze says. "That was a significant lesson for me to learn - the gospel principles are principles of freedom, liberty, free agency - and that is what we did not find so clearly outside the Church."

But within the physical walls of the Church, members still had to watch themselves. By blackmailing members, the Stasi (secret police) established unofficial contacts within the Church, and those members were forced to report on the Church's activities.

Henry Burkhardt, who essentially led the Church in the GDR, was aware of these informants. Most members who participated did so unwillingly, and Burkhardt comforted some by saying, "As long as you're honest, we won't have trouble."

During the entire existence of the GDR, Church leaders behind the Iron Curtain and outside it worked tirelessly for a better relationship with the government and for greater advantages for the Church. They needed missionaries. They needed buildings. They needed a way to attend the temple. Then starting around 1968, a new day for the Church in Eastern Europe would begin.

Making Things Happen
In 1968, Elder Thomas S. Monson was assigned to represent the Quorum of the Twelve in Europe, an appointment many members of former East Germany now see as a turning point for the affairs of the Church there. "He started making things happen," says Kuehne.

The first matter of business for Elder Monson was to establish a mission in Dresden in 1969, with Burkhardt as president; this mission would work with the goal of eventually creating stakes. (Burkhardt's new position also afforded him more respect with the government.) Elder Monson also called two patriarchs for the many GDR Saints who had not received their blessings.

During the next several years, Elder Monson worked closely with leaders in Salt Lake City and the GDR to help improve the Church's uneasy relationship with the government. Then, on April 27, 1975, in a prayer rededicating the land for the preaching of the gospel, Elder Monson gave the people new reason to hope. He said, in part: "Heavenly Father, wilt Thou open up the way that the faithful may be accorded the privilege of going to Thy holy temple, there to receive their holy endowments and to be sealed as families for time and all eternity." He also prayed that the government would be softened to help advancement of the work.

"Everybody counts all the events that happened afterward from that dedication," says Kuehne. They didn't know how or when, but the Saints looked forward with faith to a day when they would have access to a temple.

Politically, things had also changed in favor of the Church. In 1971, Walter Ulbricht (a man who had said, "In twenty-five years no one will even speak about churches anymore") was replaced as leader of the GDR by Erich Honecker, who took a decidedly more diplomatic approach to religion. "As bad as Honecker might have been for many people, he was a breath of fresh air as far as the Church was concerned," says Kuehne. "The government had realized there were a certain number of people who would stick to religion, and the GDR decided they needed to co-opt them rather than fight them."

One of Honecker's most crucial concessions was to grant Evangelical churches the permission to build new church buildings. (Previously churches could only renovate old buildings.) Only three weeks after this announcement, in a meeting between Burkhardt and the Secretariat for Church Affairs on May 31, 1978, Burkhardt asked (again) if members might be allowed to travel to Switzerland to attend the temple. The answer was no; instead, the Secretariat suggested that the Church build a temple in the GDR.

The Freiberg German Democratic Republic Temple was announced in October General Conference of 1982, and on June 9, 1985, it was dedicated - the only LDS temple to be built in a communist country.

"[Government leaders] found our members to be upright and honest citizens. Literally, the moral integrity and devout faith of these Saints brought them their temple in Freiberg," writes Elder Russell M. Nelson ["Drama on the European Stage," Ensign, December 1991].

Ninety thousand GDR citizens attended the open house. Some stood in line for as long as seven hours, and one evening the last visitors exited at 1:15 A.M. Government officials from the GDR and surrounding countries also attended. In fact, Hungarian officials were so impressed by the temple that the following year they approached the Church to see if missionaries could be sent to work in their country. "We had a lot of miracles," says Schütze. "The Lord blessed us because of the strong faith of the members. As you do what is right, the consequences follow."

The next "consequence" was the reentering of foreign missionaries to the GDR. The lack of missionary work, coupled with the volume of Saints who had fled the GDR, left the Church small; Elder Monson even once expressed concern that the Church would die out. So it was momentous for the Church when, in a meeting in October 1988, Honecker told President Monson, Elder Russell M. Nelson, Elder Hans B. Ringger of the Seventy, President Burkhardt, and other Church leaders, "Permission granted," to their request to bring in missionaries to (and send a few missionaries from) the GDR.

The first foreign missionaries to enter East German territory in fifty years made the drive from the West on March 30, 1989. Schütze, who was responsible for driving new GDR Mission President Wolfgang Paul and a few missionaries across the border, could not contain his excitement once they crossed into East Germany. He and the others had been very nervous, but after his car passed the border guards without incident, he honked the horn, flashed the headlights, and cried for joy at the occasion long awaited. Schütze says: "I realized what happened: We had the first international missionaries in this part of Germany - since 1939! Now there was no limitation. I still feel great emotions, even now as I describe it." In the nine months following the entry of missionaries into the GDR, 569 convert baptisms were performed.

Steven R. Mecham, who was serving as mission president in Helsinki, Finland, at that time, had also been seeing new and exciting missionary developments for the Church in Eastern Bloc countries. Before arriving, he had been told he would play a role in bringing the gospel to the Soviet Union and Baltic States. "That was the first indication that there was something very different about this call than from other mission presidents in Finland," he says.

During a 1987 fact-finding mission to the Soviet Union, Elder Nelson and Elder Ringger learned that twenty-five members needed to belong to a church before it could be registered there. Finland, being the closest free state to the U.S.S.R, was the easiest avenue for the Church to make contact with the Soviet people. In February of 1988, Mecham received instruction from the area presidency to come up with a plan to teach and baptize Soviet tourists within Finland; it was around the same time as foreign missionaries reentered the GDR that the first Soviet citizen, Olga Vahasallo, was baptized in Finland.

Many such tourists were baptized all over Europe and were told to return home and prepare their friends to hear the gospel.

Still, Mecham and his missionaries had yet to enter the Soviet Union. Then at the October 1988 general conference, Elder Nelson told Mecham that President Benson had received revelation that missionaries were to enter the Soviet Union. Elder Nelson then told Mecham, who was unsure of how to accomplish such a feat, that he would soon see "physical and spiritual manifestations of the Lord's hand in taking the gospel into Russia."

It was only a month later when Mecham watched with the rest of the world as the Berlin Wall came down.

The Curtain Opens
"I remember just sobbing when I heard the news," says Ingrid Hersman, who immigrated to the U.S. years earlier. "But my cousin, who lived in East Berlin, didn't believe it. He didn't go near the Wall for three days. He thought it was some kind of a set up."

One of the main catalysts for this historic event came when Hungary opened its border to Austria on May 1, 1989. Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander, who was serving as mission president over the Austria Vienna East Mission (which at the time included Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Greece), recalls, "It was a very exciting year for Eastern Europe, and Vienna in particular. . . . Citizens of the socialist countries could travel anywhere within the Eastern Bloc. Many people from these countries would travel to Hungary and then just cross the border into Austria. From the time the Hungarians opened the border to Austria until the fall of the Wall in November, there were some two hundred thousand East German citizens who left the GDR. It was not just out of nowhere the Wall collapsed. It was a very logical event given all of the openness of that summer."

According to Neuenschwander, whose efforts were critical to bringing the gospel to much of Central and Eastern Europe, there were many social movements leading up to and coinciding with the collapse of the Iron Curtain. A few examples include the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (a revolt against Soviet-imposed policies); the Prague Spring of 1968 (a political liberalization of Czech citizens, which was squashed by the Soviets in less than a year); and the Polish Solidarity (the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country, which united nearly ten million workers and significantly contributed to the fall of communism).

"As these events began to transpire, there were a number of grassroots movements for more contact with the West, more freedom, more religious expression," Neuenschwander recalls. "All of these created an opportunity for us to place missionaries in those countries. As those events unfolded, we were working with the local government agencies to bring in missionaries."

Immediately after the Wall fell, Mecham started conducting Church meetings in homelands of the Soviet tourists who had been baptized. By the time he entered their countries, Soviet tourists had been baptized while visiting Finland, Hungary, Italy, and many other countries, making some areas in the U.S.S.R. already golden when missionaries finally arrived. "One thing connected to another," says Mecham. "No question in my mind who was in charge. All I did was wake up and go to work."

As Mecham worked to bring the gospel to the Soviet people, he had several experiences that illustrated the Lord was guiding his every step. For example, in the taxi on his way to the first LDS meeting in the Soviet Union, organized by Brother Valttari Rödsä in December 1989 in Tallinn, Estonia, Mecham felt he should talk to the driver - that he was very important. The driver, Peep Kivit, attended that first meeting and later became the first native branch president.

Later another Estonian taxi driver stepped in to impact the small Estonian Relief Society. Though he insisted he didn't want to hear about God, he said his mother had always believed in God. The week after his mother was baptized, she brought a whole neighborhood of women; she later became the first Relief Society president. (And her sons, including the taxi driver, eventually joined.)

Neuenschwander, who contributed to the missionary work in the U.S.S.R., also worked tirelessly to bring missionaries into several other European countries, including Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine.

"We had no members in the Ukraine or Romania," he says. "We had a handful in Bulgaria who had joined the Church in other countries, along with some Americans, but we were basically building the Church from ground zero."

Because Bulgaria was slower to accept the Church within its borders, the first Church representatives in that country were called to teach English. Marilyn Fowler, who entered Bulgaria in September 1990 to teach English with her husband, Delbert, recalls, "It was a shocking experience for us. It increased my testimony of the gospel and made me realize how hard it was for Joseph Smith to jump-start the Church." English-teaching missionaries were soon followed by full-time proselytizing missionaries, who entered the country that November. Ten days after their arrival, six converts were baptized in the first Bulgarian baptismal service.

"One of the nicest memories I have [from my time in Bulgaria] is of our first Christmas party," says Fowler. "We sang 'Silent Night' - a song none of them had ever heard. People were smiling and laughing. They stayed long after the program was over. The four of us, the senior missionaries, we just sat and cried. We realized that never in their lives had they ever had such an experience. It's such a little thing, but it was brand new to them."

In Russia, things progressed quickly. Neuenschwander and Mecham worked alongside the missionaries, and the people showed their enthusiasm. Each meeting held in Russia was so filled with investigators (about 90 percent) that missionaries didn't really need to proselytize. Branches in Vyborg and St. Petersburg were flourishing. Even "plants" - including at least one KGB agent and a Russian Orthodox minister - came to believe the gospel's truth.

"I tell you, every time we went across the border, we would say, 'It will be so wonderful to see what the Lord has planned for us today,' " Mecham says. "Every time we went over there, things just happened left and right."

"These times of change are very interesting," says Gary L. Browning, who served as the first Russian mission president. "They're thrilling, but on the other hand, it requires some adjustment and accommodation to make sure you're in-step with the times."

Browning, who served as a mission president from 1990 to 1993, dealt with many of the challenges of organization, including arrangement for standardized translations for Church materials, safe quarters for the missionaries, meeting locations, and leadership training. "What was important was to keep things simple," says Browning. "Little by little, we started to feel like we were part of the mainstream Church."

The Church was officially recognized in Russia on May 28, 1991. By the time Browning was released, he was one of two mission presidents in Russia, and a third mission would soon be organized in Samara; the missionary force in the Moscow Mission alone had grown to nearly 140, and the membership in that mission was around 750.

In other areas, interest continued to grow, and with time, the Church found deeper roots. Browning still feels tremendously honored to have been a part of bringing the gospel to previously closed areas. As a professor of Russian, he wondered for years how the gospel could reach the Soviet countries and hoped for that day. "Then suddenly it became possible. And it was like a dream come true."

The Church Today
Today the Church in Central and Eastern Europe continues to flourish, enjoying slow and steady growth. Some of the recent membership numbers in the area are as follows:

Germany: 37,159
Russia: 15,615
Ukraine: 10,394
Hungary: 4,380
Romania: 2,672
Bulgaria: 2,142
Czech Republic: 2,028
Poland: 1,527
Croatia: 503

Ground for the Kyiv Ukraine Temple was broken in June 2007, and this fall the angel Moroni statue was placed atop its spire. And earlier this year, Elder D. Todd Christofferson dedicated the first meetinghouse in Croatia (part of the former Yugoslavia).

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Elder Neil L. Andersen visited Russia and Ukraine this past May, spending time with members and government officials. "I can feel your goodness and the Spirit of Christ," Elder Andersen said to Church members in Moscow. "I feel courage from each of you." President Uchtdorf told the members in Kyiv, "We have much to share with people. We believe in religious freedom. We believe that people should keep all the good they have, and we will add to it."

Elder L. Tom Perry also visited the region this summer. He went to Latvia, only the second Apostle to do so. He counseled members there to continue to establish the Church for their children and grandchildren.

Browning, who now serves as one of two Russian-language patriarchs, says, "The Church is now beginning to come full circle in Russia. We're seeing native Russian elders and sisters return home, marry, have children, and establish strong families. They help one another weather spiritual storms, and the foundation of the Church continues by degrees to become stronger."

And Germany, where the gospel was first preached in 1840, is once again unified and enjoying the blessings of faithfulness. Because of growing demand, the Freiberg Germany Temple was renovated - to double its size - and rededicated in 2002.

In all these countries, even in recent years, the Church has not been without struggle. But Schütze, who emphasizes that he and other Church members are "not special" for what they endured to live the gospel, finds meaning in adversity and has even gained perspective to appreciate it. "Opposition always increases your efforts to do good," he says. "It gives you the opportunity to develop your capacity and your knowledge and your energy to do what is right."

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Special thanks is given to all who shared their time and stories with us, particularly Raymond Kuehne, for sharing the manuscript of his upcoming book Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State, and BYU Studies, for providing many images.

Other inspiring stories . . .

Three against Hitler
In 1941, during the heat of World War II, three brave LDS teens in Hamburg, Germany, risked their lives to begin a resistance movement against the Nazis.

Sixteen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, seventeen-year-old Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, and fourteen-year-old Rudi Wobbe had begun listening to BBC news broadcasts from England, although Hitler had passed a law in 1939 making it a capital crime to listen to enemy broadcasts. After discovering that the BBC reports contradicted broadcasts by the German news service, the three boys concluded that the German people were being deceived. Soon they launched a campaign to spread the truth.

The teens wrote and distributed flyers with titles such as, "Hitler the Murderer" and "The Voice of Conscience." They posted the leaflets on bulletin boards, placed them in mailboxes, and even slipped them into people's coat pockets.

Despite their many precautions, the three boys were arrested in February 1942. After being interrogated and tortured, the teens were tried for high treason. Hübener, the leader of the group, was executed on October 27, 1942; he was the youngest opponent of the Reich to be executed. Schnibbe and Wobbe were sentenced to five years and ten years in prison, respectively.

During the last weeks of the war, Schnibbe was released from prison and forced into the German army. He was captured by the Russians and spent four more years in a labor camp as a prisoner of war. Wobbe remained in German prison until the end of the war and was able to return to Hamburg in 1945.

Schnibbe and Wobbe, along with Hübener's two half brothers, immigrated to Utah in the 1950s. Wobbe co-authored a book about his experiences, titled Three Against Hitler. He died of cancer in 1992. Schnibbe lives in the Salt Lake City area.

Rededicating Russia
The second-ever LDS meeting in Leningrad had just closed when, on April 26, 1990, Elder Nelson turned to President Steven Mecham and told him it was time to rededicate Russia for missionary work. They needed to do it right, he said, in the Summer Garden, where Elder Francis M. Lyman first dedicated Russia in 1903.

But they arrived at the garden to find it closed and guarded. "It looks like it's closed," Mecham said. "It's never closed to the Lord," Mecham remembers Elder Nelson saying.

So Mecham approached a guard, telling him that an Apostle of Jesus Christ wanted to use the gardens to offer a blessing on the country. "Nyet!" yelled the guard, pushing Mecham away. But as Mecham walked back to the car, the guard stopped him. "You touched me," he said. Mecham apologized. "No," said the guard, "you touched me, and I felt something." The guard proceeded to tell Mecham of a secret place, on the other side of the garden, where they could gain admittance.

Once inside, Elder Nelson located the historic spot of the first dedication and kneeled in prayer. Then he stood up and related that President Kimball, along with his wife, Camilla, had longed for that day, and that President Benson and his wife, Flora, were with them in spirit. Elder Nelson then said they had a symbolic manifestation of that. He directed Mecham to read the names inscribed on the two female statues that stood overlooking that spot of the garden - the plaques read "Camilla" and "Flora."

As Mecham remembers, Elder Nelson took one look at Mecham's astounded face and said, "Nothing spiritual in life is ever a coincidence."

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