Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the St. Nicholas Church, and the 1989 Monday Demonstrations: A Case Study of Theopolitical Engagement in the German Democratic Republic

During the afternoon of October 9, 1989, the East German city of Leipzig went into lockdown. As the government closed off highways into the city and cancelled regular train service, over six thousand armed soldiers and police officers began to line the city’s streets. Hospitals received orders to have additional free beds available and to stock up on blood supplies.

With these measures, the East German government aimed to deliver a decisive blow to the Monday Demonstrations. For the past several weeks, thousands of Leipzig city residents had flocked to the city’s St. Nicholas Church, where every Monday evening at 5, the church held its MondayPeacePrayers.1 The peace prayers had become a rallying point for a growing movement protesting a litany of injustices in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

With the violent putdown of the Tiananmen Square protests fresh in their minds, many East Germans feared a “Chinese solution” to the demonstrations. The East German government had praised the Chinese for their course of action and ostentatiously was taking steps to force such a conclusion in their own country. Seven thousand individuals nonetheless met to pray in the St.

Nicholas Church and the city center’s three other main churches at 5 pm, as they had routinely done on Mondays past. An additional 63,000 waited outside of the churches to join them in walking Leipzig’s ring road in a sign of public and nonviolent protest. As the protesters began their march, the Chinese solution never came.

The East German government stood down over such an overwhelming display of nonviolent public protest.