A piece of the Berlin Wall sits in Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s office in the Church Administration Building in Salt Lake City. This small fragment of concrete holds great significance for the member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Born in 1940, young Dieter grew up in Zwickau, in the former East Germany. When he was about 11 years old, his father fell under increased scrutiny as a political dissenter, and his parents decided their family should flee to West Germany.
The Uchtdorfs were among the estimated 2.5 million East Germans who escaped to West Germany between 1949 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The German Democratic Republic erected the large concrete barrier to cut off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and West Germany.
On Nov. 9, 1989 — 35 years ago this month — the wall that had become the symbol of the Cold War was torn down. The border was opened, and East Germans could travel freely to the west.
“I keep a piece of the Berlin Wall in my office to remind me of this great miracle,” Elder Uchtdorf once wrote on social media. “I never thought it would happen in my lifetime.”
Latter-day Saints in Germany have demonstrated decades of “humble courage” and “loving persistence,” which has moved the Church forward in Germany, said Elder Uchtdorf after returning from a visit to Berlin in 2018.
“Kleine schritte helfen,” he said, translating, “Small steps help.”
The miracle of a temple in East Germany
After the rapid rise of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Latter-day Saints in East Germany were left in difficult conditions.
An excerpt from a Church News article provides some context: “Restrictions were set on how members could worship. The state required notice of meetings and even monitored Sunday services. Scriptures, manuals, handbooks and even hymnals were not allowed in the country. At one point, all unauthorized literature was burned. Many congregations even lacked established leadership.”
There were no patriarchs, missionary work was prohibited, and the wall prevented Church members from visiting the Swiss Temple — the only temple in Europe. Yet the war-torn and isolated members continued to meet together and strengthen one another.
In 1968 then-Elder Thomas S. Monson visited the German Democratic Republic and met with Church members in the city of Görlitz.
Impressed by their unwavering faith and trust in the Lord, the young Apostle and future President of the Church made a bold promise to the people: “If you will remain true and faithful to the commandments of God, every blessing any member of the Church enjoys in any other country will be yours.”
Elder Monson returned in 1975 to dedicate the land for the Lord’s work. In his dedicatory prayer, Elder Monson pleaded for many specific blessings for East German Saints, including a way to receive the blessings of the temple.
When Elder Uchtdorf first learned about these promises, he said he was filled with gratitude but also uncertainty.
“There seemed no possible way that these beautiful promises to our people could happen in their lifetime, if ever. How could a temple be built and operated in East Germany? … I felt somehow like the man who cried out, ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief,’” recalled then-President Uchtdorf of the First Presidency during the 2014 Church History Symposium.
In his journal, then-Elder Monson recorded several experiences that confirmed to him the Lord’s work would move forward with faith. Local members, including Henry Burkhardt, were instrumental in building a relationship with the German Democratic Republic government. Little by little, the promised blessings came.
Ten years after Elder Monson’s dedicatory prayer, President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated in June 1985 the Freiberg Germany Temple — the first temple behind the Iron Curtain.
“The construction of the Freiberg temple is one of the great miracles in the history of the Church in Europe,” then-President Uchtdorf said in 2014. “It is a wonderful example of how God can make the impossible possible in any part of the world.”
The fall of the Berlin Wall
On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, Elder Uchtdorf and his family were at home together in Germany when they learned the Berlin Wall had opened. He was serving as a stake president in the Frankfurt area at the time.
“It was a really heartwarming moment,” he recalled in a 2014 interview with the Deseret News. “I immediately thought of our extended family in the east. Our thoughts went to the Church members, I must say. We had had district presidents and other leaders of the Church stay in our home. Our hearts went out to them immediately. ‘What will they do?’”
Elder Spencer J. Condie was serving in the Europe Area presidency and watched the events of Nov. 9, 1989, unfold on television from a hotel room in Madrid, Spain.
“For a while, it was disruptive to the Church in a wonderful way,” the emeritus General Authority Seventy told the Deseret News. “So many people hadn’t been out of East Germany in 45 years that they wanted to see their families in Stuttgart or Frankfurt.”
The Church soon realigned stakes to include congregations from East and West Germany. In July 1990, missions opened in the formerly Communist countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Missionaries were able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with individuals who had been denied the teachings of the gospel for nearly 50 years.
President Wolfgang Paul of the Germany Dresden Mission told the Church News in 1991: “The people of Dresden, so long hidden from the beauties of knowing the Savior, are responding to the message of the gospel. They hunger for truth and accept the missionaries quite well.”
Germany’s reunification was made official on Oct. 3, 1990 — now celebrated annually as German Unity Day. Still serving as stake president, Elder Uchtdorf held a special meeting of the Frankfurt stake that day.
It was the first time in his life that a German congregation sang the German national anthem, he told the Deseret News. “That was with all of our hearts. It was a touching moment. That time a lot of tears were flowing.” Elder Uchtdorf has served as a general authority since 1994.
During an assignment to Germany and Austria in April 2019, Elder Uchtdorf met with Germany’s Görlitz Branch, where then-Elder Monson a half-century earlier promised all the blessings of the restored gospel.
Gathered with the branch members were members from both Germany and Poland and mission presidents from Berlin and Warsaw. “For me, it is always a symbol of the power of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ — even in the most difficult circumstances, the gospel binds you together,” Elder Uchtdorf said.
“There was a unity, a reconciliation in the highest degree because of the gospel and the Church,” he added. “Here you see a reconciliation in action because of gospel values and truths.”
Why it matters today: A lesson of unity
In a social media post in November 2019 commemorating 30 years since the Berlin Wall came down, Elder Uchtdorf continued that message of unity.
“Over time, the miracle of unity happened for Germany,” Elder Uchtdorf wrote. “There is a great need for unity in our human relationships too. Perhaps we have figurative ‘walls’ in our families, our friendships, our lives. When our walls come down we might think, ‘How is it possible to feel unity when we are so different?’”
In such circumstances, Elder Uchtdorf suggested reapplying the Savior’s teachings. “The Savior is the one who can help us bring our walls down,” he said. “We try to be more forgiving, more kind, more understanding, more supportive of each other. If we make mistakes (and we will), we have the gift of repentance to fix our personal relationships and our relationship with God.
“Remember, because of the Savior’s sacrifice we can experience the miracle of unity in all the relationships we have in our lives.”
