21 Church or School?

Wolfgang Zwirner is Marianne Ortlieb’s younger brother. He and Karin Zwirner, his wife, are articulate and well educated. They have raised their three daughters to be active both in their community and ward. Shortly after the missionaries returned to Dresden, Brother Zwirner served as a very active, involved ward mission leader. As Relief Society president at the same time, Sister Zwirner not only carried the ordinary duties of this calling, but also found herself welcoming and integrating an average of four or five new convert sisters into the ward every Sunday.

Wolfgang: I came into the Church because of my parents. My mother joined the Church with her mother in Breslau through two American missionaries. My grandfather also joined but died a short time later. My mother’s brother and a sister also joined.

My father joined the Church in the 1930s through my mother, but he was never very active. He is a very nice man, very nice. He is still living, but he never received the priesthood. During the war, my father ended up in a Russian prison camp. He had something to do with Marxism, with Communism, but he didn’t have any trouble with the National Socialists as far as I know. But he was still thinking about these things when he ended up in the Russian prison camp somewhere beyond Brünn. He was sickened by the war and had seen so much suffering. The suffering of the children was particularly abhorrent to him. He wanted to do something for peace so that there would never be another war.

Well, the Russians had their own ideology. He said he was standing in a row of POWs, and he was called out. He didn’t know why they selected him, but he was sent to the party school in Moscow, so he went in that direction. He became a Communist. But he is a good man. He has never said anything negative about the Church. He has kept the Word of Wisdom. He has never smoked. He told me once that he always spoke well of us with his party comrades. In 1949 he returned from his prison experience, and we have always had a good relationship with him, but he no longer came to church. He has never been excommunicated; his name is still in the records, but his experiences have led him in another direction.

My mother stayed firm in the Church throughout the war, and I was baptized in 1946 in Leipzig. At the end of the war, my mother and I and one sister (Marianne Ortlieb) had to flee from Breslau. In 1949 we arrived in Dresden, and my mother was very active from that time on. She was a missionary and the Relief Society president. Her entire life from 1949 to 1963 was one of continuing Church activity, and that, of course, influenced me. She was a very clever woman. She never tried to force me, never.

I used to play a lot and for a long time, and it was often hard for me to go to church, but we went regularly. One day she gave me the following advice, which really helped me. She said, “If you will concentrate very hard during the first talk at sacrament meeting, you can play after that.” I tried very hard to be obedient and concentrated on the first talk, and then I played. But as time went by, I began to get interested in the other talks, and in this way, she never had to force me at all.

We came to Dresden in 1949, and in 1950, I was ordained a deacon and experienced a normal growth in the Church. When I was eighteen, I was ordained an elder, and I wanted to go on a mission. I don’t remember why anymore, but I had to wait. Finally in January 1958, I was called on a full-time mission. We could serve full-time missions then, but I was one of the last ones to be called. Shortly after 1960, the State would no longer allow missionary work. They said it took two years away from productivity for the State. I was happy that I could serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that this was on my record.

Outside the Dresden branch house on Dr.-Kurt-Fischer Allee, December 7, 1953. Dorothea Condie (top row, second from left), Wolfgang Zwirner (next to bottom row, third from left), Heinz Wöhe (bottom row, fourth from right). Courtesy Käthe Wöhe.

In Rathenow, my first area, I was a companion to Brother Johannes Schiebold, who later emigrated to America and became rather well known. I believe he studied art. Anyway, he was my senior companion for the first six months. One day we came upon a man; he must have been a writer. At any rate, he was very impressive, and I was afraid of him. We were not supposed to discuss politics, but a few expressions slipped out in our conversation. He became very excited, went upstairs, and brought a friend down with him. Then it was bad. I wasn’t the one who had said anything, but I tried to defend my companion. I just said, “You have misunderstood him,” and he said, “Oh, he can defend himself.” Apparently these were two pretty high officials, and he said, “This is impossible! We can’t have this, you running around from door to door saying things like that.”

We left and went down the street, and suddenly we were approached by a man from the State Security—what we used to call the secret police. He said he was a police officer and turned us over to a uniformed policeman. I don’t know how my companion felt, but I was pretty scared. We had to go with him to the police headquarters, where the sergeant was fortunately not alone. There was a young lieutenant there from Potsdam, and he was the senior officer. We had a very casual conversation. He asked us a few questions, what we were doing, and so on. I said that what we were doing was not forbidden. And he let us go. He was very tolerant. He sent us home, and we went on our way.

The Church was not suppressed everywhere, in every city. You can see how arbitrary it was. It all depended on the local authorities, on their attitude. This experience was very typical.

A short time later (I remember the day well because our toilet was stopped up and we were trying to repair it), someone suddenly appeared and told us we were to report to police headquarters again. Off we went without any idea what it was about. But this time the lieutenant was not there, just his subordinate, and he was red in the face: “Why are you still going about doing what we told you was forbidden?” We told him that the man who had interrogated us told us it was not forbidden, but he didn’t go along with that. He forbade us to go door to door. We could never do that again, period! So you see, there was no clear line. Either the first man was staying in the background or this man had received other instructions. I don’t know, but that’s what we had to experience. We couldn’t go door to door anymore. We had to find other ways to approach people. I don’t remember what we did after that; I was soon transferred to Gotha. I spent six months there, and we went door to door every day.

Naumburg was my third area, and from the first day, we were informed by the previous missionaries that we would not be allowed to go tracting. It was forbidden there, so we obeyed the law. Those were our instructions from our mission president, Brother Burkhardt. We went to the neighboring city, Weissenfels, which was just twenty minutes by train. There tracting was not forbidden. Here we were, native Germans in our own country, and there was no clear line from one city to another. And the officials would never give us anything in writing. Everything was by word of mouth. They were likely afraid that we might have copied something and sent it off and caused some international trouble.

And so we went door to door in Weissenfels. And one day we had an experience that shows how we were guided by the Spirit. We started at the top of an apartment house and worked our way down. When we were on the ground floor, we saw a door open a little, which meant there was someone at home. But we just walked on by. There was no reason why we shouldn’t have rung the bell, but we didn’t. Then suddenly someone came up behind us and pulled an ID out of his pocket—secret police. He told us to come into the apartment.

But we knew who it was and why he wanted to get us into the apartment. They would have someone sitting in a neighboring room, or they would have a tape recorder. They would get us into a conversation where we would say something that we ought not to say, and they would have us. We had seen this before and were not so young and inexperienced now.

We told him we were not doing anything illegal, and where tracting was forbidden, as in Naumburg, we didn’t do it. But he gave us an appointment to appear at police headquarters anyway. So we went, and once again there was a young man in charge. The young people were, in general, somewhat more tolerant. We described to him what we were doing. We told him we introduce ourselves and ask the people if they would be interested in our message. We never put our foot in the door. We didn’t force ourselves on people. And he just said, “You can go.” Nothing in writing; always word of mouth. So we went.

Then I was transferred; my last area was Mittweida, and there again we had the typical experience. We went tracting. We were the first missionaries there in a long time. The members of the branch were wonderful to us. There were some large families, the Jentzsch family, for example. We were taken care of; we were something special. In some of the larger branches, missionaries were not so uncommon. Anyway, there we were, and we went door to door. We also lived in the branch house, which was also illegal, but they left us alone for six months.

My mission was almost over when one morning there was a knock on the door, just as we were eating breakfast. It was the police. They told us we had twenty-four hours to leave the country, leave the GDR! I knew right away something was wrong. We were citizens of the GDR. Besides that I didn’t want to go. The Church had told us we should stay. My mother was here. This was before the wall went up in 1961. Anyway, we were taken to police headquarters again. They said that “people” had complained about us going from house to house. In my opinion, that was all a lie. It may have been that some of the Communists complained, but not the people. That was just their way of doing things, to say that “the people” have complained.

Then the second blow fell. You can’t live in those rooms. That is not an official apartment. I explained to them that I was nearing the end of my mission and that we were going to be transferred in a few days, a week at most. I told them we would move somewhere. “No! You have already exceeded your time. You have to be out of here before midnight. Either leave Mittweida, or leave the country.” So, we left. At eleven o’clock that night, we happily marched away and went over to Döbeln. There were members there. We spent a few nights there, and then I was released. Those were my two years as a missionary, and they were happy years. Of course, we couldn’t serve in a foreign country, but we served. That was the main thing.

In 1960, I came home and went to work in a factory as a toolmaker. In 1964, I married. But let me go back and tell you something interesting. It was the first time I stood up for the Church. It was in elementary school. The teacher said something against the Church—the Church in the Middle Ages. I raised my hand and stood up. My legs were as heavy as lead, but I told him that the things he had said did not apply to my church. Nothing happened to me.

But later, when I was in high school—that must have been 1953, when I was seventeen—those were hard times. I remember it was just before the uprising of June 17. The authorities were pretty hard on the churches, and several young people had to leave school but were brought back after the political climate changed.

I was in the tenth grade, and I really didn’t like school much anymore. I wanted to quit. We had a conference coming up, and the Church had permission to print flyers announcing the conference. I was given the assignment of distributing the flyers, which was something of an honor to me. So I passed them out at school. I came up to one of my teachers—he was a fine man—and I gave him one. He said to me, “Watch out. You can give that to me, but don’t give them out to anyone else.” He warned me, but I was too thickheaded to pay attention. There was no explicit reason for not distributing them, but I shouldn’t have done it.

The next teacher I gave one to, a white-haired woman, went straight to the director’s office. While I was in biology class, in the class of the teacher who had warned me, someone came in from the director’s office and said that I should see him during the class break. I went but didn’t realize what was up. When I entered, there was the white-haired teacher and right beside her was the secretary of the FDJ [Freie Deutsche Jugend, Free German Youth]. They laid into me, first about distributing the flyers—What did I think I was doing?—and so on.

Then it occurred to them that I was not a member of the Free German Youth. They knew my father; they knew that he was a Communist. He was a loyal Communist. A fine man. He really believed in what he was doing, that he was fighting in his way for peace, and I have to emphasize that here since nowadays it is easy to defame the Communists. But he was very sincere in his beliefs. He wanted to give. I know that he would not even take money for his lectures. Well, anyway, they knew him and thought that since I was his son I should have been in the Free German Youth from the time I was fifteen. But I had never joined. I was a member of the Church.

And there had been another matter. My class had gone for a weekend into the country. My teacher was a very nice woman, and she wanted everyone to go. But for me the problem was that we would be gone over Sunday, and I wanted to keep the Sabbath day holy. Looking back I know that was a little pharisaic on my part, but that’s the way it was. What was I supposed to do? I wanted to be at church on Sunday. I should have talked to my teacher about it. She would probably have fixed it up for me so that I could keep the Sabbath holy even on this outing; I could study or something. She was a nice woman, but I didn’t do it. What a thick skull I had then.

Anyway, this all came out, and my teacher told me I would have to choose. Either I would have to go with the class on Sunday, or I could go to church. She couldn’t force me to make this decision, but why had she sent me to the Director’s office? She probably had her instructions, and they wanted to put some pressure on me. They said they would never forbid me to go to church, but they never gave me any instructions in writing. Anyway, they gave me the alternative, school or Church. I left school and never went back. I didn’t graduate; there was no going back.

So, first I became a mechanic, and then I got into a trade school, where I spent three years learning to be a machinist. And another thing happened to me there. The section leader came up to me one day (he probably had some instructions from somewhere, or so I heard), and he told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to stay because I belonged to the Church. But nothing ever came of that, and actually I graduated with distinction in both areas—practical and theoretical—and received my diploma. Then he said I could not graduate with distinction, but they had to let us graduate with distinction, there were four or five of us. And then this guy who was always after me, always on my back, fled the country a year later, went over the border illegally.

I really had no problem because of Church there, none at all. On the contrary, I remember I had to give a report in class one day; because I was always speaking out so freely. I had to have a debate; I defended the Church and my opponent defended Communism. It was all very official and lasted almost an hour. After it was over, one of the students started to mock me, and the teacher stepped in and said, “We’ll have none of that. Neither from one side nor the other.”

It was after this schooling that I went on my mission for two years. After I got back, I went to work in a factory in Karlswald, and I had no problems there because of the Church, because of my belonging to a religion—none at all. And then I went back to school. That was interesting. First I studied Russian at an evening school, and then my wife and I studied English.

While we were there, we met an instructor, a very nice man. He had gotten into some political troubles. He was a Germanist, and he said, “Mr. Zwirner, you know what you should do? You should get your high school diploma and then you should go to the university.” He knew very well why I had not gotten my diploma; he knew all about it. I think they were all glad to have gotten rid of me at the high school without a big fuss. If I had really been forced to confess why I had not received my diploma, I would have had to say it was because of my religious convictions, and there might have been a fuss. They were glad that it turned out the way it did.

I had to participate in an M-L Institute, a Marxist-Leninist Institute, and while I was there, I had to be a “referat” for a research paper of another student, that is, I had to give a response. In the course of my response, I said something about the Church, something about the Mormons, and so that, of course, labeled me as belonging to a church. But I also said that divorce was criminal. The professor later took me aside and said, “What do you mean by saying divorce is criminal?” I had to give a spontaneous response, and I believe it was pure inspiration. “You see,” I said, “what I meant by criminal was taking something for which one has not worked, that is, taking something for oneself without social justification.” And then I added, “In a marriage, if one only wants to get and is not willing to give, then that person is not justified. If one takes something, one should be obliged to give something in return. So, you see, if one demands a divorce on this principle of taking without giving, the divorce is criminal.” He was satisfied and went his way.

That was just a little incidental thing. When it came time for examinations in this Marxist-Leninist Institute, he examined me, and I came out with a B grade in M-L. Then he took me aside and said, “Now that the examinations are over, let’s talk about something else.” He wanted to know all about the Church, and we had a long and interesting conversation about God. He was very honorable about the whole thing and didn’t cause me any trouble. He was genuinely interested. The examinations were over, and he wanted to talk about these other things. He truly wanted to know. He was apparently interested because of my referat. He knew that I was religious and wanted to know more about the Mormons. I told him that the Mormons were not political in the same sense that we in the GDR were “political.” There are Mormons who are Republicans and Mormons who are Democrats. Religion is a private matter in the United States, and each person can decide for him or herself. Anyway, that was my answer, he left me alone, and everything turned out all right.

I applied at various schools and was finally accepted at a medical academy. That was a real blessing as I still have a position there. At first I wanted to study other places. I applied at the German Technical University and at the State Library, but neither of these worked out.

There came a time when I ran into serious difficulty with my supervisor. I was often—I may as well be honest about it—I was often inclined to take an extreme position, and sometimes I may have gone too far. But that’s the way I was. That was my nature, and it has caused my wife no little anxiety, for which I am sorry. This incident had to do with a subscription that was taken up among the workers to buy weapons for the Palestinians. It was called a Solidarity Subscription [Solidaritätsbeitrag]. It was all written up in the Neues Deutschland [the official newspaper of the Communist Party]. I had always paid my Solidarity Subscription, but when I read what this money was going for, I refused to pay anymore. I thought it over very carefully, and I went down on my knees about it, right here in this room. I had to think carefully about this matter, because it could have caused serious consequences for my family. There were always the secret police to consider. One never knew for sure, but we always had this insecure feeling that they were watching. And they were watching; we know that for certain today. Anyway, I knew that if I stopped my contributions it could have serious consequences. So I prayed about it. I still remember some of the words of my prayer: “Father in Heaven, I do not want to continue paying my Solidarity Subscription because I cannot buy weapons to be used against Israel.” Inwardly I had always been for Israel, and I had tried to make compromises. But we have to think these things over, don’t we? I mean, where is the border between cowardice and wisdom? There is always this gray zone. It was not so easy for us.

Well, in the case of this subscription, I tried to apply the instructions in Doctrine and Covenants 9. I didn’t ask God, “What should I do,” but I thought about it, prayed, and then made the decision not to pay the subscription. I felt peace in my heart. I wanted to be right with God, and, I mean, if I had gotten into real trouble, maybe I would have paid it, but I was at peace.

I was called in. I understand now that supervisors have their own problems with these matters. He took me aside in the men’s room: “Mr. Zwirner, please don’t do this.” I must say that my supervisor was anxious to be helpful. Politically, we were at odds, and there was nothing that could be done about that. He had given up on me. But I remember when my wife had our third child he was there to help. He did what he could; he tried to help, you understand, but the party had him under a lot of pressure. I picked that up later in a conversation I had with him when he told me, “You know what? They will send me back to the Middle Ages if I don’t go along with socialism. They will do the same thing to me they did to my boss.”

Anyway, I said, “I can’t do it; I simply can’t do it. I can’t finance weapons that will be used against Israel.” So this is what happened. He had to report it, that much was clear, and then the director himself had to get involved—the top man in the firm. He was really a fine man. Well, he called me in, and we sat across from one another at a small table, and he said, “Mr. Zwirner. Now tell me how an intelligent man like you can put yourself into such a situation. Why are you doing this?” and so on. So I told him everything. I said, “You see, in the Bible”—I think I quoted Isaiah or someone—“it says, whoever fights against Israel will die.” I told him that I felt I belonged to Israel. “What kind of a friendship would that be,” I asked him, “if I went along with this subscription? I do not agree with everything that Israel is doing,” I told him. “There is a militarism there I don’t like. But when I have a friend who makes a mistake, I can’t just declare him to be my enemy. That’s not right.” He heard me out very calmly, thought about it, and said, “Mr. Zwirner, I accept your position.”

But before I tell you what he proposed, I have to tell you something else that made the whole thing much more difficult. I was a member of a “Socialist Brigade.” Our entire section of the library was in this brigade; it was obligatory. And whenever a subscription came up, our brigade was obligated to contribute 100 percent, regardless of what the subscription was. And so now they were all in trouble because I wouldn’t participate.

I told him, “You see, it has nothing to do with money. I don’t care about the money; you can have it. I am not doing this for the money; but I cannot contribute when the money is going to buy weapons.” So he said—he was a clever man—“Mr. Zwirner, could you accept the following? Suppose you pay your subscription just once a year instead of paying it monthly as you now do. Pay it all at once for a particular purpose but not for weapons. Would you do that?” I said, “Yes, I would do that. I don’t care what the money is used for as long as it is not used for weapons.” So he had made his chess move, and the tension was relieved.

Once a year, in the fall, toward Christmas, a list was sent around for a particular donation. It was usually for forty or fifty marks. So I signed up for fifty marks for the victims of the earthquake in Romania and specified what the money was for. The next year it was for the suffering children of the world (that was the Year of the Children), and I wrote what the money was to be used for. It became a joke, because on the list where my name appeared they began to write at the top, “Collection for the Earthquake Victims” or “For the Hungry of the World.” Right at the top. So I never paid a monthly subscription again; I paid it all at once, once a year.

Of course, they noticed that, too, and someone would inevitably say, “Everyone is paying for the Solidarity Subscription but one person.” Me! But that’s the way I paid, and that’s the way we broke the log jam. So I can at least say that I acted according to my conscience, and if they used the money for something else, that was their responsibility. I had my own morals, and if they used my money for something other than what I donated it for, they falsified my money, so to speak. Anyway, it was a moral decision, and I tried to make the best of the situation I could.

Well, there was another affair I got involved in that, to be honest, made me quite nervous. The situation was this: There was a petition sent around that had something to do with the oil crisis in the world. That must have been back in the 1970s. We were called out for demonstrations, and there was a big protest about oil. It had something to do with what the Western nations were doing against the Eastern nations, and it had to do with oil. Well, they sent around the petition, and I refused to sign. I admit I was afraid, but I said, “This is all part of some secret diplomacy, and I don’t know a thing about it. I never know what is going on. They don’t give us the necessary information.”

Then I got scared. Something my boss said frightened me, or maybe it was someone else, I don’t remember who, but I was afraid. So when they called me in, I turned the whole thing around. I told them—and now I was really afraid—“The problem is we are given too much information. It makes it hard for us to come to a decision.” That was my chess move, and they left me alone. I didn’t have to sign their petition. I don’t remember how the whole thing turned out, but I know that I was afraid, and I didn’t make the mistake again of saying, “I don’t get enough information.” But the whole experience was very negative and left a bad taste in my mouth.

Of course, I didn’t get enough information. I mean, they never gave us all of the information; they gave us only a part. They left out the other part. Maybe they didn’t directly lie to us, but in my opinion, they printed only half-truths. They always gave us photographs about what Israel had done but never anything about what the Palestinians had done, never. They wouldn’t report that, or they watered it down. That just drove me mad. Oh well, that’s politics.

I remember an occasion when we had to vote by a show of hands (and we had to vote), but I said to myself, “You can’t raise your hand in favor of that.” So I bent over and pretended to be tying my shoe when the vote was called for so that I wouldn’t have to raise my hand. I was always trying to get by with these kinds of tricks. If they had called me out, maybe I would have had to vote against the proposal, maybe not. But I tied my shoe instead, and no one noticed me.

There’s another story I can tell you that might be of interest. A man started coming to the branch when I was the branch mission leader. It was a strange situation, and he was very likely from the secret police. Actually, I suspect that he was spying for both sides. Ours was called the State Security Service [Staatssicherhheitsdienst], and theirs was called the Federal Information Service [Bundesnachrichtendienst]. Anyway, the branch president asked me to visit him and put him in contact with the missionaries. He was presumably interested in the Church. We invited him here and went to his house. Then his wife showed up here one day and warned us not to have anything to do with him—his own wife, although they were divorced then. Actually by that time, the whole affair had about run its course, but it was strange business.

We often went walking together in the Great Garden and talked about this and that. One time I might have said too much, I hope not, but I tried to change the subject, thinking I might get someone into trouble. I don’t think I would have, but I can’t say exactly now how it was. It might have been quite harmless. But he kept coming back.

One day I put a notice on the bulletin board at church listing all the missionary programs we had planned for the year. He showed up that evening, and at the end of the evening the notice had been ripped off. We all assumed he had taken it.

One day at a conference, one of the brothers was talking about “the vision,” meaning, of course, the vision of Joseph Smith. Right after the conference, another of our brothers was called in to the police station. “What kind of an organization do you have in your Church?” he was asked. He tried to explain everything, the missionary program and all. “No, you have a division,” they said. He had no idea how they thought we were divided into divisions, but we assumed it must have been our investigator from the secret police who understood “the vision” [die Vision] to be a division in a military sense.

Well, there were other things that gave him away, but one evening he showed up at my apartment building about nine at night. He called me on the intercom and asked me to come down. I came down to see him, and he told me he had to have an emergency baptism. He said he was being hounded by our secret police, who suspected that he was working for the Federal Republic of Germany, and he wanted to have an emergency baptism. He wanted me to take him down to the Elbe and baptize him. I told him, “No, we don’t do that. God knows if your conversion is sincere, and it is not necessary for you to have an emergency baptism. I can’t do that. It’s not done.” He disappeared.

A few days later, a stranger showed up at my apartment and wanted to come in. I invited him in, and he wanted me to deliver an envelope to this other man. He said, “You have contact with him.” Actually I didn’t have any real contact with him anymore, you see, and I had nothing to hide. I had never been that clever, so clever that I could have managed this kind of an operation. God was really with me this time. The man must have told his wife that I was too clever for him, but he was wrong about that. I had nothing to hide, and I was actually a very harmless man. I could never have gotten involved in these matters.

Karin: You were too naive.

Wolfgang: Exactly. Naiveté is a principle with me. But this stranger with the envelope said I was playing games with him, you understand. I wasn’t playing games; I was being honest. I never heard from him again, and I certainly didn’t take the envelope. He tried to pass it to me over the table, and then they would have had me. The man they were trying to contact was probably from over there [from the West]. Anyway, he had told me as much, that he was an officer in the paratroopers. It was all rather bizarre. His wife had told me that she had found a secret code in one of his books. That was when she warned me, but her warning wasn’t necessary. And that was the end of it.

G. Davis: It was good that you didn’t take the envelope.

Wolfgang: No, I didn’t take it. No way. I had never worked for the secret police, but then they would have had me. I assume they were just putting me to the test to see if I was still having contact with him, but I really wasn’t. Still, I had to be very direct in refusing to take the envelope.

Karin: They wouldn’t have had you if you had taken the envelope. They would have had you only if you had passed it on to this Brother Meier.

Wolfgang: But Karin, if I had taken it, they would have had reason to suspect me. My innocence would have been lost. Oh well, maybe not; I’ll never know. Anyway, I didn’t take it. I just said, “I have no idea where he is.” And he said, “Well, he will show up here again.” I said, “I don’t know; he’s gone somewhere. I don’t know anything more about him.” It was all very strange, but you have to understand, Karin, that even an innocent person can get involved in these things. You just let yourself in a little bit, and immediately they suspect you, you see. Maybe they offer some money. This stranger gave me a name and told me to contact that person, but I never did. Well, that was that.

I can say that in this country I have never felt any of this pressure in the Church. I have always felt at ease in the Church. There were occasions when I was a student when I would bring up something about Marxism in one of my lessons, but I always got a little tap on the shoulder from the branch president. “This is not the place for that!” He was right, of course. But as young people, we were always trying to justify our position, and if you spoke freely, something of that was bound to come out. Then he would tap me on the shoulder. That was the only restraint I ever felt, and as I matured, I learned that one didn’t get into these things at church. It was good that I learned this. The branch president was never unkind about it; he only said, when I went a little too far, “Wolfgang, you can’t do that here.” Just a little suggestion, you see. That was probably the only area in the Church where we were a little touchy.

Once I had to take a tour of the mission, and I brought back an armful of newspapers with me. Oh, I was naive in those days. I brought them all to church to point out what the Communists were saying in their newspapers. You see, you had to look in several newspapers to find one good article. Well, one of the leaders of the Church told me, “You just can’t do that anymore,” and I never did. That’s the way it was then. I really didn’t mean any harm, but I was naive. I had found something in the newspapers about Israel, and I was telling the members, “Buy this newspaper, this one.” That was not a good idea. I mean, I shouldn’t have been making propaganda, either for one side or for the other.

I remember another occasion when I was working with the young people in the branch. We wanted to decorate the hall like a medieval castle, and we made some weapons out of cardboard or something to hang on the wall, just some crossed swords. Some police official came along and told us to take them down. That’s the way it was in those days—just a little thing like that and we had to take them down. We made a castle tower, and we had a drawbridge at the entrance, but we couldn’t hang these crossed swords on the wall—forbidden. I think someone must have squealed on us; otherwise how would the police have known about that? It was completely harmless.

And then there was the time when we were forbidden to have a pioneer trek. We were going to have this pioneer march through the whole mission. I had even made some special insignias at the factory where I was working. I still have one of them, a covered wagon with the oxen and everything. We were going to pass them out. We were going to march from here to Freiberg and then from Freiberg to Karl-Marx Stadt and then on and on. We had a real journey planned out. Forbidden! We weren’t allowed to do it. Well, we did do a little trial run to see how it would go, from Hainsberg to Freiberg. We had a lot of fun on that.

And the reason it was forbidden was because of the name “pioneers.” You see, the Young Pioneers is a branch of the FDJ, the Free German Youth, a communist youth organization. I had been a member of the Young Pioneers when I was a child; my father used to take me. I liked it. Then we let our children join the Free German Youth if they wanted to.

This might be of interest. Uta, our oldest daughter, came home one day and wanted to know if she could become a member of the Free German Youth. I knew all about the Communist Manifesto and their attitude toward Christians, so I told her, “Look, we can do this. If you will join openly as a Christian and will do only those things that are allowed by our Christian ethic, then you can join.” That’s what she did. She announced very officially that she was a Christian, and they accepted it. She became a member, and they told her she had to do only what her conscience as a Christian allowed her to do. I mean, this was our way of making a compromise.

Karin: But no compromise on the Sabbath.

Wolfgang: No, not on Sunday. That’s what we always told our children. I think we let all of our children participate in the Young Pioneers so that they wouldn’t get into trouble. You see, the little children had to decide about that in their first year of school. So we always said, “You can go, but church comes first. On Sunday we go to church and if there is a meeting during the week, then church comes first and then the Pioneers.” We couldn’t force our convictions on our children. Little children of six or seven can’t be responsible for political things, and if all the other children got to participate and wear their little blue neckerchiefs and our children didn’t, we had no strong convictions that they shouldn’t be part of the Young Pioneers, so that’s what we did.

But when it came to the Free German Youth, then they had to decide for themselves. I’ve told you how it was with Uta. With Grit, it was pretty funny. They just took her in, no questions asked. So first Uta was a member and then Grit—all very official. They both announced that they were Christians, but there were a few incidents.

Twice they had to recite a poem in which they were supposed to curse God and the Church. I wrote into their study book that they could not say that because of our religious convictions. They accepted it, and we didn’t have any difficulty. But on another occasion, Grit refused to sing the “Communist International.”

Karin: She and Franzi.

Wolfgang: Yes, she was with her girlfriend, Franziska Fürll, and they both refused to sing. The teacher said something about them being enemies to the State, so I went straight to the school. I made an appointment and was there the next day. The teacher wanted to know why I had come, and she changed her tune a bit. She had probably asked the principal what she should do about it. She said to me, “Oh, no, they don’t have to participate. I won’t require it of them because we understand that their refusal is because of their personal convictions and not intended as a provocation. No, Franziska and Grit will not be asked to sing alone, and when the choir sings, they don’t have to sing along.” That’s about what she said, so there was no further difficulty over that incident.

That’s what it was all about. They said our daughter and her friend were enemies to the State because they wouldn’t sing the second stanza of the “International” in which it says, “We need no God, none.” So they wouldn’t sing that. When things like this came up, we as parents stood up for them, and the authorities accepted it. I always had to speak out in defense of all my children. There was always something with Grit or with Uta. Either we had to respond in writing in the school notebooks, or I had to go to the school and talk with the authorities. But you have to do something. Either you have to go in, or you have to do something else; then you don’t have serious problems.

I’ve been talking a lot because I thought you might like to know how we got along in this country, broadly speaking. I must say I did not experience these forty years as if I were in a prison because I am not that type. I am not a wanderer who is always wishing he were somewhere else. As far as reading material goes, we had access to the basic things. Of course, I often wished I could get my hands on some different literature, and once in a while, I could get something. Sometimes we could have someone send us something, and sometimes it would get through. In recent years, it got a little tighter so that I couldn’t get the books from over there [in the West] that I dreamed about. I wanted those books. That was a real disadvantage.

But I must also say that because of our life in the Church, I never felt restricted, that I couldn’t develop myself. I never had that feeling, that’s the truth. It may have been only my naiveté and maybe the guiding hand of God played a role, but all in all I have always been able to get along with people. Either they have approached me, like the teacher I mentioned, or I have been able to go to them for advice. I have never been forced into a situation where they might have put me in prison or where they really put heavy pressure on me, where I was really frightened. Well, I did mention one episode where I was frightened, but all in all, I have felt comfortable here. Maybe in conclusion I can give you an example of what I mean, a rather typical example.

Recently a doctor came up to me, one I had known for some time who had been a strong socialist. I got into a conversation with him, and he said, “You know, Wolfgang, some of those things we did earlier were not right.” Now he was beginning to see that things were not totally in order. He was beginning to change. Socialism was not so wonderful for him anymore. But I just said, “Well, things aren’t so wonderful now, either, are they? But I was happy back then when the socialist state was everything, and I am happy now.” “Yes,” he said, “that’s what I don’t understand. That gives one something to think about.”

And this will be interesting to you. The temple was dedicated before all the political changes took place, and I took our entire section, including my boss, to the open house. You see, I was in the presidency of the seventies quorum and had to spend a lot of time at the open house for the temple, conducting tours and talking with the people, and so I had to ask for time off from work. We had no idea that so many people would come to the open house. Then some in my department complained that I was getting extra vacation time. That made me so mad. So then they said, “You can have the time off, but you have to get us tickets so that we can see your temple; we all want to go.” No problem! I got tickets for all the doctors. And I got them tickets to see the Lamanite Generation when they came, too.

Then, shortly before the political change [1989–90], we got a new supervisor, and he was very tolerant. I could even put up posters for concerts at the church on our bulletin boards at the hospital. But I must tell you this: the supervisor was a Communist, a member of the Socialist Unity Party. During that time, I was a counselor in the bishopric, and I often had to attend funerals. He always gave me time off, but I always made it up. I could have gotten the time off without making it up, but I didn’t want to owe them anything. I never asked for free time. He was a dedicated Communist, but I could talk freely with him. He was very tolerant.

Well, one day there was a little incident. I told him that I would not be at the May Day Demonstration. I had never missed before, and he was rather upset that I would not be there because that would cause trouble for him. He said, “Mr. Zwirner, I thought for sure I could count on you to be there.” But it was on a Sunday. So, I said, “Look, here’s what I will do. I will come just for your sake. I will come early, before our church service, and I will march for a while, for your sake, because you have been so nice to me and because you have been so tolerant. And I will also march out of gratitude to the State for allowing us to build our temple.” It must have been about the time we were building the temple. “I will come with you, but then I will go to church.” He accepted that. So I marched along for a ways. Otherwise, I would never have done it on a Sunday. He was pleased with that because he had to turn in his report, and he would have had to report that one of his employees was not present at the May Day Demonstration. That would have been unpleasant for him. We understood one another. But now I am going to stop talking and let my wife say something.

Karin: Well, I had these same experiences that my husband has told you about, but to a lesser degree. I was a twin. My sister and I always had a special role at school, and we were always very good at school. We always said that we believed in God, and actually, we never had any problems because of that.

N. Davis: That was in Annaberg?

Karin: Yes, in Annaberg. We were always accepted. As children we were also in the Young Pioneers; I remember that well. I was always so proud of myself. But I was never afraid of saying that I belonged to a church. I have heard others say, however, that they suffered some disadvantages because of their church membership and were always a little anxious. To be honest, I must say I didn’t experience that, not even later when I studied to become a medical assistant at a professional school. I never suffered any disadvantage because of my membership in the Church. On the contrary, I always experienced a certain recognition for my openness about my religion. So I can’t offer you anything dramatic in that direction.

I worked for five years as a radiology technician, and after five years, I was given an administrative position as a radiology assistant, and then I ran into a little trouble. I can’t say it was entirely political; it was just something that came up. At that time, we had these Socialist Collectives. This was a movement where the colleagues from a particular department were supposed to get together in a group and express their political convictions.

G. Davis: Sort of a socialist testimony meeting?

Karin: Yes, something like that. We had to express some sort of political creed. My husband was studying at the time in Berlin, and I was alone with my two children. First it was just Uta, but then Grit came along during my student days. I was doing some course work on the side to become a professional assistant, which would make me eligible for a promotion. I was very busy, and I was very happy with what I was doing. I often had to get someone to fill in for me in my position as the chief radiology technician in order to go to these classes.

As a Mormon, one is always a little outside the regular social circle, so to speak, and there was this obnoxious colleague who had joined our Socialist Collective. As the head of our department, I was also supposed to be the head of the Socialist Collective, the two sort of went together, but I turned down the position as head of the collective. I told them I didn’t want to do it. Well, this colleague began a little witch hunt, and I lost my job.

So, after five years in a government hospital, I went to work in a private hospital, run by the Evangelical Church, as the secretary to the chief physician, and I had a little rest from political affairs.

Then something very paradoxical entered into my life. At first I had a few difficulties with the Evangelical-Lutheran Church because I was the first Mormon there, but it was not serious because everyone knew where I stood. I told everyone that I was a Mormon and that I didn’t smoke or drink, not because of the health benefits, but because of the blessings. But after a while another Mormon came to work in the same department, and she was very pushy with her religion. So the rector, the head of the hospital, issued an edict that there would be no missionarying going on. Somehow out of this it was insinuated that I was a member of the secret police. I, of all people! Then I had real troubles, but here is the paradox. I had left the government hospital and moved over to a private hospital and was so happy that I would have a little rest from political intrigues, and now I was accused of having changed jobs because of political motives. I have to assume that this all came about because of my father-in-law, because the name Zwirner was well known as that of a man who was very politically engaged. I couldn’t think of any other reason why they would suspect me.

I noticed that when new doctors came into the hospital they were at first very friendly, but after a time they became quite withdrawn. I thought, “Something is wrong here.” After they got to know me better, they would tell me they had been warned that I was an informer for the secret police. That was a very unpleasant situation.

I stayed at that hospital for seventeen years, and then, another paradox, my membership in the Church lost me my job. The rector had made it known that Mrs. Zwirner would be the first to go. I was very good at my job; they couldn’t complain there. But when the political change came, I was very sick. It was a very unfortunate time, and as soon as I recovered from my illness, they gave me my notice. I was told that it was because of my membership in the Church, because I was a Mormon.

But, as far as the State was concerned, I never had any difficulties. They didn’t give me any trouble when I was a student. I was always open and honest, and it was never a disadvantage. The Church along with my family has been my life, and because of that I can truly say I have never felt oppressed.

G. Davis: Were there other problems in the Church during these years? Emigration, for example? And I have heard about the problems you had getting teaching materials, and Brother Albrecht in Bautzen told me of an occasion when you had to destroy some of your Church literature.

Wolfgang: Yes, when I was a missionary, there were dates established, and anything we had that had been published during that time had been brought into the country illegally and had to be burned. And I have to confess that I was disobedient. We had a teaching manual that was called Signs of the Times. I tore off the cover and kept it. And I believe I kept some other things. But, yes, we had to destroy everything that had been printed during this time. Those were the government instructions. It was sad. But I didn’t burn everything. Not everything.

Karin: I was right in the middle of this because I had wearily copied these teaching manuals. Brother Burkhardt had provided us with a typewriter, and Doris Menzel and I had to copy the teaching manuals. Oh, that was hard. With carbon paper, six or seven copies, and they were hard to read. But then Brother Burkhardt got some good carbon paper from the West, and they were a little easier to read, but it was still a wearisome work.

Wolfgang: We had instructions during this time that we were not to take any teaching material with us into the classroom. But that wasn’t so bad; it taught us to really prepare. We couldn’t just read out of the manual.

But that is the way the authorities were, the way they worked. And so the Church leaders had to do the best they could, but the politics were so uneven. When they were harsh, we had to burn everything. That’s the way it was then. And there were times, in my opinion, when things loosened up. I remember, for example, when we had to apply for permission to hold a dance, and it had to be reported. And then things were relaxed a little. Church dances were allowed then. And so it went.

Karin: And the most beautiful thing for us was when we could receive the Stern [Church magazine in German]. There was one brother who could receive them and then distribute them. Someone in West Germany paid for all of this, and we got them regularly. That was around 1985, after the temple was built. Around that time.

Wolfgang: But then there was a problem caused by another church. They wanted to smuggle some literature into Poland, this other church, and the material was confiscated and that put a stop to the Stern for a while. That was punishment for all of the churches because they tried to do something illegal, tried to smuggle some illegal literature into Poland. And so for a time there was no Stern. Well, in time it all turned out all right.

G. Davis: What about the problem with emigration?

Karin: Yes, the problem with emigration. Well, I had a personal experience with that; it was in the 1950s at a district conference. I don’t remember which year exactly. Our district president left. And on the Sunday before, he had stood before the congregation and had said, “Brothers and sisters, stay here. Stay where you are; that is where the Lord has put you.” And on Monday, he left with his whole family. That left a lasting impression on me. They were my friends, my same age, and they were here one day and gone the next. I will never forget that. I can still see his face as he stood there at conference. That was the first time in my life that I understood clearly that a man’s word and his actions were not always one and the same thing. That was a big shock in my life.

Wolfgang: But when he said, “Stay here,” that was in quotation marks, you know. He was always a good example to me. He had political problems and had to get out. They were after him. There were cases like that. They had to go. I heard that from another brother. He was really afraid. He had to get out.

But I never wanted to go. I am not a man of action. I am not one who wants to do something adventuresome like that. I am more settled, you see. I just want my peace and quiet, to be able to think and to read.

G. Davis: Is it somewhat of a paradox that I hear from people about hard times and yet hear at the same time how happy they were in the Church?

Wolfgang: Yes, that’s natural. I remember, it must have been 1948 here in Dresden. I was so happy, and yet I know it was the time of our greatest despair, compared with how well off we are now. One can’t really say “well off”; everything is in transition, and there is so much uncertainty. But we have more material things. One has to admit that. If you have work, you live better, or so it seems to me.

But I have to be honest. I didn’t want to leave, either. Once I prayed, once I wished, “Oh, Father in Heaven! Just for once let me be able to buy all the things that the people who have been in the West tell about, all the things they can buy over there. They tell us the stores are full of everything.”

A brother who was permitted to go to the West once told me that he got physically ill when he saw all the tools in a hardware store. He was a craftsman, you see, and the hardware store was full of tools, and he so wanted to just hold some of those tools in his hands. “I got sick and had to sit down,” he told me. And I said, “Father in Heaven, I want to have that experience, just once.” Oh, I wanted that experience. To never have to stand in a line again. Never stand in a line. Always these long lines. Well, not always, but very often, and you had to stand so long.

But now I have to say that in spite of all this I think back on these time with a feeling of joy. I can tell you now, I will never forget those times. I will never look back on my past as a lost time. No, I tell you I will never see them as lost; no, I would never say that. Not at all. I was happy in those days. I was happy.

Karin: In our country, we had problems with the secret police, but we never had any problem personally.

Wolfgang: No, we never had to experience that.

Karin: We suspected things. The way things were, you could never really talk openly anywhere. If you were in a hallway . . .

Wolfgang: You had to be careful telling jokes. You could not tell political jokes.

Karin: Yes, but that was not a problem with me; I don’t tell jokes anyway. But I mean just normal conversation. That was almost never possible. Everyone was watching everyone else in one way or another.

Wolfgang: That was bad. That was really, really bad.

Karin: The Russians applied a little pressure to the whole situation.

Wolfgang: The mental pressure. The lack of freedom.

Karin: But, as he has already told you, we really had nothing to do directly with the secret police.

Wolfgang: But we don’t really know. We don’t know.

Karin: But we didn’t experience anything directly. And after the political change when we heard all the things that had been going on, how they operated and so on, we were really very thankful that we were spared. I mean, many times it may have been very close.

Wolfgang: I believe it was.

Karin: Because we are a little naive. My husband always tells things the way they are, and that was probably also his protection. They were probably saying, “Is he really that dumb, or is he just playing dumb?” They were probably thinking, “He is just playing dumb.”

Wolfgang: I have a clear conscience, you understand. I can honestly say that I have a clear conscience. I have never had anything to hide. I had an acquaintance once who told me (and he named another brother in the Church to whom he told the same thing) that there was nothing negative on my records. He must have had a look at them. I can’t remember how he explained why he came to me. He was not a bad man, on the contrary, often quite pleasant to talk to, but everything was always a little hazy with him. He always told me, “Mr. Zwirner, there is nothing negative on your records.” But one never knew for sure how much danger there was in situations like that. I don’t think he worked for the secret police, not at all. But, on the other hand, maybe he was working for the secret police and was just trying to feel us out.

Karin: Yes. And we never had any trouble with our children at school. We always had our own strategy. Right at the beginning of the year, when they were having new school orientation, we went in with the children so they could get better acquainted with our family. We told them right from the beginning what church we belonged to, and that they shouldn’t make a big fuss when they had an outing on Sunday because our children would not be there. They accepted that, and from then on, they left our children alone. That’s the way we raised them, but, of course, that was not the case with all Mormons in the GDR. Our children always knew where they belonged, and they got along very well with this procedure. From the first grade on, all the other students and all the teachers knew where our children belonged, that they attended church and conducted their life accordingly. That’s the way they were raised. But your behavior has to be in order before you can stand up and say that.

Wolfgang: Let me add that we had the impression that many of the teachers were also Christians. Inwardly, you understand. Inwardly they were good people and inclined toward God. I often had this impression. Many of them as much as told me so, but that they had to make a living. They were not all inhuman or dedicated atheists. They all wanted to survive. And then there were some who were, I must say, noble Communists. I got to know them and can say they were fine people. They really believed in what they were doing. I mean, they believed like Mormons and Catholics believed. And after the political change took place, many of them were mistreated by those who came to power, when everything fell apart.

G. Davis: I have heard a lot about the youth conferences you used to have.

Karin: That was the high point in the Church.

Wolfgang: That’s right. The young people stayed together. They were all under a certain amount of pressure, you understand—some more, some less. Many felt it more than others. This censorship that you had to lay on yourself, at work, everywhere, that was bad. Of course, you had friends who more or less knew that things were OK, friends that you could talk to; but even so, you had to be very careful. That was not good. You could never talk freely. You know what I mean, just speak openly to people. You always had to be a little careful when you talked about the Church or about God. When you were at work, you had to ask yourself, “Can I say this or not?” You had to be wise. You always had to be on the alert, and always being on the alert is no fun.

And that reminds me of something else. We used to baptize in the open, in a lake, but the authorities could never know about it. Later we put in a font in the basement of all the chapels, and then we didn’t have that problem, but we couldn’t hold baptisms in the open anymore. There were several baptismal fonts then, in Chemnitz and in Annaberg, for example. So all the members could go there to be baptized, and we didn’t have that problem anymore.

Then something new came along. A few of the brothers were allowed to travel to Salt Lake City for general conference. I felt that a little personally. A few of the brothers could get out, and we couldn’t. Not that we wanted to emigrate, but we would liked to have traveled, you see. But that wasn’t so bad.

Karin: The fact that we didn’t feel the whole political situation so negatively is probably due in large measure to the fact that we had our satisfaction in the Church. We always had, what should I say, our leadership positions, where we could actually develop ourselves. We could apply our talents; we had some recognition. And I can say that I have had some positions of leadership in my profession. We were also allowed to attend the university.

Wolfgang: My director at the university, a nice man, took me aside one day on the campus and said, “Mr. Zwirner, because of your religious orientation, you will never be given an administrative position.” He said, “You will be put in a subordinate role.” After my schooling, I obtained this position at the medical academy and went right into public work in the information office and in the reading room. Finally I was doing what I liked, but I was never given an administrative position. I had no one under me, so to say. But I had a position where I was dealing with the public. It required a little higher training because I had to classify the books, and that’s what I’m still doing. I have never been given an administrative position by my superior. If one wants to become a leader, then over time you have to work with your superior and be his representative on occasions. I have never done that, but I have never really wanted to. I am very happy with my position.

Now, with the political change, I have the chance to apply for a directorship. I have actually been trained for this. At the university, we were all trained to become library directors, trained for administrative positions. But I knew this was always out of the question for me, and to be honest, I never really desired it. I never felt restricted. I never had any desire for all of the administrative affairs, but maybe, maybe it would have come if things had been different, if the political situation had been different. Maybe then they would have brought me along, and maybe I would have liked it. But now I’m too old for that. I have no desire for it anymore. I’m happy with where I am. I’m fifty-seven years old, eight years from retirement. But it might have been nice. I was actually quite good.

Karin: That’s a different problem.

Wolfgang: Yes, that is a different problem. He couldn’t see into the future. I had good grades. My studies were not bad.

Karin: Not bad! He always got “outstanding.”

Wolfgang: No, not in my studies.

Karin: One area with A and another with “outstanding.” In information, or in technical, I forget . . .

Wolfgang: I did graduate with honors.

Karin: There was a big article about him in the newspaper.

Wolfgang: They did say something about us in the newspaper.

Karin: And they kept it very quiet, the fact that he belonged to the Church.

Wolfgang: No, they wouldn’t write anything about the Church. But they did say something about the diploma. There were others, too, who got outstanding, and they wrote about them.

Karin: He was the show horse for our socialism. Evening school, factory worker, super scholar.

Wolfgang: Evening school. Those were good times. But I have only my wife to thank for that. For evening school and the university. It would never have been possible without my wife. She made a real sacrifice. Eight years. First, three years of evening school and then. . . .

Karin: Forgotten all about it. You’ll have to tell me.

Wolfgang: Yes. Yes. I will be in her debt forever, for all eternity. I can truthfully say that.

Karin: Oh, don’t pay any attention to him.

Wolfgang: Yes, I know.

Karin: But I’m glad to hear that you still remember.