26 The Gospel and the Government

Erich Dzierzon and his wife live in Freiberg. We interviewed Erich at the home of his daughter, Gisela. She and her husband, Manfred Heller, live in Freital, a small town outside Dresden. Both the Heller family and the Dzierzon family have a long history of service in the Church. They feel great joy that one of the first young men permitted to leave the country to serve a mission was Brother Dzierzon’s grandson. Among many other responsibilities, Manfred Heller served as bishop of the Dresden Ward at the time the first missionaries returned to Dresden. At the same time, he was director of the Church district office in Dresden. He now works in the geneaological offices at the temple in Freiberg.

Erich: I was born in Grossschirma near Freiberg in Saxony. My grandmother was taught by missionaries from America. She was converted and accepted the gospel, so I was born into the Church. I was baptized in Freiberg when I was eight years old. Freiberg was our branch, and we had to walk or ride our bicycles seven kilometers each Sunday to attend church. I spent my childhood in the Church and learned a profession. Then came the war. I served in the German army for seven war years, in Poland, in France, and in Russia, and came home without a scratch, which was a miracle.

During the war, I became acquainted with my wife through some relatives, and I was able to bring her into the Church. It was a case of love at first sight, and I told her that if we were going to be together then it would be best if we had one religion. She had been raised in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church and accepted the gospel as soon as I told her about it. We were married during the war, and our daughter Gisela was born during the war. All the other children were born after the war.

During the war, I had neglected my church duties, and now that the war was over I had to repent and make up for what I had lost. What callings did I have? I have been everything except president of the Relief Society. I guess I have spent more time in the Sunday School than in any other auxiliary. Over the years, I have been the Sunday School president several times. I was also the leader of the MIA and conducted many evenings of entertainment. I guess that comes from my personality. I have a humorous nature, and we had many fun evenings. I was in the district leadership of the elders quorum, and then I was in the branch presidency. As I said, I have been in every organization but the Relief Society. It was a wonderful time. We have six children, and they have all been raised in the Church and are all active members.

Jumping ahead, after the war was over and we had this so-called communist regime, we tried to do our duty with joy, and I had many interesting experiences. I would like to say that during these times when we were so hemmed in, restricted in our activities, the members of the Church really stuck together—not only our members but the other citizens of the country as well. The entire population followed the principle that in trial the people must stick together. We had this togetherness.

There were many problems in this country. We, ourselves, started with a typewriter store that soon developed into a printing shop. Everything that we printed had to be approved, and this was a very exhausting experience because the state authorities were always afraid that we might print something directed against the regime. We never did. We tried to conduct our lives according to the principles of the Church. My experience was always this, and this was reflected in the lives of many other members: if you conduct your life according to the principles of the Church, you will not be in conflict with the regulations of the State. We tried to do our duty in the Church.

The brethren who were involved in the various businesses kept the Word of Wisdom. I have heard directly from many communist bosses that our brothers and sisters who lived the gospel earned a great deal of respect. I’ll give you one example. At the dedication of the temple in Freiberg in 1985, the press held an interview with President Hinckley and with the state minister for ecclesiastical affairs. We did not see the interview on television here because of the fortunate circumstance that immediately after the dedication of the temple we traveled to Salt Lake City to visit our children there. But they had all made a recording of this interview, and it was interesting for me to be in America and hear the state minister for ecclesiastical affairs in the GDR say to President Hinckley, “We know your five thousand members in our GDR to be reliable and conscientious citizens.” That was quite moving for me. It taught me that we had been watched and that it was beneficial for the Church when the members tried to live according to the principles of the gospel. That was a testimony to me.

Perhaps I could say a few words about the present state of affairs, if you would like.

G. Davis: Yes, please do.

Erich: Following the reunification [of the two Germanys] which we have just gone through, it became clear that in the past, forty or fifty years ago, things were much worse. My grandparents told me some stories of how things were. If they were having a little Bible study group, they would always put out coffee cups. If the police came, they could hide the bibles and say they were just getting together for a little coffee because it was forbidden to meet together to study the Bible. I remember those stories from my own grandmother and from my mother.

But then, to our joy, things began to stabilize somewhat. There were no difficulties when I was a student or with my colleagues at work. No one picked on us anymore. I can remember when I was a child people pointing fingers at us because we were going to church. But over the course of the years everything changed, even the Communists. People began to recognize that the Dzierzons, even though they went to church, were good and reliable people. And it was the same for the other members who attended church. That has been my experience anyway and my testimony. And it made me think when I heard our state secretary Gysi tell President Hinckley how important it is for people to transform their religious beliefs into actions wherever they live and whether there are difficulties or not.

G. Davis: When were you first able to go to the temple?

Erich: I would like to say something about this, because those who have not lived under the kind of regime we have lived under will not be able to understand without some explanation. After it was announced that the regime had given the Church permission to build chapels and to build a temple, the Church became known to many, many visitors at the open houses. That was for us a new period of self dignity, and we began to recognize that the Lord’s Church could truly be expanded here, that it would be recognized by many, many thousands of people.

It was exactly as had been spoken by President Monson when he dedicated this country. He prayed that the people of this country would become curious about the Church and that this curiosity would develop into an interest for many people. That is exactly what we have experienced. During the time of the Communists, the people became curious, they came to Freiberg to see what was going on, to see the temple and the new chapel, and their curiosity turned into an interest. We had many baptisms in the late eighties, 1986 to 1989, just in Freiberg. To experience these things moved us very much because without this curiosity we would never have experienced these things during the communist period.

G. Davis: That is very interesting. I have heard it said that the Church ought not to have made these agreements with the communist government in 1988, that the Church had thereby lost its independence, so to speak. But I gather that you would not agree, that you see only advantages for the Church in the agreements, which made it possible to have missionaries come into the country again and have young people here go on missions outside the country.

Erich: I know that the head of state, Erich Honecker, at the time he met with President Monson, Brother Burkhardt, and others, spoke the words, “We have observed you for twenty years. Your application is approved.” From that day on, missionaries were able to come here, and our young people, if they had completed their military service, were permitted to go on missions to other countries. We saw that as a miracle, and I must say that this contact with the government officials was a good thing in and of itself, and a positive thing for the development of the Church. That was important.

The people here recognized that the communist government was cooperating with the Mormons, and this gave our members a feeling of confidence. They recognized that our Father in Heaven was directing these events and that they would enjoy much more security in fulfilling their duties and obligations in the Church. The relationship was good. We were no longer isolated. We had lived according to the principles of our belief and had honored and taught the basic principles of the Church. We never compromised or changed these principles, so far as I know, and the State accepted us.

It may be important to understand that in a communist regime, the regime thinks of itself first. And they knew that a brother in the Church who worked in a company or firm was reliable, that he would neither smoke nor drink, that he would not loaf on the job or show up for work drunk, because the Mormons do not do these things. Mormons have their own principles. The State recognized this even though they were of a different political opinion. We were not restricted, and those who applied the principles of the Church in their own personal lives were recognized.

This was true of other Christian friends with whom we worked politically. I am thinking in particular of the Christian Democratic Union, the CDU Party. I was active in this party myself because there all Christians worked together for the political good and we were not restricted.

G. Davis: Perhaps Manfred and Gisela will tell us something of their family and how they came into the Church.

Manfred: Well, I was a war child. I was born March 21, 1942, right in the middle of the war. My father had been in the war since 1939 and finally returned home from a POW camp in 1948. During these difficult war years and then in the very difficult years right after the war, I was alone with my mother or she with me. My mother had been a member of the Church since 1924. At that time, there was a small group of members of the Church in Freital, near Dresden, maybe fifteen or twenty people. They had been baptized by a missionary by the name of Erich Berndt, who was the father of Elder Dieter Berndt from Berlin, who later became our Regional Representative. I have my first memories of the Church from when I was four, five, and six years old, in the years 1946–47.

My mother had lost all contact with the Church, but the visiting teachers of the Dresden Branch Relief Society had rummaged about and found her address. They came out here to Freital after the war to visit her, and that’s how we came back into contact with the Church. There was no longer a group in Freital, and any members here belonged to the Dresden Branch. So my mother was visited by the members from the Dresden Branch and, of course, I took part in these visits also.

As a five- or six-year-old lad, I would put on my rucksack on Saturday evening and march from Freital-Poisental over to Freital-Zauckerode where I would spend the night with my mother’s step-mother, Sister Grosche, and then I would go to church with her the next morning. We had very little to eat in those days. We used to eat thistle soup and beet greens, and I was so excited to find out that Sister Grosche had cracked wheat and apricots. This was part of the welfare plan in action that helped the members so much here in East Germany.

I can still remember events from my life in the Dresden Branch. I used to go to Primary in the middle of the week. That meant a long ride on the streetcar with several changes, all the way out to the branch house on Dr.-Kurt-Fischer Allee. That was like a trip around the world for me. That is where I learned about the principles of the gospel and learned to love the gospel. On August 12, 1950, I was baptized in the Briesnitz Lake out on the Dresden Heide [heath or moor]. At that time, we did not have a baptismal font in the branch house, so we held all of our baptisms in the open. It was a beautiful day; I remember it well. There was a whole group of young people my age who were baptized at the same time.

In the following years, most of them went over to the West, to West Germany or to America or to Canada. Only a few of them stayed here in the country to help build up the Church and make it strong so that the conditions could be such that the Church could continue to develop and realize the blessings we enjoy today. I must say that all of these blessings—the temple, the missionaries, the entire development of the Church—have come about because of the faithfulness, the strength, and the willingness of the members in this country to sacrifice. Those were the conditions. Without these things, none of this would have been possible. And those were beautiful times.

Once a week, we had MIA for the entire branch including the Primary children, and once a week, we had priesthood meeting and Relief Society for the older brothers and sisters. Sunday morning and Sunday evening we had regular church meetings.

Of course, that was a big financial sacrifice for us as a family, as well as a sacrifice of time, because we had to add a few hours just to travel to and from the branch house. We started out early Sunday morning. Church was out at noon. We came home, had a bite to eat and rested for a few minutes and then started out for the branch house again to get there by six. We got home again about nine o’clock. That means that the entire Sunday was taken up by church meetings. No one in those days had a car, so all of our traveling had to be by public transportation. The members in those days were very, very active. Everything they did was for the Church. We put on plays and had many other activities. Here in Dresden we put on some wonderful plays and had so much fun.

I was eventually ordained a deacon, then a teacher, then a priest, and then I had to get my military service out of the way—two years, 1960 to 1962. This was right at the time of the Cuban crisis and when the Berlin Wall was built. But I must say that I never experienced any difficulty because of my membership in the Church. When you follow the path of the gospel consistently, when you try to live according to the principles of the gospel, you will be accepted by others because they recognize that your word means something. They understand that when you say yes, it means yes, and when you say no, it means no.

We married in 1963, my wife Gisela and I. She is a Dzierzon, and we knew each other for many years here in Freiberg. We have had six children, each one prettier than the other.

Our testimony of the gospel and the Church is that when one obeys the commandments and the laws of the Lord then one will be blessed abundantly. We have always tried to pay an honest tithing, and the Lord has always helped us. We have been able to get along even though there were times when it appeared that we had come to the end, financially and otherwise. Trying to raise six children in the former GDR did not allow much leeway. But our Father in Heaven always blessed us so that we got clothing from here and other things from there and never had to suffer actual hunger or deprivation. The Lord was always there to help. It is also our testimony that the Lord does not hold back. He always keeps his part of the covenant and blesses those who try to serve him with all their heart.

I was called to be the first counselor in the branch presidency when I was relatively young: that was in 1967; I was twenty-four years old. The branch president at the time was Wilhelm Schlüter. In 1977, Brother Schlüter died, and I was then called to be the branch president, from 1977 until 1982. Then when the Freiberg Stake was formed, I served on the high council until 1986, when I was called to be the bishop of the Dresden Ward, where I served for four years. During this time, we built and moved into the new chapel on Tiergarten Street.

Manfred Heller in the district office, Dresden chapel. At this time, Brother Heller shouldered much of the responsibility for the Church’s day-to-day operations behind the iron curtain in addition to his duties as bishop of the Dresden Ward.

I remember the years we were in the old branch house on Dr.-Kurt-Fischer Allee very well. Many beautiful experiences bind us to that building. Practically all of the larger events held in the Dresden mission were held there because there was no other place to hold them, no space large enough. That’s where we held all of the youth conferences, all of the mission conferences, all of our genealogy weeks, and everyone who participated in these events will remember them with great fondness. And through certain connections, ways were always found to provide food on these occasions; ways were found that were not possible for normal mortals, unless they got them under the table. Connections were found.

There was Sister Kaden, who worked in a butcher shop, and she could always get meat for us one way or another. Brother Burkhardt and Brother Schulze were always able to get fruit from the small grocers, from Mr. Schmalz, for example, who as a greengrocer had things that were really hard to come by.

We youngsters sat up in the balcony in the old branch house and could look down on everything. Of course, we were into a lot of mischief such as sailing paper airplanes off the balcony and nonsense like that. But I would like to say—and this is something that we have always taught our children again and again and something that we as a family or as parents advise over and over—that we should gratefully participate in all of the activities of the Church. We should not hold back, but we should join in with all of these activities where the youth of the Church or where all of the members get together. It is by this coming together that we strengthen our testimony, that we remain firm in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is such a great blessing to us that our three older children, who are now married and have their own children and families, are firm in the Church and in the gospel. I hope that our other three children, who are still at home, will follow the same path.

I was speaking about the meetings we had in the old chapel, the missionary conferences and such. I believe someone counted that twenty-seven General Authorities have spoken in that old branch house or in Dresden.

It began with a visit from President Heber J. Grant, who visited Dresden in 1932, and continued until the visit of the Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, who was in Dresden, in 1977, I believe. Then there were other Apostles and members of the Seventy and the Presiding Bishopric. These conferences were always the high point in our lives and gave us strength to carry on.

G. Davis: I gather you didn’t feel yourselves isolated from the Church in Salt Lake City?

Manfred: What does it mean to feel isolated? We had everything we needed. We had the standard works of the Church, we had the basic principles, and there were always possibilities for visitors. Everything else was taken care of in the GDR by President Burkhardt himself. He was the person who had the complete confidence of the General Authorities and the First Presidency of the Church. He was one of the few who was permitted to travel to the general conferences; he had received this permission from the government. Later this permission was extended to his counselors in the mission presidency and then later even to the district presidency.

Also, the leaders of the Church were always watching for opportunities to make contact with us. An important possibility for contact was, for example, the Leipzig Fair, which was held twice each year, in the spring and in the fall. Foreigners were permitted to enter the GDR to attend the fair without going through too much red tape. So at the time of the fair, a conference was always held in the old Leipzig branch house, and there were often General Authorities present who then instructed us.

In addition, President Burkhardt received information and instructions that were necessary for us from the First Presidency when he attended general conference. And, of course, there were always written instructions, which were then passed on to the individual branches through the regular priesthood lines. I mean, we didn’t have direct contact with the leadership of the Church here all the time, but as far as the basic principles of the gospel were concerned, we had what we needed to progress in the gospel.

G. Davis: Perhaps in that sense, neither do we have “direct contact” with the leadership of the Church.

Manfred: Yes, that was assumed. But I mean also that we had no Church literature except for the standard works. The older members had some books they had had from before the war—Principles of the Gospel or The Articles of Faith or something on the programs of the Church. Those things were still here. Several had a copy of The History of the Church, and some of the members had old copies of the Stern, and these were also available in some of the branch libraries. As far as teaching manuals go, that was a big problem. These had to be smuggled into the GDR by someone who came over to visit or by someone who through some circumstance or other was allowed to go out. In some cases some things could even get through the mail. Then the sisters had the wearisome task of producing fifty or sixty copies on the typewriter, eight carbon copies at a time. These were then distributed to the individual members or to the branches.

Erich: Printing was officially forbidden.

Manfred: Yes, printing was forbidden. Everything was forbidden: all written material that had anything to do with an idealogy, that could influence the people’s thinking, anything that the State found unpleasant, that did not support their materialistic philosophy of life. That was hard. We had to be very, very careful. We had to find ways. Nothing could be printed, but we could write with our hands, couldn’t we? That’s the way it was with all of our Church literature.

And the tithing that the members in the GDR paid had to be collected by the mission office, which later became the regional office, and kept here. It could not be sent out of the country. It could not be exchanged for foreign currency, so the business of the Church in the GDR was carried on with our own tithing. Part of the money was kept in a bank, and part of it was distributed for the maintenance of the branch houses.

That was extremely difficult in the GDR because all building material was controlled—every brick, every sack of cement, every board had to be allocated. You could not go to a lumber store and buy what you want as you can now. You had to have permission to buy anything. You couldn’t just go out and build something; you had to have permission to build [Baugenehmigung]. In spite of everything, the members tried to keep the buildings up as best they could, sometimes at their own personal expense. Brother Krause from Prenzlau was our great leader in this area. He knew all the building skills, and he traveled from branch to branch, building, remodeling, expanding wherever it was possible.

G. Davis: You could buy material as a private person, but not as a church?

Manfred: Yes, as a private person, but in small quantities.

Gisela: In very small quantities. For example, we might have to have several members apply for one sack of cement each.

Manfred: The branches were kept in pretty good condition, at least the interiors. The exterior was often pretty shabby because they were for the most part rented facilities. The Church did not own any property, and the State was not interested in keeping up our buildings. If we had not done it ourselves, nothing would have been done. So we paid particular attention to the interiors of our buildings so that the members would feel comfortable.

Well, that’s the way things were. In this area, we tried to live according to the principles of the gospel, and I believe the older members look back on these times with fondness. I work now in the Genealogical Department of the temple in Freiberg, and we placed in the archives there many of the records from the old regional office. When you look through these records of the branches from the 1950s, say, or a little earlier or later, it is very interesting to see what sacrifices the members of the Church made in those days.

There is a story, for example, of a member who had to ride his motorcycle from Annaberg in the Erz Mountains to Blauental in the winter when it was ten degrees below zero, and he was so frozen they had to help him off his motorcycle. When you read these stories about the branches up in the Erz Mountains, or from anywhere, they illustrate what strong testimonies these members had in those days. Those brothers and sisters were the real leaders of the Church here in the GDR.

G. Davis: Do you know of other examples of the difficulties the members of the Church had to overcome?

Manfred: Well, things began changing a lot in the eighties, but earlier, before they could hold any church meeting or have any activity, it had to be reported to the police.

Gisela: At first that had to be reported each week. Then later they said that it could be reported monthly.

Manfred: Strictly speaking, only ecclesiastical meetings could be held in a church building, that is, religious meetings or worship services. Social activities like dances and other entertainments did not come under approved church activities and were not allowed.

Gisela: But you made special application.

Manfred: These activities were carried out more or less illegally, or we would just say “Church activity,” even though it would be a social activity. But we always proceeded with the assumption that every activity of the Church has a spiritual or a religious component and we could represent these activities as such.

G. Davis: So that included dramas as well as dances?

Manfred: Yes, yes. Dramas and such could not officially be held in a church building. That was the social domain of the Young Pioneers and the Free German Youth. Such things did not belong in a church.

G. Davis: But when you had a dance . . .

Manfred: Then the doors were locked, you see.

G. Davis: So that was a religious meeting.

Manfred: That was, yes, that was a religious meeting.

Gisela: The members knew that if they came too late it might be too bad. The doors had to be locked.

Manfred: I’ve told you about some of the difficulties we had getting permission to import Church literature. A good example is how long it took us to get two thousand songbooks. President Burkhardt had to make four applications, and one of the applications went all the way up to Walter Ulbricht, the head of state. Can you imagine? The head of state has to concern himself with whether or not a church can have two thousand songbooks! There was a lot of back and forth that lasted for over a year before we received permission to have the books.

I suppose the difficulties and problems are what strengthen one’s faith. When everything comes smoothly and easily, our testimony does not grow. If an organization or a religion does not demand sacrifice, that religion will not be successful. That has been proven here time and again.

But I should also say that I do not like to designate those times for us as a time of sacrifice. I think of them now as beautiful times, which only goes to show that one forgets the bad and the unpleasant times and remembers only the beautiful. Isn’t that always the case?

When we held a youth camp up on the Baltic or on Schwerin Lake, all the young people from the entire region were there. But it was not possible to reserve an area for a large group, so each individual had to make application to put his or her tent in the same area, and that way we could have a youth camp.

Gisela: The Church owned the tents, but each individual had to apply for permission to go camping and to bring his or her tent permission form along [Zeltgenehmigung]. But the Church set up the tents, and then we had our camp. It was all set up when we arrived. But it was so much fun to be together; it was always very, very lovely. We had so much fun. We played games. One time someone almost drowned; that was sad. But, that’s the way it was.

Manfred: As I said, the district conferences, the activities in the branches and in the districts—these things really held us together, and I can only see these times in a very positive light. I would not like to even suggest that I regretted any of it.

Gisela: No, not at all. On the contrary. We stuck together.

Manfred: Of course, we didn’t have a chance to go to the temple until the temple in Freiberg was built and dedicated in 1985. That blessing was for only a very few who had the possibility to travel to West Germany, people who were retired. There were a few exceptional cases where someone got into Switzerland to receive his or her endowments, but those were very, very few. I mean, of course that is a terrible restriction.

But we know that our Father in Heaven is a just God, and our Church leaders told us that whoever keeps the commandments of the Lord and is worthy to go to the temple and is not permitted to go through no fault of his or her own, that person will be accepted by the Lord. I mean, we couldn’t go, but those who died and couldn’t experience the temple during their lifetime can still receive these blessings through our doing this work for them. It will not be counted against them. That was the only really serious problem—that we couldn’t have the temple and that we were not free to travel where we wanted.

Gisela: We were not free to preach the gospel.

Manfred: Yes, that is part of the story. Until the Wall was built in 1961, we had our own missionaries here in the GDR. There are a large number of brothers and sisters in the branches who served missions, who went tracting door to door, and who held the branches together by serving as branch presidents and priesthood leaders during those times.

Gisela: Sister Ortlieb, Brother Ortlieb, Brother Zwirner, and Bishop Schulze were missionaries. Our stake president, President Frank Apel, was the last missionary permitted to serve in the GDR.

Manfred: There were certainly some who took advantage of the opportunity. But I mean that was also certainly a sacrifice because it wasn’t like it is now, go away for two years and then come back to your old profession. They were more or less held up to ridicule in public. The education system in the country was totally communistic so that there were frequent conflicts of conscience between those who were trained, so to speak, in the school system and those who were trained in the Church. On the other hand, the Church was always oriented toward obedience to the laws of the land—those who obey the laws of God will have no reason to disobey the laws of the land. That was always a basic principle of the Church to which we clung.

Take for example the events of 1988, when President Monson and the priesthood leaders met with Erich Honecker. One has to have faith in the leaders of the Church, faith that they are acting under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord and that they have made the right decisions. After all is said and done, the attacks of the devil are always turned to an advantage to promote the work of the Lord.

The Communists did not make these concessions out of pure humanitarian love and just for the sake of the Mormons. They were looking to their own advantages, financial advantages, for example. They knew that the Church would be building new buildings and that thereby Western currency would be coming into the country because all of the buildings would be paid for in hard currency. And they could also show that they were open to others and were trying to ease tensions according to the Helsinki agreements that were made, when was it, 1975, I believe. You have to see all of these things in context.

My belief is that we should see the entire history of the world in harmony with the history of the house of Israel and the development of the Church. Consequently, you can understand these things only in their context. You can’t separate one event from another.

It was by means of this very intelligent Church leadership, working under the influence of the Spirit of God, that made it possible for us to have missionaries in our country again, for us to have a temple, for us to enjoy an easing of tensions so that we could import printed material, Church magazines, teaching manuals, etc. All of this has come about under this influence. And a mission has been opened, and we can have a patriarch. The first patriarch appeared suddenly overnight. Do you remember that?

Gisela: That was a real shock for us.

Manfred: That was the father of president Hans B. Ringger, Karl Ringger. He was the patriarch for Switzerland, and he got permission to come in for some occasion, probably a mission conference—it couldn’t have been anything else. But suddenly, there he was, and the word went out that a few members of the branches now had the possibility of receiving their patriarchal blessing. Suddenly. Overnight.

Gisela: We were really surprised.

Manfred: Yes, of course. We were totally unprepared for such a thing. We didn’t know how to go about it because we had never had such a thing before. It was such a surprise that here, in this country, we suddenly had the possibility of having this blessing. Later on, Brother Fetzer was called to be the patriarch for the Dresden mission, and he served until the stakes were organized. Then we had our own stake patriarchs.

I remember as a boy, as a twelve-year-old deacon, I gave my first talk in Semmelsberg. Semmelsberg is near Meissen, maybe thirty or thirty-five kilometers from Dresden. There was a little group there who were supported by members from the Dresden Branch, and every Sunday elders and sisters went out to visit them. We had to travel by public transportation. I went from Freital to Semmelsberg on a narrow-gauge railroad. It’s gone now. It was torn up twenty years ago. Anyway, we met in the house of Brother and Sister Rudolf. We had our sacrament meetings in their house. We passed the sacrament and preached our sermons, did everything that belongs to a Church service, but all right in their living room.

G. Davis: And you gave your first talk there. What did you talk about?

Manfred: I don’t remember anymore. I would have to look and see what’s in the archives. But I’m sure it was something from the New Testament, some parable or event from the life of Christ.

G. Davis: You were bishop of the Dresden Ward when the first foreign missionaries arrived. What was that like?

Manfred: Yes, I was bishop at the time. On the day they arrived, we were having a wedding celebration at the chapel for our daughter Dörte. They immediately began with their new missionary methods that were totally foreign to us. They had such enthusiasm and, I must say, much more courage than we. They were so aggressive. They spoke to everyone without the slightest hesitation.

I mean, it was not that way with us here in the GDR. You couldn’t just go up and speak to anyone; there were ears everywhere. You could never know when you were speaking to your neighbor whether or not he worked for the secret police. We were always very cautious; we talked around every subject and spoke only to very close friends and then behind closed doors.

But the missionaries who came in knew nothing about our habits. They were totally unburdened and talked with anyone and everyone, and I must say they had immediate success. Of course, that was the right time, when people were approachable about new things, when they were seeking, when they were curious to hear some new thing, a different ideology, a different religion, such things. That’s one reason why they were so successful and got so many people to listen to them.

Gisela: And also one reason why so many of them no longer come.

Manfred: Yes, that’s true, but you must admit, there are some who are still active.

Gisela: A very small percentage of them.

Manfred: Anyway, that was a totally new experience for us, the new missionaries.