Convocation Spotlight: Dr. Mark Jantzen on the Berlin Wall
A summary and highlights from Dr. Jantzen's eyewitness account of the falling of the Berlin Wall.
On Monday, Oct. 21, the Convocation speaker was Dr. Mark Jantzen, a professor of history here at Bethel College. According to the Bethel website, from 1988-91, Dr. Jantzen “studied theology at Humboldt University in East Berlin as part of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) East Europe Study/Service Program.” This placed him in the time and location of the falling of the Berlin Wall.
Every couple of years, students in Convocation get to hear his eyewitness account of the events that took place in Berlin at the time.
While Dr. Jantzen was in East Berlin, the area was run under communist ideology, and a wall and malice separated East and West Berlin.
Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, people attended churches to get information and pray due to a lack of trust in the government. These were the only places many people felt something could be done about the communist rule.
After many days of the churches being packed full of people praying and hoping for a change, on November 9th, 1989, the public pressure forced the government of East Berlin to open passages to West Berlin. Thousands of people started flooding from East Berlin across the Wall.
Populations that were once separated by a wall and fear of death could finally be together again. It seemed as though these individuals were slowly being seen as people, not just someone to be controlled. This was the first step taken to remove communism from Germany, making it a beacon of hope for citizens.
When speaking at Convocation, Dr. Jantzen made several points clear. The first of these was the importance of the human connection felt after reunification.
His second point was that people say the Berlin Wall was brought down due to military power. He experienced it a little bit differently and believed the following to be a message worth spreading:
Through the power of peaceful unification, people in the area took a non-violent approach and were able to finally reach their loved ones not through firepower, but through persistent faith and community.