Reunification in Germany and Korea

Today (October 3) is the anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990. Praying for a similar result in Korea, leaders from the United Methodist and Korean Methodist churches recently met in Seoul to discuss their hopes for reunification. 

One of the speakers, retired German bishop Rosemarie Wenner, compared the situation in Korea to the situation in Germany. “History can take unexpected turns,” she said. “Expect miracles, prepare for miracles."

Bishop Wenner is a friendly acquaintance from my last tour in Germany where we attended the same wonderful church in Wiesloch. The article doesn’t carry the bishop’s full remarks, but it would be useful to remember how reunification happened in Germany. There are helpful parallels. 

The allied powers took responsibility for temporary governance of Germany after World War II and Stalin imposed a Soviet-style communist government on its zone of occupation. The Soviet zone evolved into the German Democratic Republic (colloquially known as East Germany) in 1949. East Germany was a member of the Warsaw Pact bloc that remained under the tight control of its Soviet masters.  

East Germany and North Korea shared a number of similar characteristics. Among them were a centrally controlled economy that meagerly provided for its people, extreme restrictions on basic human freedoms, and a single party government that kept people in line through fear and intimidation. The government spied on its own people, monitored their activities, and encouraged citizens to report anti-social behavior by their neighbors. Those who kowtowed to  the government were rewarded with social and economic advancement, while those who opposed government actions were denied opportunities. 

North Korea is several orders of magnitude worse on all these fronts, so it may not be a totally fair comparison. Nevertheless, enough people didn’t like living in a communist dictatorship that they wanted to leave. The East German side of the inner German border existed as much to keep its citizens in as to keep foreign armies out. Tens of thousands dared to attempt the escape. Hundreds died trying. Border guards shot anyone caught attempting to flee. 

In Germany, the situation began to fall apart in May, 1989 when there were protests against the fake elections conducted by the government. The electrified fence between Hungary and Austria came also down in May, allowing some East Germans to escape by that route. The number of anti-government demonstrations in East Germany grew. On November 4, Czechoslovakia opened its border with West Germany. The dam had burst. The communist government of East Germany fell. And on November 9, Germans began tearing down portions of the Berlin Wall. 

Reunification did not occur for another 11 months. After the fall of the communist dictatorship. After people were free to leave the country if they wanted to. 

The Kim regime in North Korea is still shooting people trying to escape, torturing those it catches, and severely punishing escapees returned to North Korea from China. An Iron Curtain still surrounds North Korea. The Pyongyang government bears most of the responsibility for the ongoing division in Korea, and it holds the key to reunification.

Perhaps the miracle to which the bishop alluded in her speech was the miracle of 1989, without which the reunification of 1990 could have never taken place. I can pray for that kind of miracle for North Korea. 

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