Martin Luther King in East Berlin, 1964
by Roland Stolte
When the Governing Mayor of Berlin and future German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, visited the United States at the beginning of 1961, he had a meeting with President Kennedy at the White House, followed by a gathering with the "Americans for Democratic Action." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech at this event—an opportunity that Brandt used to invite King to Berlin.
Three and a half years later, in September 1964, King accepted this invitation and visited the divided city. On September 12, a Saturday, he landed at Tempelhof Airport in the western part of Berlin. His one-and-a-half-day stay was marked by a series of official engagements and honors: a press conference, a reception with Governing Mayor Willy Brandt, an entry in the Golden Book of the City of Berlin, the opening of the Berlin Festival Weeks with a commemorative speech for President John F. Kennedy—who had been assassinated in November 1963—a speech to 20,000 West Berlin Christians at the "Day of the Church," and the awarding of an honorary doctorate by the Theological Seminary.
"He was invited, essentially, for all these events"—but the truly remarkable moments happened elsewhere. Perhaps the word "essentially" encapsulates the official program best, characterizing the visit succinctly: "He was invited, essentially, for speeches and honors, but the most important events took place elsewhere."
This is not an interpretation from the distance of 45 years but rather the impression expressed by Dieter Hildebrandt, an editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, just two days after King’s departure. The article was widely appreciated, especially in church circles, where it was recommended and reprinted. The validity of this perspective was further confirmed by numerous eyewitness accounts.
But what happened beyond the official program?
On the morning of September 13, a shooting occurred at the Berlin Wall: A 21-year-old Berliner attempted to flee to West Berlin. He was struck by five bullets and severely wounded, but an American sergeant managed to rescue him by pulling him over the Wall with a rope. Later that morning, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited the Berlin Wall—this "symbol of the separation of people on this earth," as he described it a few hours later, which had so brutally revealed its consequences that day.
Sunday evening also unfolded outside the official itinerary: Without a public invitation from the church and without an official invitation from the East German state, King traveled to East Berlin to hold a church service at St. Mary's Church (Marienkirche) at Alexanderplatz—the only time he ever crossed behind the "Iron Curtain." Almost, he was denied entry: He had no passport with him. It was only when a border guard happened to recognize him that he was allowed to pass through Checkpoint Charlie.
By 7 p.m.—an hour before the service was scheduled to begin—St. Mary's Church had to be closed, as it was completely packed with 1,500 attendees. The many people left standing outside eventually moved to the nearby Sophienkirche, where they waited, forming what an eyewitness described as a "demonstration-like procession." Later that evening, King repeated his sermon there.
For the East Berlin Christians, who had learned about King’s sermon through word of mouth, those hours were an unforgettable experience. To them, his visit was a source of comfort and encouragement in difficult times. Without knowing the specific struggles of the other—King explicitly declined to offer advice on Berlin's situation—there was nonetheless a profound sense of solidarity and unity among those who had suffered.
To fully understand the emotions and statements of those involved at the time, one must examine the broader context of the visit and the situation of the church in East Germany. I have identified several key aspects, which I refer to as "peculiarities":
1st Peculiarity: The host was not allowed to greet his guest.
Historical records show that it was Heinrich Grüber, provost of St. Mary's Church, who first suggested and extended the invitation for King’s sermon in East Berlin. Grüber had been in written correspondence with King since 1963 and closely followed the activities of the American civil rights movement. His first letter to King contains a passage worth quoting, as it also serves as his self-introduction:
"Out of the bond of the same faith and the same hope, I write to you because I know that your experiences are the same as ours. Let me briefly introduce myself. When Hitler enacted the so-called racial laws, I joined many pastors of the Confessing Church in opposing them, and I established an office—named after me—to help all those who were persecuted and oppressed. Because of this, Eichmann sent me to a concentration camp in 1940—first to Sachsenhausen, then to Dachau. I was later the only German and Christian witness in the trial against Eichmann. This made me known in America, and I received many invitations. I happened to be in the U.S. when the troubles in Mississippi began. On a turbulent Sunday, I preached in a church in Chicago to my Black brothers and sisters about Jesus’ words: ‘That they all may be one.’ During the Hitler era, I often felt ashamed to be German, and even today, I feel ashamed to be white. … When I suffered a severe heart attack in Dachau and was thought to be among the dead, I later read a scripture passage that was the daily watchword: It was the verse from Genesis 41:52: ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.’ We can and must grow, even in the land of affliction. In this certainty, many Christians in Europe—and especially those in Germany who fought against Hitler’s racial madness—stand with you in prayerful solidarity.”
Grüber repeatedly extended invitations to Dr. King to visit Berlin and was the one who suggested the church service at "his" St. Mary's Church.
But Grüber was only nominally the provost of St. Mary’s. Because of his critical stance toward the East German state, he had been denied entry into East Berlin since the end of August 1961—along with other clergy such as Bishop Dibelius and future Bishop Kurt Scharf. Even visiting his own son in East Berlin was prohibited. Thus, Grüber was able to arrange King’s visit to his home church, but he was not allowed to attend himself.
2nd Peculiarity: Though King preached the same sermon in St. Mary’s as at the West Berlin "Day of the Church," the impact on the audience was vastly different.
At St. Mary's Church, the sermon on the liberation of the oppressed, on the faith that "turns a stone of hope from the mountain of despair," took on "a different hue, a greater urgency that captivated the audience" – as Dieter Hildebrandt from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described it. The greater urgency arose from the plight of the congregation, because what was said in the first point needs to be intensified: not only did Propst Grüber not have permission to greet King, there was no pastor from the Marien congregation present who could have been the host: one pastor, Martin Helmer, had fled in 1963, and the other, Werner Arnold, had been arrested and imprisoned in 1963. The senior cleric for all of East Berlin, General Superintendent Gerhard Schmitt, therefore had to step in and welcome the prominent guest. Schmitt himself had only been appointed recently after his predecessor, also in 1963, had died of a heart attack following a bitter dispute with DDR state authorities, who sought to enforce a ban on church youth retreats.
Pastor Werner Arnold, the actual pastor of St. Mary's, who claimed he was not a political dissident but an unflinching critic of the Berlin Wall, had – overwhelmed by the distress of people seeking help – with the support of the Swedish and American embassy pastors, who held diplomatic passports and were therefore allowed to cross the border uncontrollably, helped around 30 people to escape to West Berlin in the trunks of diplomatic vehicles. Additionally, St. Mary's Church served as a 'transshipment point' for goods smuggled from West Berlin, such as medicines for the Berlin Charité or money for church congregations in the DDR. Betrayed by a secretary at the American embassy, Werner Arnold was arrested in the autumn of 1963, and after tough negotiations, he was ransomed in July 1964 and brought to the Federal Republic of Germany with both sides agreeing to maintain confidentiality.
By September 1964, uncertainty and concern were still high in the Marien congregation – and it remained that way: even a year later, the elected successor was denied a permit to move from the surrounding area to East Berlin, so the situation at St. Mary's Church remained precarious for years.
3rd Peculiarity: The official state side of the GDR paid almost no attention to Martin Luther King's visit.
It is striking that there is no indication of any official participation in King’s visit by the state authorities. In the GDR press, only a few brief reports appeared several days after the visit had ended. This is all the more noticeable because, in a curious temporal parallel to Heinrich Grüber’s outreach, in 1963 there was also a correspondence between the chairman of the GDR CDU, Gerald Götting, and King, in which Götting expressed his sympathy: “It is of particular importance to me, in these pre-Christmas days [1963], to assure you and your fellow countrymen of the solidarity from the people of my country, the German Democratic Republic. Recently, for example, an elderly pensioner contacted me, asking for your address. She wished to make toys, such as dolls, for the children of those oppressed by racial terror, to bring them joy and to show her solidarity. I hope this small example can demonstrate to you, dear Dr. King, the solidarity of our people.”
Although Grüber’s and Götting’s letters to Dr. King were written independently of each other, the reception of Martin Luther King's actions and teachings also took place independently. In the case of King's visit to Berlin, it seems that the state institutions of the GDR, especially the CDU, were simply unaware of the sermon at St. Mary's Church, and the services at St. Mary's and Sophien Church, as well as King’s subsequent meeting with representatives of the Church leadership of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg at the hospice near Friedrichstraße station, became a signal that the church in the GDR could preempt complete state control – in the interest of proclaiming the free word. It has rightly been asserted that the church's reception of King’s concept of nonviolent resistance to any injustice contributed to the peaceful character of the 1989 upheaval, but it still requires further investigation.
However, the signs could also be reversed, as shown seven years later when, without the involvement of the congregation, Ralph Abernathy visited East Berlin at the invitation of the Peace Council of the GDR, was received at the city hall, signed the city's Golden Book, visited Humboldt University – and at his request, held a service at St. Mary's Church. The pastor of St. Mary's Church at the time told me that he had never again seen such a mass of blue shirts from the state youth organization FDJ in the church. But here too, a detailed examination of the state’s handling of Martin Luther King’s legacy, ranging from genuine sympathy to ideological exploitation, is still pending.
But let us return to King’s 1964 visit to St. Mary's Church. I will conclude with the last paragraph of the already frequently quoted article from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It serves as a kind of conclusion to the interaction between the experience and the reality of Berlin:
“There was a palpable wish [among the visitors] (and this perceptibility is no journalistic invention) to meet a man who combines revolution and humanity, a leader who rejects both violence and ideology, a person of legendary renown. An American who can afford to end his sermon with a double Hallelujah without exposing himself to the suspicion of being overly emotional or even ridiculous. This Hallelujah, in its dry cheerfulness, in its elevated joy, still echoed in our ears as we were directed to a manhole at the Heinrich-Heine-Straße checkpoint so that the vehicle could be thoroughly inspected.”