Zionskirche: Bonhoeffer and the Environmental Library
Why is it significant?
The church in front of you stands alone on the top of a gentle hill, a big brick building with a single tall tower, and the streets of the neighbourhood fall away from it on every side. It is called the Zionskirche, and it was built between 1866 and 1873 as a royal thank-you.
Key Facts
| Place | Zionskirche: Bonhoeffer and the Environmental Library |
|---|---|
| Address | Zionskirchplatz, 10119 Berlin, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.53460, 13.40370 |
| Part of Walk | Candles and Courtyards: Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, from 1933 to the Autumn of 1989 |
| Generated | Generated |
The church in front of you stands alone on the top of a gentle hill, a big brick building with a single tall tower, and the streets of the neighbourhood fall away from it on every side. It is called the Zionskirche, and it was built between 1866 and 1873 as a royal thank-you.
In 1861 a student fired a pistol at the Prussian King Wilhelm the First in Baden-Baden, and missed. The grateful king supported the building of a church in this poor new district on the edge of Berlin, and the result is this hilltop church. Seventy years later, in 1931 and 1932, a young pastor called Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught a confirmation class here, a gang of rough working-class boys who had driven his predecessor to despair. Bonhoeffer moved into a room nearby on Oderberger Straße, invited them home, and won them over. In April 1945 he was executed by the Nazis for his part in the resistance.
In 1986 the church gave its basement to a group of young people who founded the Umweltbibliothek, the Environmental Library. Officially it collected books about pollution. In reality it was a meeting point for East Berlin's opposition, with a printing machine for a samizdat newsletter. In the night of the 24th to the 25th of November 1987, the Stasi raided the library, seized the machine and arrested several people.
It backfired spectacularly. Young people gathered at the church with candles, day and night, and news of the vigil spread through Western radio and television, which most East Germans watched. Within days the state released those it had arrested. A few weeks earlier, in October 1987, neo-Nazi skinheads had attacked a punk concert in this same church while police stood by... this hill saw the whole contradiction of the late GDR.
Many historians see that November raid as a dress rehearsal for 1989: candles, churches, and a state that suddenly looked clumsy. Now cross the square to the north-east and walk up Kastanienallee, following the tram tracks as they climb gently through the neighbourhood.