At the end of WWII, Germany was defeated and divided. When Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, it was stripped of its sovereignty and former state. Hitler was the dictator leading the Third Reich. Reich simply means realm or territorial/governmental reach. Germany’s government had been established in 1871. The first Reich was the German Empire. The second Reich was the Weimer Republic. Hitler’s Third Reich was Nazi Germany. And it had fallen.
Germany is now occupied by other nations. East Germany is occupied by the Soviets. West Germany is occupied by the French, British, and United States. Though Allies during the war, the Soviets saw an opportunity to increase their territory, thus establishing themselves as a superpower in the region.
In the early morning hours of this day in 1961, the Soviets divided the nation while the residents slept. “In August, Walter Ulbricht, the Communist leader of East Germany, got the go-ahead from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to begin the sealing off of all access between East and West Berlin. Soldiers began the work over the night of August 12-13, laying more than 100 miles of barbed wire slightly inside the East Berlin border. The wire was soon replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts and searchlights. East German officers known as Volkspolizei (“Volpos”) patrolled the Berlin Wall day and night.”1
Imagine waking up the next day. You have been cut off from friends and family. Life as you know it has ended. Economic chaos begins. Though many defected from the East to the West, it wasn’t without cost. And many more were imprisoned or killed for trying to get out of East Germany. As pictures and stories of defectors trickled across the world, the world began to hate the wall as much as the Germans hated it.
President Reagan famously gave the speech on June 12, 1987 in Berlin where he declared, “”Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” On November 9, 1989, the wall came down as residents on both sides took turns destroying that which had divided them for 28 years.
Division is nothing new. Since Bible days, there has been a division between Jews and Gentiles. And since the fall in the Garden, there has been a division between God and man. All of this is addressed in Ephesians 2:11-16.
“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; (12) That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: (13) But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (14) For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (15) Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; (16) And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.”
Now, all who trust Jesus as Savior are united, regardless of their ethnicity or lot in life. We are described in Colossians 3:10-11. “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (11) Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.”
Far better than the fall of the Berlin Wall is the fall of the wall between God and man and the wall that divides people. True joy, peace, and unity comes only from a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Do you have that today?
Colossians 1:20 says, “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”
1https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/berlin-is-divided
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