In 1980 Führer helped to organize "peace prayers" (German: Friedensgebete) as part of a joint protest action of Protestant youth organisations. Starting on 20 September 1982, the peace prayers were held every Monday in the Nikolai Church in Leipzig focusing against the Cold War.
On 19 February 1988 Führer held a speech Living and Staying in the GDR (Leben und Bleiben in der DDR) in the Nikolai Church.[5] Many opposition members attended the speech which marks a special date of east German resistance against the Honecker Regime.
Peaceful East German revolution, 1989
During the first months of 1989 the East German authorities, especially the Stasi, imposed increasing pressure to stop the Peace Prayers in Leipzig. They controlled access roads and arrested random "suspects" inside and outside the church. However, they were unsuccessful: the Monday prayers continued with an increasing number of attendees.
On 9 October troops of the army, police and Stasi officers arrived in front of the church. About 1,000 members of the SED were ordered into the church. Near the end of the Peace Prayers a manifesto was read out, written by Kurt Masur, Bernd-Lutz Lange, Peter Zimmermann, and three low-ranking leaders of the SED (later called The Leipzig Six: Die Leipziger Sechs),[6] appealing to all attendees not to use force and to stay peaceful. The demonstration of about 70,000 people which followed the prayers was nonviolent.[7]
The slogan "No Violence!" (Keine Gewalt!) was used by more than 300,000 people during the following demonstrations. The entire East German revolution remained peaceful.
After reunification
After 1989 Führer became an advocate for unemployed people; he was a co-founder of the "Church Initiative for the Jobless, Leipzig" (Kirchliche Erwerbsloseninitiative Leipzig). In 2004 he again organized Monday demonstrations against the dismantling of the welfare state and the Hartz IV reforms.[8][9][10] He also continued to hold regular Peace Prayers.
On 30 March 2008 he held his final service in the Nikolai Church and retired.[11]
Voices in Times of Change: The Role of Writers, Opposition Movements and the Churches in the Transformation of East Germany (Culture and Society in Germany Vol 3) by David Rock 1999 ISBN978-1-57181-959-8
Berlin Witness: An American Diplomat's Chronicle of East Germany's Revolution by G. Jonathan Greenwald 1993 ISBN0-271-00932-2
Leipziger Ring: Aufzeichnungen eines Montagsdemonstranten 1989/1990 by Reiner Tetzner 2004 ISBN3-932558-98-7
Hermann Geyer: Nikolaikirche, montags um fünf: die politischen Gottesdienste der Wendezeit in Leipzig. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 2007 (Universität Leipzig, Habil.-Schr. 2006), ISBN978-3-534-18482-8, Inhaltsverzeichnis.
Christian Führer: Und wir sind dabei gewesen. Ullstein, Berlin 2008, ISBN978-3-550-08746-2.
"Keine Gewalt! No Violence! How the Church Gave Birth to Germany's Only Peaceful Revolution" by Roger Newell, Wipf and Stock (October 4, 2017) ISBN978-1532612824