Prayer power.

She doesn't see herself as a heroine, but the German government disagrees. From 1978 to 1989, church social worker Ilse Neumeister organized weekly prayers for peace in Erfurt in the former German Democratic Republic. Reunified Germany has decorated her for this.

When the Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, Ilse Neumeister was attending a trade union congress with her husband who was a full-time official. Everyone present was asked to express support for the invasion, but she stood up and protested strongly. After this her husband came under pressure to separate from her--and eventually left her to bring up their two children alone, on her low salary from the church.

Young men would come to talk to her about their problems with the army or the State. Informers and microphones were everywhere. `I'd push a piece of paper across the desk telling them to meet me in the park, saying loudly, "Such difficulties don't exist here!" Or we talked in the toilet and pulled the chain.'

She was shocked to discover in 1989 that close family members and colleagues had been drawn into the web of informers. When the secret police files were opened, she found notes which she had `mislaid' at the time she made them and letters which had mysteriously never arrived.

In 1970, the authorities permitted a regional Protestant Church conference for the first time. A huge service was planned in the Erfurt market square, the size of six football pitches. When the government banned the use of the square, the Catholic bishop offered the Cathedral, a neighbouring church and surrounding grounds as an alternative venue.

`When he heard our bitter words about the authorities, the Bishop also said firmly to us, "They are your brothers and sisters; they just don't know their Father." The service went ahead with 20,000 people linked by loudspeakers and a relay system.'

Ilse Neumeister started Thursday prayers for peace with another mother in 1978. They began with a handful of people of different ages, backgrounds and beliefs in a small Catholic church in the city centre. It was never intended as a cell of opposition, but the security services knew its power and monitored it.

She is convinced that the fall of Communism was inevitable, but attributes the lack of bloodshed in 1989 largely to the prayer meetings. `People came into the church angry and fearful and, in praying for each other, they became at peace. Anyone who prays every week, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace," becomes immune to violence.'

Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the army stood baffled as thousands of citizens marched through Erfuhrt with candles, singing and praying.

She has recently served on the commission to integrate the armies of East and West Germany, sifting through the backgrounds of 1,300 East German officers. When her compatriots forget the wonder of reunification and grumble about their present situation, she always asks them what they have decided to do about it. Her catchphrase is, `Pray for the impossible and do the possible.'