Christianity in East Germany

At the start of the German Democratic Republic, most of the people on its territory were Protestants, with exception of the Eichsfeld, a small Catholic area in the northwestern part of Thuringia, a former property of the archdiocese of Mainz.

[citation needed] Since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, Catholics had been a minority on the territory that became East Germany after the war.

[1] Due to the post-war flight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe to the west of the new Oder–Neisse line, refugees who resettled in East Germany increased the portion of Catholics between 1945 and 1949 to 13.9%.

[1] On 5 June 1945, following the end of World War II in Europe, Soviet authorities established the Soviet occupation zone within Germany, installing a provisional government for the former Prussian provinces of Brandenburg, Saxony and the western part of Pommerania, as well as for the Länder of Mecklenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Anhalt.

The SED party congress formed a Popular Council in 1948, which declared itself a provisional parliament on 7 October 1949, adopted a constitution and proclaimed the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on the same day.

[3] The Church was even exempted from the land reform conducted through 1945–1946 that sought to parcel large estates and distribute them among individual farmers, indicating their privileged position.

Additionally, the Church was invited to join all-party talks held with the aim of establishing a single, non-partisan youth movement helmed by Erich Honecker.

A variety of strategies were adopted by the SED to varying degrees over time, seeking to quicken the ‘withering away’ of religion under communism.

Publishing books and communications were hindered by the scarcity of paper, the post-war destruction also deprived the church of buildings for their gatherings and services.

For example, Erich Mielke ordered an encompassing surveillance "of the churches and affiliate organisations such as the CDU" by the Ministry for State Security, because these "reactionary groups of people" were allegedly opponents of the construction of socialism.

[5] In a famous 10 October 1957 speech in Sonneberg, Ulbricht stated that old traditional beliefs should be thrown overboard.

[8] As the state sought to strengthen its youth movement, the ‘Freie Deutsche Jugend’ (FDJ), the Church was viewed with increasing suspicion as a rival.

In the period from the formation of the GDR, the drive for socialist transformation led the state to seek to curtail the church's social presence.

[9] The Jugendweihe, the youth ceremony of the FDJ, introduced in 1954 was an initiation rite that acted as a secular substitute for confirmation.

[10] This affair clearly delineated the limits of the Church's power and attraction to a society rapidly undergoing secularisation.

The leaders of Federal Germany and the EKD signed an agreement to provide military chaplains for West German armed forces, igniting outcry in East Berlin.

In 1962, when the GDR introduced military conscription, an opportunity for the church to maintain its sphere of influence presented itself in the form of ‘construction soldiers’ (Bausoldaten).

[14] Nonetheless, discrimination against individual Christians continued, and the scope for spiritual freedom remained limited.

The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 heavily impacted the German economy and the population was increasingly restless, with the Helsinki agreements having raised their expectations beyond what the regime was willing to concede.

At least until the mid-1980s, much of the church leadership dutifully regulated dissident activity, keeping them within bounds and sustaining their end of the bargain with the state.

After the revolution the church was involved in the forum debating the future shape and structure of the new German society and government.

[19] The church's role in peace is also, in part, a dialectical function of the activities of peripheral groups and the mood of society-at-large.

Church criticism continued through the early 1970s until 1975, when an agreement was reached with the state limiting the Bausoldaten to nonmilitary objects.

"[citation needed] With the opening of archives, many have questioned whether the church was really an autonomous actor, but rather had been subverted in its independence by the secret police.