Christianity in East Germany underwent several phases, ranging from state repression to state co-option. Christianity in East Germany also came up against secularism that saw the Church struggle to maintain its influence at times.
Different confessions in East Germany
Protestantism 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.
See also Evangelical Church of the Union / Evangelische Kirche der Union (EKU); sections Postwar and Into the 1950s
Catholicism
Right after the war, many Catholic parishes were cut off from their dioceses in the western part of Germany.
Since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, Catholics had been a minority on the territory that became East Germany after the war. 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%. Between the establishment of the GDR in 1949 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, about 1.1 million Catholics left the GDR. From 1961 to 1988, their number shrunk further to 1.05 million Catholics, about 6% of the population.
History of Protestantism in East Germany
1945–1952: early years 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. Political parties that had been forbidden in Nazi Germany were allowed to resume their activities in 1945, including the Communist Party of Germany led by Walter Ulbricht, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Christian CDUD and the liberal LDPD. The first two parties merged into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946, which won the first regional elections and gradually managed to erode the significance of the other parties. 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. In the years after that, the GDR quickly evolved into a de facto single-party socialist state.Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "Duitse Democratische Republiek. §3.1 1945–1949". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum.
In general, through the early postwar period (1945–1949), the state pursued a moderate policy toward the church. This could be attributed to several reasons, one of which was that the church generally opposed Hitler. Beyond this, there was also a human need for the ministrations of the Church in the wake of the trauma and widespread devastation caused by the war. 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.
However, this phase did not last long. In general, the period from 1949 to 1961 was characterised largely by visible repression of the Church. 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. The burgeoning conflict between the Church and State manifested clearly in the arena of education. In 1946, the State issued a decree that forbade the establishment of any kind of educational establishment apart from that provided by the state. Such a decree directly impacted religious education, and by the end of 1952, all religious education in schools had stopped.
1952–1960s 1952 onwards marked a period of struggle and conflict between the state and the church. During the second party congress (9–12 July 1952), the SED abandoned its previously pronounced neutrality towards the churches. The announced "construction of socialism" (Aufbau des Sozialismus) required an "intensification of the class struggle" (Verschärfung des Klassenkampfes), including an offensive against the power of the churches. 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. Arrests and convictions were already underway.Dienstanweisung Mielkes vom 17. September 1952. In: Gerhard Besier, Stephan Wolf (ed.): Pfarrer, Christen und Katholiken. Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der ehemaligen DDR und die Kirchen. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1991, p. 150f. In a famous 10 October 1957 speech in Sonneberg, Ulbricht stated that old traditional beliefs should be thrown overboard.Die DDR im Rückblick: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur, Helga Schultz, Hans-Jürgen Wagener (ed.), Ch. Links Verlag, 2007, p. 61.
The GDR state sponsored atheism and tried to reduce the influence of the churches on society.Deseret News National "During the decades of state-sponsored atheism in East Germany, more formally known as the German Democratic Republic, the great emphasis was on avoiding religion." The GDR's constitution ostensibly proclaimed the freedom of religious belief, while "Freedom of religion and liberty of conscience did not in reality exist, and the exercise of religion was obstructed in every conceivable way".Krisch, Henry, The German Democratic Republic. Westview Press, London, 1985, p. 153
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. The rivalry between the Church and state intensified over two issues, namely the Jugendweihe and the provision of military chaplains.
The Jugendweihe, the youth ceremony of the FDJ, introduced in 1954 was an initiation rite that acted as a secular substitute for confirmation. The State designed the ceremony such that participating in it would express affirmation to the State and socialism. The Church protested against this ceremony, denying anyone who participated in this ceremony admission into the confirmation classes. The State did not back down, and by 1958 it was essentially mandatory for every school child to attend it. While the Church held out as long as it could, its stance could not be sustained for long as the number of confirmations dropped sharply. This affair clearly delineated the limits of the Church's power and attraction to a society rapidly undergoing secularisation.
The second conflict in the 1950s emerged over the issue of military chaplaincy. At that time, the Protestant Churches in the GDR were constituent members of the EKD, which also consisted of churches in the West. 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. This led to calls for the churches in the GDR to officially disassociate themselves from the West German ‘NATO Church’. Though the East and West German Church remained united, state pressure on the East German Church to separate from the EKD continued to grow, and the GDR churches gradually grew more distant from the ‘NATO-church’ in the West.
1960s The 1960s witnessed a declining Church, with shrinking portions of society expressing affiliation with the church. The church veered away from its defensive stance in the 50s, but was able to maintain its presence in some areas. 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). Many of these young people with a pacifist conscience thus came under the wing of the church. The 1960s also saw the church adapting more to the situation in the GDR, rather than trying to change it as in the 50s.
1969: formation of the BEK The issue of separation within the EKD all-German church body became more acute in 1961 with the building of the Wall, rendering it impossible for the Church to meet physically. The synod had to be split into two parts, one East and one West, meeting separately. As it became clear that re-unification would not take place, the East German church decided to form the ‘Bund der evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR’ (BEK), splitting from the EKD. This was not just a change in name but also symbolic of a re-orientation within the Church. The clergymen that were now in positions of authority had largely grown up in divided Germany, and were less fixated on a vision of a reunified Germany. Instead, they believed that their duty, first and foremost, was towards their own parish and GDR society.
Start of the Honecker era Over time, the church appeared less of a threat. Bishop Schönherr's well-worn refrain of being a church not against, not alongside, but within socialism enabled the church to accommodate the regime in different ways. Thus when Honecker came into power, his early policy was characterised by outward toleration. The policy of no taboos in culture and the signing of the Helsinki agreement seemed to signal that the state was more willing to accommodate church. The state also benefited from the churches’ activities - the church ran hospitals, old people's homes, orphanages and additionally was a source of hard currency contributions. The hard currency came from the West German churches.
Nonetheless, discrimination against individual Christians continued, and the scope for spiritual freedom remained limited. What remains clear is that the situation in the 1970s was vastly different from the visible struggles of the 1950s.
Later Honecker years Church/state relations only became more complex with the signing of the church/state agreement of 6 March 1978. Considered a watershed agreement, the church was able to secure a degree of official recognition within the communist system. This was by no means an extension of goodwill, but was a move undertaken by the state to stabilise the regime. 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. Thus, not only was the church/state agreement of 1978 a defensive move, it was also offensive in nature. Documents now made available reveal that the state viewed the agreement as a means to co-opt the church leadership as a “long arm of the state”, controlling the segments of society that the party-state could not reach.
This initially seemed an ingenious solution, with the church's greater degree of autonomy leading many dissidents to flock to the church as a gathering place. 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. SED officials would remind church leaders that concessions granted in 1978 could be rescinded, and thus church leaders were expected to ensure activities within the church did not get out of hand. In this way, the SED managed to ventilate dissent effectively.