261. Article in the Central Intelligence Agency’s European Review1
East Germany: Church-State Relations in Light of Church Involvement in the Peace Movement [portion marking not declassified]
The East German Lutheran Church’s increasingly outspoken support for the autonomous peace movement threatens the delicate modus vivendi it has had with the state in recent years. Church leaders want to preserve a dialogue with the state to maintain the benefits of improved relations, but are under pressure from many lower level clergy to increase support for peace activists. The regime could step up pressure on the Church—perhaps by arresting some militant clerics and lay people—but it seems unlikely to crack down soon. It has an interest in helping sustain West German peace activism after the initial INF deployments, and policy shifts suggest division and confusion among party leaders.
[Page 808]Background
Church-state relations in East Germany improved significantly in the late 1970s after decades of regime harassment of religious activity. A historic summit meeting in March 1978 between East German party leader Erich Honecker and Lutheran Church prelate Bishop Albrecht Schoenherr inaugurated the new relationship characterized by greater mutual tolerance and acceptance. The fact that Bishop Schoenherr agreed to the meeting did not lessen the Church’s determination to preserve its independence, but it was a significant departure from the arm’s length posture toward the state and was an implicit acknowledgment of the permanence of the socialist state. The regime, too, in effect recognized a legitimate role for the Church in East German society, but clearly it hoped to steer the Church’s activities in ways profitable to the regime.
The improved atmosphere led to some significant gains for the Church. In an interview with a West German journal in 1979, Bishop Schoenherr expressed satisfaction that many of the regime’s promises of concessions at the meeting had been met. He acknowledged that the authorities were allowing monthly radiobroadcasts, had approved all requests for religious telecasts, and had issued building permits for new church construction—financed primarily by the West German Church. The issue of pastoral care in prisons also appeared to have largely been settled.
Growing Politicization of the Church
Differences between the Church and state nonetheless persisted. The Church continued to take a stand on disarmament that, at times, led to open criticism of the government. Within months of the 1978 summit meeting, for example, Church leaders denounced the regime’s plan to implement compulsory premilitary training for ninth- and tenth-grade students, questioned the value of a national petition supporting Moscow’s disarmament proposals, and called for discussions of the dangers inherent in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Unchecked by the regime, the Church increasingly attracted to its social and cultural events young people seeking relief from the repressive conformity demanded by the East German authorities. Some militant local pastors, who regarded support of pacifist sentiments as a Christian duty and as a necessary part of the Church’s social mission, began taking positions on political and social issues at odds with the regime’s views.
Top Church leaders also eventually became more active on peace and disarmament issues. Bishop Werner Krusche of Saxony, Schoenherr’s successor in September 1981 as Chairman of the Lutheran Federation, was an outspoken champion of the peace movement and, during his one-year tenure, issued strong statements on disarmament [Page 809] and in support of alternatives to compulsory military service. The Church also began sponsoring peace workshops and festivals that attracted thousands of young people. In the fall of 1981, regional Church synods staked out the most militant position ever on peace issues, calling for arms reductions in the East as well as the West. In 1982, the Church distributed the “swords-into-plowshares” peace patch—later banned by the state as “an expression of a mentality hostile to the state.”
The decentralized structure of the Church increasingly revealed divisions within the Church, as more militant congregations and clergymen expressed their views. In February 1982 Lutheran pastor Rainer Eppelman of East Berlin led churchmen and pacifists in drawing up a petition known as “The Berlin Appeal” that called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and nuclear arms from both East and West Germany and for the eventual creation of a nuclear-free Europe. A pastor in East Berlin allowed a peace group to use his church in July for a six-day “fast for peace” without approval from his superiors; the fasters also sent a letter to Honecker opposing nuclear weapon deployment in East Germany. Embassy sources said the Church leadership did not support the fast and was angry about the letter to Honecker, and that State Secretary for Church Affairs Klaus Gysi reportedly reprimanded East Berlin Bishop Gottfried Forck about the incident.
The activity of local militants has caused a dilemma for Church leaders, who do not want to provoke a confrontation with the regime over the peace issue, but do not want to ignore the pressure from below for increased support for peace activists. Despite a membership of almost half of the country’s 17 million people, the Lutheran Church lacks the self-confidence of the Catholic Church in Poland, and the leadership does not want to jeopardize the delicate modus vivendi and its gains of the past five years. Bishop Johannes Hempel, the chairman of the federation since mid-1981, has tried to steer a middle course, publicly supporting the peace movement while stressing the need to avoid a Church-state confrontation. He has publicly praised the “good will” of East Germany and the Soviet Union on arms reduction. In September, Bishop Hempel and a West German bishop carefully crafted a letter to Erich Honecker and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stressing the responsibility of both German states for maintaining peace without weapons.
Regime Reaction
The regime’s tolerance of Church activity throughout 1981–82 probably reflected an effort to exploit the Church’s peace positions in order to stimulate West German peace movement criticisms of NATO’s INF deployment and to help deflect criticism of the Warsaw Pact. The regime may have also felt that a crackdown would generate adverse [Page 810] publicity while East Germany was preparing for the 500th anniversary celebrations of Martin Luther’s birth. The celebrations served the regime’s efforts to create a pantheon of East German heroes and thereby construct a national identity.
The regime has adopted a more threatening posture this year, while continuing to make conciliatory gestures. This summer the state sentenced a Lutheran deacon active in the peace movement to three years in prison for “antistate provocation” in connection with his support for people seeking to leave East Germany. Moreover, the government refused Church efforts to intercede on his behalf—a marked departure from the government’s attitude over the last four years. The regime also reacted angrily to a statement of the national Church synod in September, refusing to allow publication of a portion of a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Eastern Europe. This is the first time the state has censored a Church synod resolution.
More recently the regime seems to have backed away from this threatening stance. While continuing to show little tolerance of unofficial peace activism, the government has on two separate occasions given publicity to the statement that it excised from the Church synod statement in September. The party newspaper Neues Deutschland published a letter from a Lutheran pastor expressing horror at both Warsaw Pact and NATO missile deployments. The regime also broadcast a lay Church official’s radio commentary that labeled counterdeployment in East Germany “alarming” and suggested that the Soviet Union “begin now to put into practice its declared readiness to reduce and scrap the SS–20 intermediate range missiles.” Honecker also reportedly told a visiting Green delegation in early November that he would agree to a live telecast of a discussion of peace issues by West and East German Lutheran Church representatives.
The recent change in policy probably reflects division and confusion among party leaders—and perhaps among the Soviets—over how to deal with Church involvement in unofficial peace activism. It also suggests that while the authorities have become less tolerant of militant activities, they may feel that publicizing the Church’s peace policies legitimizes their own. In early November the regime prevented a delegation of 30 East and West German pacifists from presenting to the US and Soviet Embassies statements opposing both NATO INF deployments and Soviet countermeasures, but subsequently allowed East Berlin Bishop Forck to make the presentation.
Prospects
The authorities seem very reluctant to crack down and probably will rely on preventive arrests to deal with potential troublemakers. [Page 811] They probably realize a crackdown could jeopardize bilateral relations with West Germany and damage the regime’s own peace offensive. Honecker also probably would hesitate to reverse the gains in international prestige Luther Year brought East Germany.
Church-state relations could become increasingly strained as the regime pursues its two-pronged strategy vis-a-vis the Church and peace movement. Bishop Hempel most likely will resist any attempt by the regime to co-opt the Church’s commitment to peace. Although the leadership probably will appeal to the clergy to moderate their activities in order to prevent a serious deterioration in Church-state relations, it may be unable to control the activities of many of them. The leadership could come under increased criticism, meanwhile, from peace activists who view Church efforts at moderation a major obstacle to garnering popular support for peace proposals.
[1 line not declassified]
- Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Support Services (DI), Job 84T00899R: Production Case Files (1981–1984), Box 6, Folder 1: European Review EUR ER 83–002 thru –027. Secret. European Review was a serial publication. Pages of this article were also found in the Reagan Library, William Clark Files, Berlin—May 1984 [1982–1983].↩