The Churches in the GDR

Andreas Stegmann

Soon after the fall of the "Third Reich", the churches in the GDR were once again faced with a regime that wanted to align and marginalise them. Andreas Stegmann describes vividly and close to the source, how the churches survived the first years of these confrontations, came to terms with the state as a "church under socialism" since the building of the Wall, and how they became the vanguard of the GDR peace and environmental movement and the shelter of the opposition in the last decade with the motto "swords to ploughshares".