Church and Communist State
EPSTEIN, KLAUS
Church and Communist State GOD AND CAESAR IN EAST GERMANY By Richard W. Solberg Macmillan. 294 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by KLAUS EPSTEIN Associate Professor of History, Brown University One of...
...Certainly, Christians of the East Zone deserve our sympathy and— so far as is prudent—our support...
...But we must also recognize that the conflict between Communist and Christian values is especially irreconcilable in East Germany for historical reasons...
...Paul in Romans 13...
...Solberg does an excellent job of placing the Lutheran Church struggle in the general context of the evolution of the Russian satellite state in East Germany...
...The Christian population of East Germany has been steadfast in the face of persecution...
...Solberg clearly sympathizes with the Dibelius group, but he shows much understanding of the tragic situation which led to the desperate counsels of Barth and Mitzenheim...
...This Church allied itself with every reactionary force in German life—Junkers, monarchy and bureaucracy—until well into the 20th century...
...Solberg deplores, for example, the inadequate de-Naziflcation of Church personnel after 1945...
...Solberg's failure to emphasize these points—though he is obviously aware of them—tends to make his picture of the struggle Manichean...
...It lived too long on the hope that German reunification might be just around the corner and that the problem confronting the Church was one of temporary survival under a passing persecution, rather than of permanent adjustment to an irreconcilably antiChristian state...
...The fact that Otto Dibelius' entire outlook is rooted in the world of the pre-1914 ancien régime, and that he was guilty of deplorable anti-Semitic statements before 1933 (though he later resolutely opposed Hitler), made it easy for Communist propaganda to depict the religious struggle as one of progress versus reaction...
...Moreover, he points out that the Church failed for many years to come to grips with the unpleasant fact that Communist control of East Germany was a permanent reality for the foreseeable future...
...Only a small number of fellowtraveling "progressive pastors" rallied wholeheartedly to the regime...
...A new pattern of persecution was established in 1954: Systematic discrimination was practiced against all those who continued to adhere to the Church—a brutal policy which confronted children and their parents with the choice of either renouncing their faith or foreswearing any chance of higher education...
...Yet he does not allow his deep sympathy for the struggling Church (his book is dedicated to "Fellow members of the Communion of Saints in East Germany, with the prayer that their faith may not fail") to prevent him from criticizing when he thinks it due...
...Its main value lies in a careful chronological reconstruction of successive phases of the relationship between Church and state...
...The Communist state was tolerant, sometimes even benevolently tolerant, toward the Church from 1945-50...
...He is very pessimistic about the future prospects of the Church in East Germany, and expects that it will be reduced to a small, fighting remnant...
...Such an analysis would help explain (though not justify) the special hostility of the Communists to the Lutheran Church...
...A frequent visitor to postwar Germany as religious affairs advisor to the U.S...
...From June 1952 to June 1953 there was extreme religious persecution, but this was suddenly called off a week before the popular uprising on June 17, 1953...
...A first sharp clash in 1950 was followed by a detente from the spring of 1951 until West Germany's signing of the European Defense Community protocols in May 1952...
...It was inevitable, however, that Church leaders would be divided on how to cope with the Communist challenge on a long-term basis...
...High Commission and representative of the Lutheran World Federation, Solberg makes it quite clear where he stands...
...Reviewed by KLAUS EPSTEIN Associate Professor of History, Brown University One of the merits of Richard W. Solberg's extremely valuable chronicle of "The Conflicts of Church and State in East Germany since 1945" is that it does not pretend to impartiality...
...A group headed by Otto Dibelius, Bishop of Berlin, advocated firm defiance and went so far as to deny that the East German government deserved the Christian obedience to constituted authority counselled by St...
...he also regrets the institutional traditionalism which prevented any evolution from a tax-financed state church to a congregational church, on the American model, supported by private contributions...
...Throughout, Solberg is relatively frank in assessing Church personalities...
...Another group, headed by Moritz Mitzenheim, Bishop of Thuringia, and influenced by the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, favored accommodation which sometimes involved surrender on crucial points...
...Solberg's book, though scholarly in character, is eminently readable and obviously intended for a popular audience...
...The narrative is filled with fascinating details of the flexible harassment tactics employed by the Communist state, and the increasingly divergent views of Lutheran leaders on how to respond to the Communist policy of slow strangulation...
...What is missing is an adequate analysis of the historical background to the conflict...
...Much that is tyrannical in the conduct of the Communists must, from their point of view, appear as self-defense against the only internal foe who remains partially intact and never ceases to pray for the downfall of their regime...
Vol. 45 • February 1962 • No. 4
