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Topic 3 - The Church - Coggle Diagram
Topic 3 - The Church
Youth groups
1951, discrimination against religious youth groups started
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Church youth organization, Junge Gemeinde, was seen as an enemy as it opposed many of the values that the SED had tried to instill in the youth
In 1954, the state introduced the Jugendweihe as secular alternatives to confirmation.
This was usually taken at 14 and marked the rite of passage from childhood to becoming a young adult.
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Co-operation 1969-78
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The Church may have taken some role in the gaining of international recognition for the GDR; certainly, the fact that it appeared not to be persecuted was a significant factor.
On the 18th of August 1976, pastor Oskar Brusewitz set himself on fire in the town of Zeitz to protest against Church-State co-operation.
Many Churches too had formed programmes to reach out to the homeless, drug addicts and those whose existence a socialist society would prefer not to acknowledge.
Antagonism 1945-69
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1946, religious education outlawed as well as church schools
In October 1960, Ulbricht announced that “Christianity and the humanistic goals of socialism were not incompatible”
Compromise 1978-89
March 1978 Concordat
Honecker agreed the Church could build new centres of worship in the new residential areas and suburbs
He allowed the Church more media time and accepted the importation of religious literature from the West.
The SED recognised the Church was not going to disappear and so a working relationship had to be affirmed.
The security forces and in particular the Stasi still distrusted the Church and undoubtedly still aimed in the long term for its demise.