On prayer and politics in the GDR

ŁUKASZ GRAJEWSKI: Why did you decide to become a pastor in the atheistic East Germany?

MARKUS MECKEL: My father was a pastor. Thus, as far as I remember, from my early childhood I wanted to become a pastor. For my family it was also quite clear that I would take this path. Thus in 1980, after my theology studies, which I did in Naumburg and Berlin, I moved to Mecklenburg. There, I started working as a village pastor and I became very actively involved in social and political issues.

Can you tell me a bit more about the situation of Christian churches in East Germany? Was it comparable to the other communist states?

The situation of Christian churches in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was quite different than what took place in other communist states. The roots of this difference can be found in the pre-war period of Nazi Germany. Specifically, they included a movement of the so-called Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) which emerged within the German Protestant church. Its chief document, the Theological Declaration of Barmen, was adopted in 1934 and stated opposition to the state’s involvement in internal affairs of the Protestant church. After the Second World War, Protestant churches in East Germany also adhered to this principle of independence from the state and followed the spirit of this heritage. People who were raised in the spirit of the Barmen Declaration became the leading figures of the church in East Germany after the war. Thus, when the Russians came, they simply accepted the Protestant church as a resistance organisation.

On the other hand there was this special situation with a divided Germany, Germans lived in four separated sectors. But the Protestant churches shaped a common umbrella-organisation called the Evangelical Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland or EKD). It aimed to cover the whole of Germany, not only its western parts. In October 1945 all of its representatives, with international and ecumenical partners, met together in Stuttgart. There the German representatives stated that they were all guilty of what had happened during the Second World War and called it the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt. This confession played a very important role.

But this framework, which included both churches from West and East Germany, stayed only until 1969, when they split into two separate organisations…

In the 1960s all of the member churches from East Germany came to the conclusion that it was no longer possible to work within this framework. After 1961, when the communists built the Berlin Wall, nobody could really take part in the EKD meetings. It was also important for the East German churches to have a common position towards their people and the state. Clearly, western churches could not tell those in the East: “You need to do this and that.” This could only be said and done by the people who lived together within the GDR. The separation was important not as a message to the state, but as a message to the people in East Germany, an opportunity for common action and common language towards the regime.

And what was the organisation of East German churches after 1969?

It was called the Association of Evangelic Churches in the GDR. It included eight different Protestant churches with three different types among them: the Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church and the United Church. Importantly, this association continued the unity and co-operation work with EKD in West Germany. Not to forget the marvellous financial support of the western churches for our work in the East!

Did the authorities react to such wide independence?

In the early 1950s after the establishment of the GDR the Soviets tried to break the independence of the church. In 1952 and 1953 many people related with the church were expelled from schools and a lot of students were imprisoned. However, just before the 1953 uprising, the Soviets asked their East German colleagues to stop putting pressure on the churches. This was right after Stalin’s death. Of course, this did not mean an end of repressions, but it was a signal that the communist policy towards the churches would get softer.

What about the Catholic Church?

The Catholic Church tried to remain an independent organisation. Its clergy decided not to offer any political messages or have influence on society. However, this led it to resemble a kind of ivory tower where nobody could come in. This was the big difference between the Protestants and the Catholics. Some conservative Lutheran churches also tried to take this approach, believing they were following Martin Luther’s doctrine of two kingdoms which claims to “let the state do what it thinks, and we will do our work”.

You mentioned that in the early 1950s students were expelled from school because of their religious beliefs. You experienced this personally…

Yes. Indeed, but later. I was very active already in school and I was expressing my position on almost every topic. Every Thursday morning we had a class on political issues and the teacher felt it was his personal mission to convince me that communism played a positive role. I need to say that he tried to do so in a very fair way. Every week he would ask me for my opinion on different topics. I would answer him, but I was not prepared enough to fully defend my positions. He always had stronger arguments. This happened every week. Then one day we were discussing the duty of western visitors to change a minimum of money, from the Western German Mark to the GDR-Mark – 1 to 1. In these days the GDR authorities decided to increase the amount of money they had to change. So the GDR got a lot of western currency. And, for the first time, he had no good arguments.

I was only 16 years old at that time but I was very proud of myself. This was 1968, when the Prague Spring was taking place but also when a change was introduced to our constitution. It was meant to create a real socialist constitution. In school we were discussing this change, and even more so we talked about the role of the church and freedom of speech. Because of my strongly held positions during the discussions, and my various activities in the church, I had to quit school. The benefit of this situation was that I could continue my education at the church high school in Potsdam, which I completed in two years and then began university. I studied theology, first in Naumburg and later in Berlin. These institutions were run by the church, without any influence from the state. The level of instruction at these universities was the same as what was offered in Munich or Hamburg. The difference was that we were a much smaller group of students, so our contact with the professors was much more intense.

At that time these church universities were really a place for freedom of thought. I wrote my master’s thesis on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also Sprach Zarathustra). Nietzsche was forbidden in the GDR. No one could buy any of his books. But as a student in Berlin I had everything within my reach. This academic freedom was very unique and it was thanks to the connection with the church.

As a young pastor how did you start your involvement in politics?

The inspiration came straight from Martin Luther’s message: People have to be free. To be free in your partnership with God you need to be a free person. This message was the reason why so many Protestant Christians in the GDR started to be politically active. Another reason was that in church we had a space for a free exchange of opinions. As a result, in the early 1980s we started establishing informal groups and later networks of those groups. Every summer we organised “peace seminars” (Friedensseminaren).

What were the main topics of these seminars?

Politics, mutual understanding, the peace process, ecology, human rights, gender issues, etc. Everything that today we call political education. Everything that is important if you want to have a free and strong society. We called these meeting “peace seminars” because we started with issues relating to peace, but they quickly broadened to other topics. With a strong network of active people in the late 1980s (in the Gorbachev era), we started to realise that something could be changed. It took years of our work within these groups to prepare people to say “no” and be encouraged to live in truth. This attitude was more and more visible starting in 1987. The change, however, did not come right away, but certainly more hope emerged, and that was felt within the society.

How strong was the pressure from the Stasi to stop your work? What did the infiltration look like?

This pressure and the threats were part of our everyday life. But there was a big difference between the 1970s and the 1980s. In the mid-1970s with my friends I was printing and publishing secret underground political papers which we were later illegally spreading among people. This was very similar to the resistance work in the pre-war period of Nazi Germany. Things changed in the 1980s, though, when we said “we do many things and now we will be transparent and do them publicly”. We started to act and speak publically and express what we really thought. We did this in order to bring people together and talk with them openly. We lost our fear. We stopped acting secretly and began to approach people. We wanted to be frank with them and encourage them to act.

How did the regime react to this new wave of activism?

They tried to recruit some people into becoming secret agents. They also sent some of us to prison and tried to break them down there. In the 1980s, however, when the economic situation was the most complicated, the biggest protection came from the West. Thus, when someone was imprisoned, on the very same day in the evening, information was broadcasted by public television in West Germany. This is something that the GDR regime did not want. It did not want to be confronted with the public opinion outside the country.

The regime was also becoming weaker, yet the apathy of the society was a big problem. “I have no hope, I just want to leave,” was the attitude of many East Germans in the 1980s. That is why it came as no surprise that in the summer of 1989 as many as 50,000 people left East Germany immediately. Of course we were trying to convince these people to stay and do something. I personally believe that leaving the country for political reasons made no sense. If political reasons are your motivation you should to stay and do something for your country.

The big wave of protests that took place that summer soon brought about an end to the GDR. What was the role of the church in organising these protests?

The churches played an important role in the early phases. Many churches opened their doors and invited people to meet and exchange information. Many people came to the churches for peace prayers (Friedensgebet). After the prayers people were leaving the churches carrying with them both white candles (a symbol of the protest) and new information and encouraged to work for change, for more freedom.

In 1989 you formed the Social Democratic Party in the GDR. Why, despite being a pastor, did you decide to choose a strictly political path?

In 1988, after many of my colleagues had been sent to prison, I sat down with a friend, Martin Gutzeit, and we decided that the church could not be treated as an instrument for political opposition. The church, we agreed, had to be open to everyone, even though throughout this entire time the church played an important role in encouraging people to take action. As a matter of fact, this was a strictly Christian message. But it is not a Christian message to change the government. Thus, while in 1988 we had a plan to set up an organisation, by January 1989 we decided to establish a political party, which we called the “Social Democratic Party in the GDR” (SDP).

In 1990, after the free elections, the Social Democratic Party in the GDR formed a coalition-government. You become its foreign minister. Seven ministers of this government were pastors. How was it possible to have a constructive dialogue between such a government and the atheistic population within East Germany?

After the peaceful revolution there was a lot of trust in churches. We also did not make public prayers every day. We acted as politicians. We had to convince the people towards our ideas – Christians and atheists. As a matter of fact, you can see similar a phenomena in German politics today. In the German parliament, for instance, there are Christians, Muslims and atheists, but they do not talk about religion and their belief. They discuss the best solutions for pensioners; they make policy on education and on infrastructure.

In open societies everybody has their own beliefs, but in politics these beliefs are kept in the background as a personal conviction. It is not the politician’s job to bring everybody to church. I was often asked why we did not establish a Christian party. For me, when a political party is called “Christian” I feel that there is always a threat it will instrumentalise Christian beliefs for political aims. As a Christian I value human dignity, I care about those who are weaker. That is clear. But the Bible does not tell me how to manage traffic or organise a pension plan. In a democratic system I speak with everybody, not just Christians. We all need to combine our efforts to build a better world.

Are you then suggesting that the Christian Democratic Union, the party of Angela Merkel, should change its name?

I would not ask them to do that. But, personally, I would never use the word “Christian” in the name of a political party.

Do you think the Bible still influences German politics today?

I think that in Germany there are still a lot of people who are engaged Christians and who represent different parties. They are influenced by their beliefs which come from the Bible. Take a look at Merkel. I often criticised her because she is able to follow very different political positions, but rather focuses on all of those power games, wanting to be on top, in the end. She is a master of power games. That is why she can work in very different coalitions with very contradictory issues. She can change her mind from one day to the next. However, when it comes to the refugee crisis, she is heavily criticised today. I see some deep moral sentiments in her that come directly from her Christian faith. In other words, as Christians we cannot see people who are experiencing an existential disaster and push them back. In my opinion, this was the main reason why Merkel opened our doors to the refugees. And I appreciate that very much.

Markus Meckel is a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and politician. He was the foreign minister of the GDR after the first free elections, and later he became a member of the German Bundestag.

Łukasz Grajewski is the chairman of the Warsaw-based Common Europe Foundation and an editor with Eastbook.eu.

East Germany, GDR, Lutheranism, Protestantism, Religion and communism