Women of the quiet frontline: Four pastors in atheist Brandenburg
Thirty-five years after Germany's reunification, Brandenburg – the rural state surrounding Berlin – shows both promise and peril. Economic modernization has not prevented social fragmentation. Political freedoms coexist with mistrust. In this vacuum, populism thrives. Yet in the quiet, unhurried work of four women pastors, another possibility flickers: that civic trust can be rebuilt from the bottom up, sometimes with beer and a Bible.
February 22, 2026 - Ulrike Butmaloiu
