The Lutheran Church and the East German state : political conflict and change under Ulbricht and Honecker

Robert Goeckel here explains why, despite the ideological antagonism between Marxism–Leninism and Christianity, a working relationship developed between East Germany's Communist rulers and the country's Evangelical Lutheran Church. By reconstructing how the church won a measure of autonomy and became a forum for dissent, The Lutheran Church and the East German State deepens our understanding of the popular forces that swept the Honecker regime from power in the fall of 1989.