ABSTRACT
One of the most intriguing aspects of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was the role played by the Protestant clergy. Although Marxism is disdainful of the rights of the individual, proposing to abolish them in order to liberate the proletariat and all of humanity, a point of view that is diametrically opposed to Christianity which as an historical movement has always insisted upon the inviolability of the rights of the individual, the recently converted Marxist theologians suddenly espoused this view. The Marxist utopia, as many East German intellectuals had come to understand it, legitimized the abolition of civil rights, seeing them as integral parts of an anachronistic bourgeois civilization. It was inevitable that East German professionals would quickly grasp the message and flock to the "workers and peasants party" to become part of the wiser, morally superior elite, who knew what was best for the ordinary people.
