ABSTRACT
Various social scientific studies emphasize that the shared experience of the radical transformation of social, political, economic, religious and cultural institutions has given East Germans a distinct perspective of the world. East German society is considered one of the most secularized societies in the world: it has reached the lowest levels of religious affiliation in Europe. Secularization was imposed by the political project of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) government, but social and family dynamics have maintained secularity tenaciously as a 'habitus' after that government and its repressive authority disappeared. East German society is also characterized by other features that are linked indirectly to religion. Its creation during the early 1990s was a response to the needs of those who had grown up in the GDR and were now released from prison but did not feel comfortable with turning to institutions that they considered to be Western.
