ABSTRACT
The first attempts to introduce lessons on atheism into university teaching are documented in Rostock in the late 1950s and in Jena and Leipzig in the mid-1960s. However, the early 1970s offered a particularly favourable political context for achieving this goal on a large scale. The scientific atheists led by Olof Klohr produced abundant material to help teachers and instruct students in the compulsory lectures on Marxism-Leninism and in special courses on scientific atheism, adapted to an already widely indifferent audience. The lectures’ content evolved significantly between the oldest syllabuses preserved in 1965 and 1989, from confrontation with religion to cooperation and basic religious knowledge for students raised completely without it. Everywhere, however, these efforts were met with obstacles, resistance, disinterest and indifference on the part of teachers and decision-makers in the universities.
