ABSTRACT
Under the pressure of the East–West conflict, the danger of nuclear conflagration, the deployment of medium-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe in 1983 and the announcement of Soviet counter-measures, accompanied by repeated calls from German Democratic Republic (GDR) leader Erich Honecker for a “coalition of reason” transcending class and worldview, philosophers in the GDR had begun to reassess issues of war and peace and the role of Christian believers. It was argued that in the struggle for peace, Christian faith was no longer an ideology to be combated, but Christian theology itself could offer a basis for cooperation with Marxist–Leninists in tackling global problems facing humanity. The accession of Mikhail Gorbachev to power in the Soviet Union in March 1985 and his embrace of “new thinking” in international relations accelerated the process whereby humanistic considerations and universal values took priority over the traditional “class approach” in Marxism–Leninism. This chapter explores the implications of this paradigm shift for relations with churches and religious communities in the GDR in the period 1982–1987. Although there were indeed positive examples of dialogue between Marxists and Christians during this period, this redefinition of philosophical perspectives was unable to provide a sustainable basis for cooperation between Marxists and Christians in the GDR, given the significant discrepancy between the perspectives implied by this approach and the political practice of the ruling Sozialistische Einheitspartei (SED) party.
