The following special report on Berlin was written forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. Harold B. Kuhn, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Theological Seminary. Now on leave, he has divided his time between the United States and Europe for the last nine years.
This city, surrounded by the Soviet Zone of Germany, is a focal point in the struggle between East and West. As a city divided, its two halves seem somehow to sum up that struggle. In the relationship between the two parts, one sees reflected the tug-of-war between the forces of the free world and those of the Soviet Union, the stakes being control of Western Europe and ultimately the rest of the free West.
The “Greater Berlin” of a generation ago exists only as a memory, or else as a dream of the future. Berlin has always been a collection of villages and its status as a first-class city is a relatively new one. Now the outer settlements have been incorporated in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (ironically called “The German Democratic Republic”). West Berlin contains 12 out of the remaining 20 boroughs and 2.2 million people.
Left a shambles at the close of World War II, Berlin lacked the materials needed for rapid rebuilding. The coming of the blockade of 1948–49 and of the “cold war” arrested the reconstruction of West Berlin, which had been begun on a modest scale. The hardening of the zonal division of Germany and of the partition of Berlin, which the exceedingly vital currency reform of early 1948 precipitated, created in West Berlin a new sense of solidarity with the West. General Lucius Clay was a hero in those days, no less than Mayor Ernst Reuter.
Today the two halves of Berlin reflect respectively the differing standards of living of the Communist world and the free world. On the one hand, West Berlin is being rebuilt on a scale which is surprising when measured against her difficulties. Shop windows are full of first-line merchandise. New shopping areas are springing up, rivaling the long-famous Kurfurstendamm. Parks and recreation areas are being built with remarkable speed.
In East Berlin, however, there is little general rebuilding. While Stalinallee (Stalin Avenue) is rebuilt as a show-place, elsewhere each tries to hold on to what he had. In the rather outdated apartments of Stalinallee are “family collectives” for “reliable people’s democrats”—i.e., Communist party activists.
The East Berlin government faces the West with increasing toughness of outlook and method. To the regime of Ulbricht, Grotewohl and Pieck, everything is charged with political meaning. Every association and every movement is measured by the possible impact which it may have upon the political strength of the satellite government. Bishop Otto Dibelius has just expressed to this writer and his wife the view that, with the events in Hungary and Poland, the East Berlin government is pressed by the Kremlin to assume the role of the “most reliable satellite.” The Soviet masters have been abruptly shaken in other parts of their empire and seem determined to firm up the rim of their holdings.
Sheer cynicism seems to guide Red Boss Walter Ulbricht. Himself a creature of the Stalin era at its worst, he has just hastened to approve Khrushchev’s expulsion of Stalinists from their deputy pre-mierships. The constant parade of slogans in East Berlin likewise reflects an utter disregard for truth and fact.
From this vantage point, one sees the day-and-night struggle of Communism for the minds and souls of men. This struggle is waged with special vigor for the loyalties of the youth. Just now the most vicious attack at this point is that posed by the Jugendweihe or Youth Consecration. This is a secular version of religious confirmation and is urged upon all teen-agers as a patriotic duty. The church, both Protestant and Catholic, has responded with a clear assertion that no youth could receive both church confirmation and “Youth Consecration.” This writer has good reason to believe that even in the strongly industrialized areas the Reds’ “Consecration” ceremony is affecting but a small minority, while in many smaller towns no youth has participated in it.
The pressures, exerted in the name of patriotism, are fierce as they are brought to bear upon the youth in the cities. The entire ritual leading up to this ceremony is so offensive to the Christian conscience that it is small wonder that both Protestant and Catholic leaders have declared that the one who submits to it commits sin against the Christian faith.
Another point of struggle has been the question of whether the German Protestant church should furnish a chaplains corps for the new West German army. This has been a bitterly contested point in both West and East Germany. The opposition has felt that to provide chaplains is to give church consent to a remilitarized Germany. The viewpoint of such leaders as Bishop Dibelius has been that since the West German army is a fact, its men deserve moral and spiritual care.
It is significant that in the Lutheran church the percentage of ministers voting for a chaplains corps was higher in East Germany than in the West. This has perplexed and angered the East German government so greatly that it constitutes a major point of friction with the church.
Article continues below
At this moment the church plays a role which is umpire among the institutions of East Germany. She is the only effective link between the two halves of the divided country. Despite overpowering difficulties and an ever-changing pattern of harassments, the church manages to maintain some of her contacts and to keep open the traffic of ideas.
Again, the church is the only effective agency of opposition to the tyranny of the East Berlin government. Her leaders are frequently subjected to restrictions upon travel back and forth, and are compelled to struggle daily against heartbreaking problems. Yet they maintain a calm dignity as an opposing force.
Dr. Otto Dibelius, Bishop of Berlin and Brandenburg, stands in an especially significant place in this respect, since his area of responsibility includes the whole of Berlin and the administrative province of the Communist government that surrounds it. He has shared with the writer some of the difficulties with which his office is beset. Yet amid these he maintains the standard that “we must obey God rather than man” with a calm dignity born of faith.
No one who is well informed will predict an easy triumph of the church in this struggle. To the contrary, the situation promises that the East German church may live in the crucible of testing for some time. Yet she stands as a sentinel in the dark night of communist rule, awaiting with hope the dawn of a more felicitous day.
Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.
Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
A Christian reconciliation group in Israel and Palestine warned that war would come. Now the war threatens their relevance.العربيةFrançais
Christian artists work at the intersection of music and climate change.
