Germany and the Confessional Divide

Religious Tensions and Political Culture, 1871-1989

Mark Edward Ruff, Thomas Großbölting

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781800730878
• eBook ISBN: 9781800730885
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

From German unification in 1871 through the early 1960s, confessional tensions between Catholics and Protestants were a source of deep division in German society. Engaging this period of historic strife, Germany and the Confessional Divide focuses on three traumatic episodes: the Kulturkampf waged against the Catholic Church in the 1870s, the collapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy and state-supported Protestantism after World War I, and the Nazi persecution of the churches. It argues that memories of these traumatic experiences regularly reignited confessional tensions. Only as German society became increasingly secular did these memories fade and tensions ease.

Table of contents

• Germany and the Confessional Divide
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One — The Kulturkampf and Catholic Identity
• Chapter Two — “Time to Close Ranks”: The Catholic Kulturfront during the Weimar Republic
• Chapter Three — The Revolution of 1918/19: The Traumatic Experience for German Protestanism
• Chapter Four — The Confessional Divide in Voting Behavior
• Chapter Five — The Fascist Origins of German Ecumenism
• Chapter Six — Conversion as a Confessional Irritant
• Chapter Seven — Imperfect Interconfessionalism: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Christian Democracy
• Chapter Eight — Importing Controversy: The Martin Luther Film of 1953 and Confessional Tensions
• Chapter Nine — In the Presence of Absence: Transformations of the Confessional Divide in West Germany after the Holocaust
• Chapter Ten — A Tense Triangle: The Protestant Church, the Catholic Church, and the SED State
• Chapter Eleven — A Minority between Confession and Politics: Catholicism in the Soviet Zone of Occupation and the GDR (1945–90)
• Chapter Twelve — The Churches and Changes in Missionary Work: Biconfessionalism and Developmental Aid to the “Third World” since the 1960s
• Chapter Thirteen — Deconfessionalization after 1945: Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Muslims as Actors within the Religious Sphere of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Conclusion — Closing Reflections
• Index