Date Thesis Awarded

5-2024

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelors of Arts (BA)

Department

History

Advisor

Tuska Benes

Committee Members

Philip Daileader

Alexander Angelov

Abstract

The historiography on Martin Luther in the German Democratic Republic was a complex and fluid process of heritage building with direct influence on how the state positioned itself [TB1] in relation to the church. Martin Luther is a monumental figure in German history and has figured prominently in the construction of German national identity. When the GDR sought to build a socialist society after the Second World War, many existing aspects of Lutheran identity in the areas that now made up the GDR, had to be renegotiated due to their direct conflict with socialist principles. The East German state sidelined the Protestant Church for being an alternative site of power and ideology and for its perceived collaboration with the Nazi regime. Martin Luther lost standing under the GDR as he was the founder of German Protestant thought and a main proponent of collaboration with princely authorities. However, the relationship between the Lutheran church and the state in the GDR began to shift, and by the 1960s the church had established itself as a normalized part of socialist society. With this integration of church and society, Luther’s importance to the GDR began to become realized. In this emergent context, Gerhard Brendler penned his 1983 biography, Martin Luther: Theologie und Revolution. This book defined a new era of historiography in the GDR as Luther changed from a bourgeois villain to a hero of the people.

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