The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Mecklenburg in the 20th century dictatorships (1961 to 1989/90)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Veronika Albrecht-Birkner
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 455730097

The need for longer-term contextualising perspectives on the 20th century has been emphasised in recent years in both church and general historiography. In church history, in addition to biographical studies, an approach based on the regional churches lends itself to such a long-term perspective, as these were characterised to a large extent by institutional and personal continuity across social change and political caesuras. The aim of the proposed project is to compile a monograph on the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg from 1961 to 1989/90, following on from the research carried out in the first funding phase on the history of the regional church during the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, the Soviet Occupation Zone and the early years of the GDR. The long research period allows comparative statements to be made about long-term lines of development that have not previously been available in this form for a single regional church. Methodologically, the project combines a synchronous approach with diachronic perspectives of sectoral dictatorship comparison. The political framework conditions are taken for granted, but at the same time questions are asked about cross-system continuities, historical narratives, cultures of remembrance and the consequences of generational changes. The aim is to sharpen and test historical assessment criteria with a view to the possibilities and limitations of Protestantism in the dictatorships of the 20th century. This approach proved successful in the first funding phase. The striking regional and, despite difficult conditions, socially relevant example of GDR Protestantism is simultaneously read and interpreted as a substantial part of the history of all-German Protestantism. The focus of the study is not institutional history in the narrower sense, but rather the reconstruction of discursive processes between theological, cultural and pious-historical as well as socio-political forces and factors at the various levels of the regional church. These are often barely recognised, but in fact continue to have an effect in their long-term dynamics and are therefore highly relevant to the present day. In addition to materials available in printed form, extensive archival material of both state and regional church provenance is available as a source corpus, so that macro-, meso-, micro- and person-related approaches can be combined, and focal topics can be identified.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants