ABSTRACT
Since the unification of Germany in 1871, the country’s churches have functioned under five distinct systems: Imperial Germany (1871–1918), with a privileged status for the Protestant Church in most of the country and for the Catholic Church in Bavaria; the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), which adopted a constitution that ‘pledged the neutrality of the state in religious affairs’ (Froese and Pfaff, 2005, 404) and was viewed with disfavour by the two major churches; the Third Reich (1933–1945), which worked to corrupt Christianity by delegitimating the Old Testament and reimagining Jesus of Nazareth as an ‘Aryan’ (i.e. non-Jew), while setting up a pro-Nazi German Christian Movement, which some Protestants joined; the German Democratic Republic (1949–1990), a communist state which promoted the secularisation of society and succeeded in dramatically reducing the number of Protestants within its borders; and the Federal Republic of Germany, in two incarnations – the so-called Bonn Republic (1949–1990) and reunified Germany (1990–present), both of which have been committed to preserving a multi-party system with a free press, guarantees of human rights, and Church–state separation.
