Musik der Kirche in der DDR: Wahrnehmungen eines Zeitzeugen

Abstract

On the basis of personal experience, essential characteristics of church music in the GDR are presented. They are only understandable in connection with the political situation and especially the role of the churches in the GDR. In a massively atheistic society, subject to numerous external restrictions, church work formed an important alternative to the state-imposed way of thinking. Especially church music – at that time almost exclusively cultivated by churched persons – offered manifold possibilities for the proclamation of the Gospel. We must not forget the many effective forms of assistance that the churches in the Federal Republic of Germany provided in this regard.