Christian responsibility

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Head of the magazine

Christian Responsibility ( CV ) was a religious magazine that appeared in the GDR from 1965 to 1990 . It was issued with the support of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in order to weaken and decompose the religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses , which had been banned in the GDR since 1950, and to encourage members to break away from the Watchtower Society .

history

The magazine and the association of the same name were founded in 1959. The first editor until 1970 was the former area servant of Jehovah's Witnesses Willy Müller, who as IM "Rolf" tried to work with other groups that were critical of the Jehovah's Witness leadership. The magazine appeared in an edition of 5000 to 6000 copies, printed in the printing house "Volkswacht" in Greiz. It was not on the official list of postal newspapers in the GDR. The way of distribution was the post. Selected Jehovah's Witnesses and Jehovah opponents at home and abroad received the booklet without details of the return address. The magazine also reached many Jehovah's Witnesses in the Federal Republic of Germany, especially if they had relatives in the GDR who were subjected to repression because of their religious activities.

The magazine was quoted many times, for example in the internal church service journal “Sektenkundliche Mitteilungen” of the GDR. The historian Waldemar Hirch estimates that 80–85% of the articles published there were taken directly from the CV. This could influence the attitude of the church leadership and the pastors towards Jehovah's Witnesses. The State Security of the GDR spoke internally of the "decomposing magazine 'Christian Responsibility'".

After Willy Müller's death, "Wolfgang Daum" (real name: Karl-Heinz Simdorn, IM "Heini Turner") published the magazine from 1970. The main contributor was Dieter Pape (IM "Wilhelm"), who wrote the book Jehovah's Witnesses in 1970 . Issued a documentation about the Watchtower Society . Most of the 40 or so members of the CV's editorial team were trained with this documentation. Background information from the MfS was included in the CV without citing the source, fictional stories and letters to the editor about Jehovah's Witnesses were distributed, and conversations were constructed on the basis of personality analyzes of the leading Jehovah's Witnesses. The magazine was financed primarily by the Ministry for State Security and the State Secretariat for Church Affairs . There was also a donation account at the Bank for Commerce and Industry in Gera. The total strength of the study group was around 180 active people, 30 of whom belonged to the editorial team, which met regularly in Berlin and Gera.

From February 1990 to 1993 the magazine was continued by the last editor "Henry Werner" (real name: Werner Struck) and then discontinued.

In 1993, Dieter Papes nephew, the Catholic graduate theologian Klaus-Dieter Pape, in Tübingen the organization "Christian Ministries e. V. “From mid-1993 he published the magazine Aus christlicherresponsibility , of which 12 issues had appeared until 1996. Dieter Pape also worked on the board of the association. When at the end of 1996 Klaus-Dieter Pape disclosed his previous work with the Stasi, he resigned his office at the insistence of the chairman and left the association.

literature

  • Gerhard Besier , Clemens Vollnhals (ed.): Repression and self-assertion. The Jehovah's Witnesses under the Nazi and SED dictatorship (= contemporary historical research . Volume 21). Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10605-9 .
  • André Gursky: Between Enlightenment and Decomposition. On the influence of the MfS on the Jehovah's Witnesses in the GDR using the example of the Pape brothers (= contributions in kind . Volume 27). State representative for the records of the State Security Service of the former GDR in Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg 2003.
  • Gerald Hacke: Jehovah's Witnesses in the GDR. Persecution and behavior of a religious minority (= reports and studies . Volume 24). Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism , Dresden 2000, ISBN 3-931648-26-5 .
  • Gerald Hacke: The Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich and in the GDR: Enemy and Persecution Practice (= Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research: Writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research , Volume 41). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-36917-3 (dissertation TU Dresden [2011], 457 pages).
  • Waldemar Hirch: The religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses during the SED dictatorship with special consideration of their observation and suppression by the Ministry for State Security (= European university publications . Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences , Volume 980). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-631-51620-7 (Dissertation Fernuniversität Hagen 2003, 430 pages).
  • Waldemar Hirch (ed.): Decomposition of a religious community. The secret service processing of Jehovah's Witnesses in the GDR . Corona, Niedersteinbach 2001, ISBN 3-00-006250-5
  • Gabriele Yonan: Jehovah's Witnesses. Victims under two German dictatorships. 1933-1945, 1949-1989 (= Numinos . Volume 1). Corona Consalting, Niedersteinbach 1999, ISBN 3-00-004151-6 (157 pages).
  • Gabriele Yonan (Ed.): In the sights of STASI: Jehovah's Witnesses in the GDR . With a foreword by Ehrhart Neubert . With contributions by: Annegret Dirksen ... Edition Corona, Niedersteinbach 2000, ISBN 978-3-00-005626-0 (352 pages).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus habenicht: The MfS as a religious 'enlightener' , in: Der Stacheldraht , issue 5/2012. The sources mentioned here come from the BStU documents .
  2. ↑ BStU document 000068, District Administration for State Security Department XX, Lieutenant Colonel Hohberger to the Stasi Berlin, H-section XX, Gera 15 September 1989
  3. ↑ Klaus-Dieter Pape is the son of Günther Pape, not Dieter Pape. This is z. B. in the blurb of his book Die Angstmacher , St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1998.
  4. ↑ Table of contents and excerpts ( Memento from December 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )