Studies on atheism in the German Democratic Republic
Principal Investigator
Dr. Eva Guigo-Patzelt
Centre d’études en sciences sociales du religieux
EHESS: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris
The eastern part of Germany is a widely secularized region. Religious affiliation fell from 94% in 1946 to about 28% in 1990 and the proportion of people identifying as “not at all religious” has persisted in the post-Soviet period. The main causes of this change remain disputed.
In the Soviet period proponents of “scientific atheism” pursued a sociology of atheism aimed at discovering the collective and individual correlations that favour atheism in order to hasten the evolution of a perfect atheistic society. Its representatives also actively sought influence on decision makers, students, youth and the general population.
Eva Guigo-Patzelt’s PhD thesis (completed 2021) provided the first overview of the general development and inner logics of scientific atheism in the German Democratic Republic. Through a grant from the Explaining Atheism programme an English language translation of this work is now available in print and as a fully open access E Book from Taylor & Francis.
The project also convened a significant conference in Paris in 2023: Communist perspectives on atheism in the 20th Century which brought together scholars from around the world to examine differences and commonalities in the history of atheism across former Soviet bloc countries as well as other national contexts where communism became a significant political and social force such as India and Nigeria.
Publications
Scientific Atheism in East Germany (1963-1990) How to turn a hare into a lion (2024) Taylor & Francis
Communist perspectives on atheism in the 20th century, Eva Guigo-Patzelt (ed.), with additional commentary from Victoria Smolkin, Todd Weir and Pierre-Antoine Fabre (forthcoming 2025) Taylor & Francis
