Losing Heaven: Religion in Germany Since 1945 by Thomas Großbölting (review)

In the introduction to the finely translated edition of his 2013 work, Der verlorene Himmel, Glaube in Deutschland seit 1945, Thomas Großbölting sharply contrasts the Western European Christianity of centuries past with the beliefs and practice of Christians in Europe today. No longer does Western Europe send missionaries to bring Christianity to the world but rather, Europe has "long since become an object of mission itself" (1). For Großbölting, this point is particularly true in Germany where a recent poll revealed that less than thirteen percent of Catholics attend Sunday Mass on a regular basis. This decline in religious practice has taken place over a relatively brief period. Still, Großbölting assures his reader, "heaven has not disappeared, but it has been lost to an increasing number of individuals and within an ever-expanding range of social contexts" (4). His book seeks to explain the genesis of this phenomenon within the history of modern Germany. While his work does include brief examinations of non-Christian religions, Großbölting stresses that German society is fundamentally not multireligious and so chooses primarily to focus his study on the mainstream Christian Churches.

Change in religiosity had already begun before the Second World War ended. Though soon after the war, Church leaders propagated images of overflowing churches and thriving congregations, in reality, the Kulturkampf-like anti-church measures and church withdrawal campaigns of the National Socialists negatively affected both Protestantism and Catholicism. While he does not sufficiently develop this point, Großbölting does present the Catholic Church as an institution, in many Germans' eyes, which survived National Socialism uncorrupted. Even the occupying British authorities, Großbolting points out, invited Clemens August von Galen, the bishop of Münster, to head the civil government in their zone. He declined. The Protestants faced greater challenges due to the action of some of their leaders under National Socialism, especially the pro-Nazi German Christian pastors and supporters. Still, in the war's immediate aftermath, the personnel of both Churches in Western Germany enjoyed greater mobility and freedoms than most Germans. The Churches' opposition to the Allies' denazification efforts and collective guilt thesis also strengthened their standing among the German population. However, the Churches would soon face new challenges as population shifts and an economic upturn pushed the country towards a more consumeristic society. Too often during this time, Church leaders emphasized the quantitative aspect, i.e., sacramental statistics, over the more substantive theological-social pastoral issues facing their congregants. As Cardinal Joseph Frings, archbishop of Cologne, lamented in 1952, "the actual influence of the Catholic Church is no longer matched by any religious substance" (27). In many ways, pastoral care and preaching failed to address the issues faced by most people who had lived through the horrors of war.

The Federal Republic was open to working with the Christian Churches. Adapting the religious guarantees of the former Weimar constitution for the Basic Law of the Federal Republic, political leaders ensured that the new state would protect the Churches. In turn, the Churches welcomed Church Tax revenue and the integration of church representatives as chaplains and advocates in state institutions. Großbölting concludes, "To this day Western Germany is a 'religion-friendly state'" (55). Old confessional tensions, of course, remained as evidenced by the Ochsenfurt Incident of June 1953 when Julius Döpfner, bishop of Würzburg, refused to consecrate a sugar factory alongside Wilhelm Schwinn, the dean of the Evangelical Lutheran Würzburg deanery.

In the mid to late 1950s, and especially in the 1960s, religious and political life rapidly began to change in Germany. The rise of mixed marriages broke down confessional barriers. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) political party diminished its ties to what remained of the former Catholic Center party and increasingly presented itself under Konrad Adenauer's leadership as a Christian party for all Germans. Gradually, more Protestants...