Changes

:::Angela Merkel is not an atheist. Her father was a Protestant pastor, and she was brought up as a Lutheran. Making religious references is not common in German politics, but she has done so on several occasions - e.g. adding the optional phrase "so help me God" when she was sworn in as chancellor, and mentioning "Europe's Judaeo-Christian heritage" in her recent speech on the 50th anniversary of the EU. She's also a member of the Lutheran Church, as far as I know. Unless a source about this supposed atheism can be provided, I'm going to remove it. [[User:AKjeldsen|AKjeldsen]] 17:24, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Angela Merkel is not an atheist. Her father was a Protestant pastor, and she was brought up as a Lutheran. Making religious references is not common in German politics, but she has done so on several occasions - e.g. adding the optional phrase "so help me God" when she was sworn in as chancellor, and mentioning "Europe's Judaeo-Christian heritage" in her recent speech on the 50th anniversary of the EU. She's also a member of the Lutheran Church, as far as I know. Unless a source about this supposed atheism can be provided, I'm going to remove it. [[User:AKjeldsen|AKjeldsen]] 17:24, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

The GDR didn't disapprove religion in any form, it tolerated religion as long as it didn't interfere with their business. One the one hand you had a fairly active church movement, where the peaceful revolution in 1989 started, and on the other hand you had a  Christian democratic party also called CDU, who had joined the communists in the so-called "national people's front". In elections you could only vote on the "national peoples front", and the seats were distributed beforehand. The christian democratic party, and a few other minor parties in the front had members in the East German parliament. Of course they had little choice but to agree with the Communists. If you were Christian and wanted to be left alone or even get ahead in you job, these parties were the place to be. After the fall of the wall, the Christian democratic party joined other conservative oppositional parties in the "Alliance for Germany", which later united with the west-German CDU. [[User:Order|Order]] 04:54, 7 October 2007 (EDT)

The GDR didn't disapprove religion in any form, it tolerated religion as long as it didn't interfere with their business. One the one hand you had a fairly active church movement, where the peaceful revolution in 1989 started, and on the other hand you had a  Christian democratic party also called CDU, who had joined the communists in the so-called "national front". In elections you could only vote on the "national front", and the seats were distributed beforehand. The Christian democratic party, and a few other minor parties in the front had members in the East German parliament, about 40% of the seats. THe communists had 25%, and the rest was occupied by mass organisations, like the trade unions, women's league, young socialists, who were of course closely affiliated with the Socialist Unity Party (SED). Of course it didn't make much of a difference, and acual debat was almost unheard of in parliament. They just approved whatever the politburo wanted. If you were Christian and wanted to be left alone, study or even get ahead in you job, these parties were the place to be. After the fall of the wall, the Christian democratic party joined other conservative oppositional parties in the "Alliance for Germany", which later united with the west-German CDU. [[User:Order|Order]] 04:54, 7 October 2007 (EDT)