Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State

A Documentary History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in East Germany, 1945-1990

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Raymond Kuehne
Foreword by Ronald Smelser

From 1945 to 1990, communist East Germany existed as an officially atheistic state. Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State is the first objective study of the history and experiences of the thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the country during that time. They faced discrimination and difficulties, but by the time of a 1988 meeting between church president Thomas S. Monson and East German chairman Erich Honecker that permitted the entry of Western missionaries, the church had nonetheless succeeding in achieving full legal status, organizing stakes and ordaining patriarchs, dedicating the only temple ever built in a communist state, and constructing numerous meeting houses throughout the nation.

Author Raymond M. Kuehne provides evidence and descriptions of those milestones for the East German LDS church from previously unpublished documents, and also offers in-depth descriptions of the church’s youth and missionary programs and of the experiences of its members in educational and professional pursuits. Kuehne also incorporates into his work the personal interpretations of East German Saints’ of the Church’s traditional teachings regarding their responsibility to honor and support the government under which they lived.

Kuehne objectively presents a montage of government and church records, personal interviews, and pertinent background information. In doing so, he requires that readers evaluate the evidence in order to reach their own conclusions regarding the success of the church in dealing with a persistent and dominant political ideology that for many years tried to destroy their religious institution, and if the church’s many success and accomplishments in such an environment necessitated a compromise of its governing principles.

Raymond M. Kuehne was born in New York City of German immigrant parents and has studied as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Marburg and as a National Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the University of Virginia. He served in the North German Mission and the Freiberg Temple Mission. Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State was originally published in German in February of 2008.

Praises and Reviews:

“Kuehne has written the book for an impartial, curious reader who wishes to form his own opinion about what took place with the members of this little religious organization in the GDR. This approach distinguishes itself favorably from so many other accounts and biographies of the history of churches and religious organizations in the GDR. This exciting book should not only be read, it should be studied.”
- Joachim Heise, Institute for Comparative State-Church Research, Berlin