«Father from Berghain»
How a Berlin church helped prepare the ground for German reunification
For the project "Wir sind Friedrichsfelde", the podcast "Chancellor and Berghain" (Alex Yusupov and Dima Vachedin) recorded a special episode about the history of Dorfkirche Friedrichsfelde, which in the early 1980s became a site of unusual events and gatherings: peace activists, representatives of environmental movements, dissidents, feminists, and countercultural groups met there — all under the surveillance of the Stasi.

Key topics of the episode:
- The complex relationship between the church and the state in the GDR — the Protestant population sharply declined from 80% to 25% over several decades;
- Sermons accompanied by electronic music and unconventional forms of engaging with young people;
- Walks through the revolutionary cemetery and comparisons of various Liebknechts;
- An attempt to answer the question of why even a "peaceful revolution" can "devour its own children" — i.e., why the ideals and actual consequences of historical events often diverge;
- A discussion of how the church may have contributed to paving the way for German reunification.

You can listen to other episodes of the podcast here.
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