At the Edge of the Wall by Hanno Hochmuth

Author:Hanno Hochmuth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

CHURCH AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC SPHERE IN KREUZBERG

Kreuzberg is a prime example of the Protestant Church’s “reinvention” in the spirit of civil society. In the Kreuzberg church district,1 Protestant parishes developed in the 1970s into key protagonists and catalysts of participative and cautious urban renewal, which ultimately prevailed over the state’s redevelopment objectives. This was preceded by a diametrical shift in the church’s self-understanding. Kreuzberg churches originally emerged as strongholds in the midst of proletarian eastern Berlin.2 Empress Auguste Viktoria (1858–1921), in particular, championed the cause of building new churches with the aim of keeping working-class neighborhoods conservative through a ubiquitous church infrastructure.3 Even in their architecture, churches represented the alliance between throne and altar. This was especially clear in the Holy Cross Church (Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche) on Blücherstrasse, completed in 1888 and popularly known as the “spiked helmet” (Pickelhaube) because of its spire-crowned dome.4

The churches of Kreuzberg faced considerable challenges in the decades after World War II. The buildings themselves were often much too large. Parishes such as St. Thomas, which had boasted more than a hundred thousand parishioners at the turn of the century, had diminished to a few thousand members.5 Ever fewer people actively participated in the parish community. Urban redevelopment, or the expectations of urban redevelopment, permanently changed the social structure of Kreuzberg and church congregations were forced to react. Personally affected, they accompanied the process of urban renewal from a critical standpoint, creating new forms of the public sphere. A number of church communities, St. Martha’s parish among them, stood out in this regard. The commitment of individual pastors was always the decisive factor. A key protagonist who influenced the development of Kreuzberg working from within the church was pastor Klaus Duntze (1935–2016), whose work will be depicted in the following section. Duntze was instrumental in initiating “Strategies for Kreuzberg” in 1977, of which more below. Finally, the squatting movement of the 1980s posed new challenges for the church, the example of the St. Thomas parish serving here as an example.

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