Anabaptist Tradition and State Authority in Germany, 1918 to 1990

自宗教改革以来，各种自由的新教教会与主流社会的分离和冲突一起发展。在这个过程中，他们的成员也抵制国家的权威，因为它限制了他们信仰的自由实践。因此，他们的宗教信仰不是私人问题，而是具有政治层面。在此背景下，对于第一次世界大战和统一之间的德国，该项目一方面探讨了国家与自由教会行动的变化和连续性，另一方面探讨了自由教会对国家的态度和行为模式。本研究报告所涉时期将不会平均涵盖;相反，分析将有意限于1918年、1933年、1945年和1989/1990年前后的动乱阶段。这些年标志着政治制度的变化，每一个都产生了关于自由教会和国家权力之间关系的定义和校准的一系列具体挑战，对自由教会和狭义上的政治主角都是挑战。在每一种情况下，后者都面临着确定未来政治秩序控制宗教领域的范围和制定实施这些要求的战略的任务。对于作为机构的自由教会及其成员个人来说，政治转型的每一个阶段都提出了一个新的问题，即鉴于价值观和规范要求无条件的有效性，他们应该在多大程度上以服从、异议或公民不服从来回应未来的政治秩序。分析集中在自由教会，以不同的方式，认为和认为自己的信徒的再洗礼派传统。更具体地说，重点将放在门诺派教徒、浸礼会教徒和（哈特派）布鲁德霍夫的生活方式上，既在他们的（国家）协会一级，也在选定的会众一级。

Since the days of the Reformation, various free Protestant churches have evolved alongside the established churches in dissociation from and conflict with mainstream society. In the process, their members also resisted the authority of the state to the extent that it restricted the free practice of their faith. Their religious beliefs were accordingly not a private matter but took on political dimensions. Against this background, for Germany between World War I and the reunification, the project inquires into the changes and continuities in state action with the free churches on the one hand, and the free-church attitudes and modes of behaviour towards the state on the other. The period addressed by the study will not be covered evenly; rather, the analysis will deliberately be limited to the phases of upheaval around 1918, 1933, 1945 and 1989/1990. These years marking changes of political system each generated their own specific set of challenges with regard to the definition and calibration of the relationship between the free churches and state authority, challenges both for the free churches as well as for political protagonists in the narrow sense. In each case, the latter were faced with the task of determining the scope of the future political orders claims to control over the religious sphere and developing strategies for enforcing those claims. For the free churches as institutions, as well as for their individual members, each of these phases of political transition raised the question anew as to the extent to which they should respond to the future political order with obedience, dissent or civil disobedience in view of values and norms claiming unconditional validity. The analysis concentrates on the free churches that, in different ways, regarded and regard themselves adherents to the Anabaptist tradition. More specifically, the focus will be on Mennonites, Baptists and the lifestyle of the (Hutterite) Bruderhof, both on the level of their (national) associations and on the level of selected congregations.