Paper short abstract:

Many South African exiles had religious roots, but religion was under pressure in the GDR. I will argue that being in contact with East-German Christians, South Africans got a unique insight into inner-social tensions in the GDR and early realised social problems becoming crucial in 1989.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1960s, the ANC received direct assistance from the Socialist Bloc. And socialist countries recognized the ANC rather as freedom fighters than as terrorists like the West. In publications on the ANC’s history and in autobiographies of ANC members, socialist states are therefore often presented as the “more natural place to be”.

Using personal interviews and archival documents as primary sources, my doctoral thesis uncovers diverse viewpoints and experiences of ANC exiles in East-Germany. Since they lived, worked and studied amongst and with their German fellows, they participated in a socialist everyday life and got insight into many spheres of the East-German society. In my paper, I’d like to focus on experiences of ANC-activists with the marginalised East-German protestant church. Mostly, ANC-members were seen as communists in the GDR. But for South Africans, religion and Marxist ideology sometimes went together and East-German church-structures played an important role for those South Africans with Christian roots. They took part in church-seminars and weekend-gatherings, they even married in a church. The East-German Gossner Mission hosted two South Africans. But reading their reports it becomes obvious, that due to their involvement in church-structures, South Africans early became aware of inner-East-German tensions that erupted in 1989.