Volume 74, Issue 5

Despite considerable efforts and legal regulations after the end of the SED dictatorship to cope with its systemic injustice, many of the political victims suffer still today from long-term consequences of imprisonment, repression, truncated biographies and destroyed liveabilities. Often these forms of suffering cannot be addressed or cured by means of legal categories. Rather a sensitive treatment of these victims and their relatives as well as public perception and respect are necessary. This task remains yet unfinished in the process of dealing with the SED dictatorship.

This contribution maps out biblical traces of reconciliation within the spectrum of love and justice. Surprisingly, especially motifs that appear to be opposed to an attitude and practice of reconciliation bear a helping hand. This applies to »an eye for an eye« as practice of dealing with the consequences of guilt as well as to the concept of God’s revenge as a possibility of refraining from one’s own retribution without giving up the general idea of justice. This basic tension underlies both the stories of reconciliation - which are surprisingly rare in the Bible - and a ritual of reconciliation. Moreover, this contribution addresses the difference between reconciliation and forgiveness and finally discusses the impetus that biblical reminiscences can give for present action of reconciliation, even if offender and victim are not connected by a common relation to Bible and faith.

How did the united Germany address the human rights violations of the communist dictatorship in Eastern Germany? This question is particularly intriguing as the process of accounting for the past was interrupted and postponed by the reunification with West-Germany. In spite of having made use of tribunals, lustrations, truth-commissions and reparations, two important reconciliation tools - political apologies and amnesties - have not been used during that time. As a consequence, the reconciliation of the former perpetrators and victims has remained incomplete.

An eschatological approach to the topic of reconciliation seems to be most promising in several respects. Taking the process of reconciliation in South Africa and the German penal system as examples of the probation of the eschatological hope of reconciliation on earth, this contribution examines in which way(s) this approach is viable. It shows that freedom, which creates reconciliation as hope based on justification of all, is deliverance towards forgiveness as a liberating process from the outside that presupposes being gifted from God.

Der Landeskirchenrat der Evangelischen Kirche in Mitteldeutschland hat im Mai dieses Jahres beschlossen, einen »Brief an die Gemeinden« zu versenden. Vorausgegangen waren nach einer oft zitierten und umstrittenen Äußerung der Landesbischöfin Ilse Junkermann vor der Synode der EKM im Herbst 2009 (s. u.) Gespräche mit in diesem Thema Engagierten und Betroffenen. Dabei wurde deutlich, dass in den Gemeinden weitaus weniger »aufgearbeitet« wurde als auf der Fachebene, in den Betroffenenverbänden, in den Kirchenleitungen. Mit dem »Brief an die Gemeinden« verbindet der Landeskirchenrat die Hoffnung, dass die Gemeinden Räume für den immer noch schwachen Dialog von früher politisch Verfolgten mit früheren Verantwortlichen öffnen und dass sie zu Versöhnungsgebeten einladen. Dafür sind ebenso wie für die Arbeit am Thema mit KonfirmandInnen und mit Jugendlichen in der Gemeindearbeit wie im Religionsunterricht Materialien zusammengestellt worden. Ein vergleichbares Vorhaben in den ostdeutschen Kirchen gab es in der EKBO (Evangelische Kirche in Berlin-Brandenburg und der schlesischen Oberlausitz). Der »Brief an die Gemeinden« der EKM wird hier in seinem ersten einführenden Teil dokumentiert.