Mormons As Citizens of a Communist State ─ A Documentary History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in East Germany, 1945-1990

"Kuehne has written the book for an impartial, curious reader who wishes to form his own opinion about what took place with the members of this little religious organization in the GDR. This approach distinguishes itself favorably from so many other accounts and biographies of the history of churches and religious organizations in the GDR.

This exciting book should not only be read, it should be studied."---Joachim Heise, Institute for Comparative State-Church Research, Berlin

From 1945 to 1990, communist East Germany existed as an officially atheistic state. Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State is the first objective study of the history and experiences of the thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the country during that time. They faced discrimination and difficulties, but by the time of a 1988 meeting between then LDS Church apostle Thomas S. Monson and East German chairman Erich Honecker that permitted the entry of Western missionaries, the church had nonetheless succeeding in achieving full legal status, organizing stakes and ordaining parriarchs, dedicating the only temple ever built in a communist state, and constructing numerous meeting houses throughout the nation.

Through previously unpublished documents, Kuehne provides evidence and descriptions of those milestones for the East German LDS Church. He also incorporates into this work the personal interpretations of East German members of the church's traditional teachings regarding their responsibility to honor and support the government under which they lived. Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State was originally published in German by Leipzig University Press in 2008. This is its first English publication.

Raymond Kuehne was born in New York City of German immigrant parents and has studied as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Marburg and as a National Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the University of Virginia. He served in the North German Mission and the Freiberg Temple Mission.