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CONFIDENTIAL
Erich Honecker, who remains General Secretary of the Party, and a new Prime Minister, Willi Stoph, who had been Prime Minister until 1973, changes which seem to mean, apart from greater glory for Honecker, a less flexible and possibly more authoritarian State apparatus. If the official Press is to be believed the population here are exclusively concerned with such issues as Soviet/GDR co-operation in space, the visit of the President of Guinea-Bissau and the successes of the intensification campaign in industry and agriculture. The official Press is of course not to be believed; nevertheless, the general impression is of a people most of whom do the required minimum in their work, concentrate on their private lives and keep their heads down.
2. This impression is inevitably superficial and to some degree misleading: beneath the surface there are increasing strains, or at least strains more openly expressed. In this despatch I shall point to three recent instances of such tensions. It will be only a selection-the full picture is in any case hidden from us; but it will serve to indicate some of the undercurrents and to suggest that this is a more complex and difficult country to govern than might at first sight appear.
3. The first instance concerns the Church. On the afternoon of 18 August a pastor of the Evangelical Church (the main Church in the GDR) named Oskar Brüsewitz appeared outside his church at Zeitz in Saxony carrying a placard with the words "The Church accuses the State of the oppression of youth". He proceeded to pour petrol over himself and his car and set himself alight. He died of his injuries some days later. The incident shocked not only the Church but wider circles here in the GDR and of course in the Federal Republic and clearly worried the Communist authorities. They responded clumsily with an article in Neues Deutschland which contrived to suggest at one and the same time that Brüsewitz was mentally deranged and had connexions with the West German intelligence service. In face of this treatment the Evangelical Church leaders, who have traditionally adopted a low profile, preferring to work within the framework of Socialism rather than seek confrontation, found themselves forced to make some- thing of a stand. Against a background of unusual pressure from their flock, they approved a pastoral letter read from many pulpits on 19 September. This expressly refused to condemn Brüsewitz, called for problems between Church and State to be solved openly, not hushed up, and expressed particular concern about the education of young Christians. We understand that discussions on this last point will now be held.
4. The ferment over Brüsewitz has now died down. I doubt whether the talks between Church and State will change much: the Evangelical Church is not looking for trouble and the intense attention given by the authorities to every move and a statement by certain of the clergy, especially during the October elections, has left no doubt of their determination to control events. Nevertheless some things have altered. The humane image which the GDR has striven to cultivate has been damaged. The incident has emphasised the underlying contradiction between the right to religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution and the claims of the Marxist State, a contradiction which is sharpest in the field of education. Young Christians and children of church-going parents are disadvantaged here; discrimina- tion is not always dramatic or consistent; but they find it harder to obtain university places and to get on. More generally a faint question mark now stands over the future extent of Church compliance. The State's anxiety to debunk Brüsewitz as being in no sense a martyr suggests a sensitivity to the Church as a possible focus for dissidence. Relations will now be more wary and may more easily flare up. The initial response of the authorities also revealed a curious inability to gauge public feeling.
CONFIDENTIAL
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