Young People, God and FDJ
Capsule exhibition "Young People, God and FDJ: The Campaign Against the Churches in the Early GDR"
February 1 – December 23, 2025
Persecuted, harassed and detained: The exhibition Young People, God and FDJ: The Campaign Against the Churches in the Early GDR shows how the socialist state tried to separate young people from the Protestant Church in the 1950s. The show centers on the personal fates of young people and young adults who were harassed between the founding of the GDR and the building of the Berlin Wall because of their faith or their church affiliation, to be precise. Their biographies serve as examples that illuminate the struggle for freedom of religion and conscience and various forms of resistance as well as escape, conformity and cooperation with the SED state.
About the Capsule Exhibitions at the Lutherhaus Eisenach
Young People, God and FDJ is the first of our new capsule exhibitions at the Lutherhaus Eisenach: a free addition to our permanent exhibition Luther and the Bible and our exhibition on the church’s “Dejudaization Institute”—compact, timely and with multimedia. As part of our sustainability strategy, the format is especially designed to use resources efficiently by reusing many elements when exhibitions change and to reduce the environmental impact of the repeated installation and deinstallation of exhibitions.
The exhibition “Young People, God and FDJ” about the church under socialism is:
- included in admission to the Lutherhaus,
- completely bilingual (German and English) and
- accessible to visitors with mobility impairments.
The Lutherhaus Eisenach is official partner of the Thuringian State Exhibition freiheyt 1525: 500 Years of the Peasants’ War.
We gratefully thank the sponsors of this exhibition project:
