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Religious groups and nonreligion

Religious minorities in Germany

Since the Reformation, Germany has mainly been a bi-confessional country, the two big Lutheran and Catholic Churches still benefiting today (although in a reduced form) from a legally, (...)

Since the Reformation, Germany has mainly been a bi-confessional country, the two big Lutheran and Catholic Churches still benefiting today (although in a reduced form) from a legally, politically and socially privileged status. (See the Historical survey section).
Today, more than 60% of the population belong to a Christian Church: according to statistics from the Statistiches Bundesamt (2004), 31,1% of the German population declare themselves as Protestants i.e. 5 630 000 persons and 31,5% as Catholics i.e. 25 986 000). According to REMID’s estimations, there are also 1 424 500 people belonging to an Orthodox or Western Church, which represents 1,7% of the general population.
The Jews are the only minority in Germany for which there are official statistics i.e. 106 000 persons: 0,1% of the population for any other religious belonging is classified by the Bundesamt under the category "other". However estimations reveal that Muslims constitute the biggest non - Christian religious minority with more than 3 millions of members, followed by the Buddhists (about 245 000 persons) and the Hindus (between 89 500 and 97 500 persons). About 141 000 persons belong to other religious communities or movements.

D 19 July 2012    AMatthias Koenig AMiriam Schader

The Jews

Contrary to the Muslim and Orthodox minorities, the history of the Jews is very ancient in the areas which today form Germany. Indeed, the first Jewish community was noted in Cologne in the year (...)

Contrary to the Muslim and Orthodox minorities, the history of the Jews is very ancient in the areas which today form Germany. Indeed, the first Jewish community was noted in Cologne in the year 321.
Their history is the history of an excluded and persecuted people: it is only with the Lumières and especially after the French Revolution and under the pressure of Napoleon that the Jewish community starts to emancipate in German-speaking States and later in the German Nation-State.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a lot of Jews had assimilated and showed as strong a patriotism as that of the Christian majority. However, although a lot of Germans fought in the German army during World War 1, anti-Semitism intensified after the War.
The arrival in power of the national socialists in 1933 stood for the beginning of the 12 most horrible years for the Jews in Germany and in Europe (6 million people died in the Nazi concentration camps). While there were between 500 000 to 600 000 Jews in Germany in 1933, only 15 000 of them survived the Holocaust. The first Jewish communities reformed immediately after the War: 51 in 1945, 16 more in 1946. They were later joined by 200 000 people coming from Western Europe and by refugees escaped from the anti-Semitic Pogroms in Poland. For the great majority of them, the members of these Jewish communities who survived the Holocaust did not intend to stay in Germany but emigrated to the United-States or Israel. In the post-war years, the number of Jews in Germany however stabilized with 26 000 in the FRG and between 400 and 500 in the GDR. (For more information, see the website of the Central Council of Jews.)
After the fall of the Berlin wall, between 1990 and 2004, about 220 000 Jews coming from Eastern Europe immigrated to Germany as Kontingentflüchtlinge (refugees coming from a humanitarian action). Currently, about 106 000 people belong to the 102 communities represented by the Central Council of Jews in Germany. 5 000 people belong to the Union of Progressive Jews, which is divided into 20 communities. About 90 000 people, who are mainly Kontingentflüchtlinge who immigrated to Germany as Jews, do not belong to any community.

D 19 July 2012    AMatthias Koenig AMiriam Schader

The Muslims

It is difficult to define the exact number of Muslims in Germany but it is generally said to reach between 3,1 and 3,4 million people, i.e. 4% of the population.
Although there were already (...)

It is difficult to define the exact number of Muslims in Germany but it is generally said to reach between 3,1 and 3,4 million people, i.e. 4% of the population.

Although there were already some Muslims in Germany during the 19th century, the presence of Muslims is mainly the result of post World War 2 immigration. Two-thirds of the Muslims are not German citizens. Besides the Islam conversion rates are low (15 000 Muslims are from German origin). It is following the recruitment agreements with Turkey (1961), Morocco (1963) and Tunisia (1965) that the first workers from Muslim denomination arrived in the FRG. In 1973, at the end of the recruitment policy, Muslim immigration was reduced to the family cell regrouping actions. There were also refugees and asylum seekers coming from Turkey (Kurds), Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia. The Muslims from Turkish origin today constitute the biggest community among the Muslims in Germany with more than two million members, followed by the Muslims from the Balkans, Arabic countries, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan as well as other smaller groups coming from other Muslim areas. In relation with their national origins, the Muslims in Germany are above all Sunnis, then Shi’ites, Alevis, members of the Ahmaddiyya and other communities.

Contrary to the Jews and the Christian Orthodoxes, the Muslims in Germany are not represented by a unique organisation. However, since April 11 2007, the Council of Coordination of Muslims in Germany (Koordinierungsrat der Muslime in Deutschland, KRM) is composed of the four biggest Muslim associations in Germany. It includes the Turkish Islamic Union of the Board of Religious Affairs (DITIB), the Islam Council for the Federal Republic of Germany (Islamrat für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V (IRD)), the Association of Islamic cultural centres (Verband der Islamischen Kulturzentren e.V, VIKZ) and the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland e.V, ZMD).

D 19 July 2012    AMatthias Koenig AMiriam Schader

The Orthodox and Western Christians

Just like the Muslim minority, the Orthodox minority in Germany is mainly the result of the immigration in the 20th century.
Russian emigrates escaping the 1917 Revolution were the first (...)

Just like the Muslim minority, the Orthodox minority in Germany is mainly the result of the immigration in the 20th century.

Russian emigrates escaping the 1917 Revolution were the first Christian Orthodox arriving in Germany, followed by the people who moved after World War 2. In the framework of the recruitment programmes of the FDR in the 1960s, they were later joined by Greek and Serbian Orthodox. Then, like for the Jewish community it is the immigration of people coming from the former States of the Soviet Union which contributed to the increase of this community, as well as Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants. The Wars in Ex-Yugoslavia also led a great number of Serbian Orthodox to emigrate in Germany.

Today, there are about 1,2 million of Orthodox Christians living in Germany who belong to several dioceses with the Commission of the Orthodox Church in Germany (KOKID) as a structure of cooperation and national representation.

See :
 Ortag, Peter (1995; 2003): Jüdische Kultur und Geschichte. Ein Überblick. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. S. 89.
 Gouvernement fédéral (2006): Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Große Anfrage der Abgeordneten Josef Philip Winkler u.a. und der Fraktion BÜNDNIS90/Die Grünen - BT-Drucksache Nr.16/2085 vom 29.Juni 2006: "Stand der rechtlichen Gleichstellung des Islam in Deutschland".

D 19 July 2012    AMatthias Koenig AMiriam Schader

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