Peer-reviewed article

(Sexualized) violence in the Catholic Church during the Soviet Occupation Zone/German Democratic Republic: Facilitating factors from a criminological perspective.

Laura Rinser, Judith Streb, Manuela Dudeck · 16 Jan 2026

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The article deals with the structural ecclesiastical-institutional and socio-historical factors of (sexualized) violence against minors during the period of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SOZ)/German Democratic Republic (GDR), i.e. 1946-1989, based on the former East German region of Mecklenburg. METHODS: Semi-structured, problem-centered interviews with 13 survivor and 11 Church representatives as well as 1503 files from Catholic Church and State Security Authority archives were analyzed by qualitatively content analysis. The criminological approach of routine activity according to Lawrence. E. Cohen and Marcus Felson, which states that three factors must be present simultaneously for deviant behavior, was used to explain the factors that promoted violence. RESULTS: The study showed that (sexualized) violence within the Catholic Church was also a predominantly structural/cultural problem in the GDR and was tabooed by both the State and the Church. We identified 40 minors who were abused by 19 priests. The abuse was enabled by the interplay of clergy as motivated perpetrators, children from precarious living conditions as suitable victims of abuse, a lack of protection of children and intervention due to the desire to protect the Catholic Church as an institution in the diaspora, and the aim of the dictatorial State to preserve its socialist ideology. CONCLUSION: Consequently, specific interactions of factors encouraged the acts of violence. The situational conditions were particularly important in determining whether criminal behavior had taken place or not within the Catholic Church in the SOZ/GDR (Mecklenburg region) in the period 1946 to 1989.