irreligion in Germany
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[[File:Konfessionen Deutschland Zensus 2022.png|thumb|Majority religion according to the 2022 census
{{leftlegend|#cd8dcd|Protestant|outline=gray}}
{{leftlegend|#ffde6a|Catholic|outline=gray}}
{{leftlegend|#84ac27|Unaffiliated|outline=gray}}
Dark: absolute majority (>50%)
Light: relative majority (<50%)]]
File:Konfessionslos Zensus 2011.png
Irreligion is prevalent in Germany. In a time of near-universal adoption of Christianity, Germany was an intellectual centre for European freethought and humanist thinking, whose ideas spread across Europe and the world in the Age of Enlightenment. Later, religious tradition in Germany was weakened by the twin onslaughts of Nazi rule during World War II and that of the Socialist Unity Party in East Germany during the Cold War. In common with most other European societies, a period of secularisation also continued in the decades that followed. While today Christianity remains prevalent in the west of Germany, in the east relatively few Germans identify with any religion whatsoever.
As of 2023, approximately 46% of Germans are irreligious,{{Cite web |date=2024-08-28 |title=Religionszugehörigkeiten 2023 |url=https://fowid.de/meldung/religionszugehoerigkeiten-2023 |access-date=2024-09-28 |website=fowid.de |language=de}} with a much higher concentration of irreligious citizens in the former East Germany. Eastern Germany, which was under communist rule, is by far the least religious region in the world.
History
One early irreligious German philosopher was Ludwig Feuerbach, who developed a theory of anthropological materialism in his book The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbach's work influenced contemporaries Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their writings against religion.{{Citation|last=Gooch|first=Todd|title=Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach|date=2020|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Spring 2020|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2022-02-23}} The Freethought movement gained support in Germany during the 19th century. The secular coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe was developed in the 1850s, and Ludwig Büchner founded the German Freethinkers League in 1881.{{cite book|author=Royle, Edward|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pQkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA78|title=Radicals, Secularists, and republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866-1915|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=1980|isbn=0-7190-0783-6|location=Manchester|page=78|author-link=Edward Royle}}
After its unification in 1871, the German Empire sought to resist attempts by the Catholic Church to impose its authority over the empire's sovereignty. During the Kulturkampf, Germany passed several laws that limited the power of religious authorities over the state.Pflanze, Otto, in: Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Volume II, Princeton University Press, {{ISBN|0-691-05587-4}}, p 202{{cite web|title=www.kath.de Kirchengeschichte – Der Kulturkampf|url=http://www.kath.de/kurs/kg/18.htm|access-date=21 December 2016|archive-date=29 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160229211436/http://www.kath.de/kurs/kg/18.htm|url-status=dead}}
The Weimar Republic guaranteed freedom of religion when its constitution came into effect in 1919. After the Nazi Party took control of the country in 1933, constitutional protection was ignored in Nazi Germany.
After World War II, Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany. While West Germany allowed for religious protection, East Germany enacted a system of state atheism and persecuted Christian groups for the first several years of its existence, resulting in East Germany having a much higher rate of irreligion than West Germany. This divide persisted after German reunification and still exists today.{{cite news|date=2012-09-22|title=Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth | Peter Thompson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk|newspaper=Guardian|location=London|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22/atheism-east-germany-godless-place|access-date=2012-09-22}}
Demographics
A 2023 estimate shows that 46.2% of the German population were non-confessional and not members of any religious group. Christianity still has a notable presence in Western Germany, although the majority of the population in the northern states of Hamburg, Bremen and Schleswig-Holstein are not registered members of the main Catholic and Protestant churches.{{Cite web|title=Church Statistics|url=http://archiv.ekd.de/statistik/105157.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225225027/https://archiv.ekd.de/statistik/105157.html|archive-date=2018-12-25|access-date=2018-02-17}}[http://archiv.ekd.de/download/kirchenmitglieder_2015.pdf Church Statistics 2015] When taken overall, Germany is one of the least religious countries in the world.{{cite news|title=Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism|publisher=Gallup|url=http://www.winmr.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf|access-date=2012-09-02|archive-date=2017-08-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170802000101/http://www.winmr.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf|url-status=dead}}
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism estimated that in 2004 there were between thirty-three million and forty million non-believers in Germany.{{Cite journal |last=Zuckerman |first=Phil |date=2007 |title=Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=f379ed99e57782aca6391ef5f666da7ba41f1333 |journal=Cambridge Companion to Atheism |page=15}} As of 2009, much more Germans are non-believers in Eastern Germany than Western Germany.{{cite magazine|title=Only the Old Embrace God in Former East Germany|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/report-shows-highest-percentage-of-atheists-in-former-east-germany-a-828526.html|magazine=Spiegel|access-date=2012-07-02}}{{cite web|title=East Germany world's most godless area|url=https://www.thelocal.de/20120420/42081/|access-date=2021-12-31|website=The Local|date=20 April 2012}} Eastern Germany, which was under communist rule, is one of the least religious regions in the world.{{cite news|year=2012|title=WHY EASTERN GERMANY IS THE MOST GODLESS PLACE ON EARTH|newspaper=Die Welt|url=http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0|url-status=dead|access-date=2009-05-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120826093254/http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0|archive-date=2012-08-26}}{{cite web|year=2012|title=East Germany the "most atheistic" of any region|url=http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2012/05/east-germany-the-most-atheistic-of-any-region.html|access-date=2009-05-24|publisher=Dialog International}} An explanation for this, popular in other regions, is the state atheist policy of the German Democratic Republic's Socialist Unity Party of Germany. However, the promotion of atheism existed only for the first few years. After that, the state allowed churches to have a relatively high level of autonomy.{{cite web|year=2012|title=Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth|url=http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120826093254/http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0|archive-date=2012-08-26|access-date=2009-05-24|publisher=theguardian}} Atheism is embraced by Germans of all ages, although irreligion is particularly common among younger Germans.{{cite news|year=2012|title=Only the Old embrace God in former East-Germany|work=Spiegel Online|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/report-shows-highest-percentage-of-atheists-in-former-east-germany-a-828526.html|access-date=2009-05-24}}
One study in September 2012 was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 who was certain that a Deity exists. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey in Germany found that less Protestants believed in God with absolute certainty than Catholics.{{Cite web |last=Evans |first=Jonathan |date=2019-02-12 |title=Once a majority, Protestants now account for fewer than a third of Germans |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/12/once-a-majority-protestants-now-account-for-fewer-than-a-third-of-germans/ |access-date=2023-10-20 |website=Pew Research Center |language=en-US}}{{cite journal | last=Müller | first=Olaf | last2=Porada | first2=Chiara | title=Towards a Society of Stable Nones: Lifelong Non-Denominationalism as the Prevailing Pattern in East Germany | journal=Religions | publisher=MDPI AG | volume=13 | issue=11 | date=2022-10-26 | issn=2077-1444 | doi=10.3390/rel13111024 | doi-access=free | page=1024}}
| class="wikitable sortable" style="float:center; margin-left:1em;"
! State{{cite web|url=https://ergebnisse.zensus2011.de/#StaticContent:00,BEV_1_4_2_7,m,table|title=Zensusdatenbank - Ergebnisse des Zensus 2011|access-date=27 December 2016}}!! Non-religious (2011) !! Percentage of the population |
| {{flag|Saxony-Anhalt}}
| style="text-align:center" | 1,805,960 | style="text-align:center" | 79.6% |
| {{flag|Mecklenburg-Vorpommern}}
| style="text-align:center" | 1,229,350 | style="text-align:center" | 77.5% |
| {{flag|Brandenburg}}
| style="text-align:center" | 1,858,370 | style="text-align:center" | 76.2% |
| {{flag|Saxony}}
| style="text-align:center" | 2,908,420 | style="text-align:center" | 72.6% |
| {{flag|Thuringia}}
| style="text-align:center" | 1,433,690 | style="text-align:center" | 66.0% |
| {{flag|Berlin}}
| style="text-align:center" | 2,045,340 | style="text-align:center" | 62.6% |
| {{flag|Hamburg}}
| style="text-align:center" | 827,180 | style="text-align:center" | 48.9% |
| {{flag|Bremen}}
| style="text-align:center" | 251,770 | style="text-align:center" | 38.9% |
| {{flag|Schleswig-Holstein}}
| style="text-align:center" | 955,190 | style="text-align:center" | 34.3% |
| {{flag|Germany}}
| style="text-align:center" | 26,265,880 | style="text-align:center" | 33.0% |
| {{flag|Hesse}}
| style="text-align:center" | 1,610,090 | style="text-align:center" | 27.1% |
| {{flag|Lower Saxony}}
| style="text-align:center" | 1,992,670 | style="text-align:center" | 25.8% |
| {{flag|North Rhine-Westphalia}}
| style="text-align:center" | 3,930,270 | style="text-align:center" | 22.5% |
| {{flag|Baden-Württemberg}}
| style="text-align:center" | 2,248,600 | style="text-align:center" | 21.6% |
| {{flag|Bavaria}}
| style="text-align:center" | 2,317,860 | style="text-align:center" | 18.8% |
| {{flag|Rhineland-Palatinate}}
| style="text-align:center" | 720,000 | style="text-align:center" | 18.1% |
| {{flag|Saarland}}
| style="text-align:center" | 131,120 | style="text-align:center" | 13.2% |