Religion: The Exile

A grim, quiet East German left his house in East Berlin a fortnight ago and made his way to the Praesidium der Volkspolizei for a pass to enter the Western zone. A three-month pass was duly handed over, and he was not surprised, for Dr. Kurt Scharf, 58, is chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany—the highest post in German Protestantism—and his wife and four children live in the Western zone, where he has been visiting them about once a week.

Kurt Scharf crossed the boundary unhindered in his official car. But that evening, at the same check point,...

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