Success with a loss of identity

Abstract

The following statements are based on studies and findings of the interdisciplinary research group "Transformation of Religion in the Modern Age," which was set up from 2006-2013 at the University of Bochum.1 The authors were members of the subgroup that was concerned with the changes in the German federal welfare state since 1945 and which, in this context, examined the transformations and leaps in modernization within the Protestant and Catholic Diakonie and Caritas organizations.2 The article is a contribution to the contemporary historical research of the changed role of bothChristian churches in the post-war German welfare state, though it should also be seen as a contribution that emerges from the historically oriented international examination of social welfare after 1945.

Keywords

• diakonie
• caritas
• post-war germany
• social welfare