A New Synagogue,a Garrison Church,and a Mosque: How Religious (Re)Building Animates Religious and Secular Life in Postsocialist Potsdam

Abstract

In postsocialist Potsdam, religious diversity has risen surprisingly in public life since 1990 although more than 80% of the residents have no religious affiliation. City and state authorities have actively embraced issues around immigration and integration as well as the promotion of religious diversity and interreligious dialogue and have linked this to the agenda of rejuvenating the city’s religious heritage. For years, negotiations have been going on about the need of a mosque, the reconstructions of a synagogue and the so-called “Garrison Church,” a landmark military church building. These initiatives have been dominating the public space for different reasons. They implied, beyond religion, questions of memory, identity, immigration, and culture. This article puts these three cases into perspective to offer a nuanced understanding of the importance of religious spaces in secular contexts considering city politics.

Introduction

Since Robert Orsi published his study on The Madonna of 115 ^th Street in 1985, a large body of scholarly literature has focused on the continuous presence of religion in cities, despite loud voices proclaiming the latter’s primarily secular character (see Cox, 1968). As David Garbin and Anna Strhan (2018, p. 6) write, this growing interest was the result of increased attention being given to “lived” and “everyday” religion and its spatial dimensions. Several scholars have in particular focused on the violent return of religion to the city, mostly connected to issues of fundamentalism (Riesebrodt, 2000; Sassen, 2017), while others have studied issues of migration more deeply and put forward the notion of a postsecular city (Baker & Beaumont, 2011). The need for houses of worship and the difficulties in creating such spaces for minorities are amply documented (see Vásquez & Knott, 2014), as are the controversies over their construction. Most studies describe the experiences of migrant communities in Europe and the complications and tensions arising from place-making strategies.

By shedding light on the case of postsocialist Potsdam, this article discusses a further way in which religion has continued to remain in the city, namely, by putting religious buildings and their cultural significance at the center as “material objectivations,” to use a notion proposed by Silke Steets (2017, p. 128) in her analysis of the conflicts generated by the proposal to place a golden cross at the top of the reconstructed Prussian City Palace in Berlin. Paradoxically, as the case of Potsdam will reveal, religious buildings play a full role in urban life even when they are not necessarily used for services by an existing religious community. Moreover, under certain circumstances to be described herein, the creation of a place for a religious minority that is usually confronted by strong resistance, such as Muslims in Germany, can be a smooth process actively supported by the public authorities. We argue that it is the monumental character of the city, its civil culture, and the simultaneity of the issues involving three different religious communities’ buildings that allowed surprisingly vivid religious activity in this secular and postsocialist context.

This text describes three projects for the construction of religious buildings, namely, a synagogue, a church, and a mosque, and how said projects generated heated debates and gained large-scale public attention in Potsdam in roughly the same timespan. Three relatively small monotheistic congregations were catapulted into the headlines, less as subjects and more as objects of state and municipal politics. A joint scrutiny of these three different projects reveals that the central questions revolve around “normative definitions of ‘accepted’ or ‘legitimate’ public expressions of religiosity” (Martínez-Ariño, 2018, p. 814.). In this analysis, taken from a broader empirical research project on religious diversity in Potsdam (cf. Hafner et al., 2018), we first attempt to understand why, since the beginning of the new millennium, these buildings have generated disputes over expectations and visibility. We then describe how these controversies unfolded and what they reveal about the city, its history, and its religious and secular dynamics. Religion and urban environments have mutually shaped (Burchardt & Becci, 2013) each other over time. Cities affect religion by casting religious communities, and their forms of sociality, within distinct secular spatial regimes, while religious communities and traditions contain the imaginaries on which people create urban worlds. However, equally often, they leave infrastructural and architectural imprints whereby notions of the divine are materially mediated while infusing urban landscapes with “signs of the sacred” (Sinha, 2016, p. 470).

Although changes in religious life in post-socialist urban contexts have been mainly studied in terms of secularization and treated as accelerating religious (non)belonging (Cyranka & Obst, 2001; Grübel & Rademacher, 2003; Interkulturelles Forum Leipzig 2009), we adopt a spatial approach (Muhl, 2015) in which we view religious buildings not simply as containers of religious activity but also as art-historical and cultural actors triggering subjective experiences. Paying full attention to material space, we assume that religious buildings can engender religion-oriented commitments even when the context is highly secularized.

Locating Religious Diversity in the City of Potsdam

Lying only 35 km to the west of Berlin, Potsdam is the capital of the German federal state of Brandenburg. The profile of the population of Potsdam is similar to that of other eastern German cities (Pollack & Rosta, 2015), where the vast majority declare they have no religious affiliation. However, unlike other eastern German cities, the decrease in church membership has been tempered since 2005 due to the high levels of mobility into and out of the city. ¹ From the beginning of 2000 to 2016, the percentage of Protestants remained at around 14%, whereas the proportion of Roman Catholics grew from 4% to about 5%. ² Religion is fully part of urban life through rituals and social activities organized in often historical sites by the roughly 10 interreligious initiatives that are active in the city.

In a study we conducted on religious diversity in the city from 2010 to 2017, we counted more than 70 congregations. Beyond questions of belonging or nonbelonging, we looked at how Potsdamers relate to religious buildings and found that they consider them to be an important part of their cultural heritage. ³ The way these buildings are distributed across the city’s territory clearly reflects what Burchardt and Giorda (2021) write, that is, that “the social and the spatial are interdependent” (p. 2). As a result of historical developments, the churches of established Christian denominations, mainly Protestant but also Roman Catholic, “Old Lutheran,” Calvinist, Russian Orthodox and Baptist, are situated in the very heart of the city, as is a Freemasons’ temple with a long local history of more than 250 years. A sign also stands in the city center, indicating the former site of a synagogue. Plans are now afoot to rebuild it on the selfsame spot. Moving slightly from the center to the outskirts, there are a few free churches (Adventists, Mormons, Free Evangelicals, New Apostolic) and finally, on the outskirts, several congregations that arrived mostly from Africa in the 1990s and that hold their services in rooms hired in municipal community centers.

Today, Potsdam’s skyline is marked by the domes and towers of three churches—St. Nikolai, St. Peter and Paul, and the Erlöserkirche—as well as by the 16-story building of the Mercure hotel, built in 1969. ⁴ However, the strong visibility of the three churches contrasts starkly with the size of their respective congregations, a situation characterizing most historical religious buildings and communities in the city center. Conversely, newly settled and often larger religious communities in the area often have a hard time finding an appropriate building for their needs in the city center. Potsdam’s historical city center has indeed been totally rebuilt since reunification, and since 1991 has come under UNESCO protection, together with the castle and Sanssouci Park. Thousands of tourists flock daily to admire these impressive historical and religious buildings, which are the constant object of debate, interest, and lobbying. ⁵

Numerous local associations, mostly not affiliated to congregations, are responsible for the conservation, repair, and use of church buildings and organs. ⁶ Religious buildings were also the theme of a series of public events organized by an interreligious forum instituted by the Potsdam municipality in 2017. Although, in Germany, the relationship between state and religion is regulated at the federal and regional levels, ⁷ city authorities’ activities do involve historical religious buildings when it comes to fostering memory and social integration, or managing festivities. Clearly, “urban religion” ⁸ in Potsdam is actually directly linked to its secular life. Hereunder, we shall briefly describe how religious–secular dynamics are very differently interwoven—albeit simultaneously—in the case of place-making by a Jewish community, a Reformed congregation, and a rather large Muslim community, respectively. Although the latter has reached a satisfying/satisfactory situation in a very discreet way, the construction plans of the two former communities have been occupying the public space and debates.

Three Disruptive Ways of Creating Religious Places

The Synagogue: A Dispute Stemming From Internal Diversity and Public Expectations ⁹

Nowadays, whoever visits the city center in Potsdam can find a commemorative plaque erected on the façade of a house ¹⁰ reminding the reader that in November 1938, National Socialists “looted and destroyed” the synagogue that had formerly stood there. It had been inaugurated in 1903 after several years of construction work, when the Jewish community counted about 300 persons. The Potsdam Tolerance Edict of 1671 had allowed Jews to settle in Prussia, as their labor was needed after the long war between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire (Diekmann & Schoeps, 1995, p. 13). When, in 1743, the Jewish community bought a plot of land called the “Judenberg” ¹¹ for the cemetery, services were still held in private houses (Kaelter, 1993, p. 17.). The community grew to more than 600 members after the First World War. With the rise of National Socialism, however, it was stripped of all its corporate rights, its belongings were confiscated, and its members deported (Arlt, 1993). A bomb attack by the Allies destroyed the synagogue on April 14, 1945, and 10 years later, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) removed the ruins.

Only in 1991 could a new 16-strong Jewish community be founded. ¹² However, it grew quickly with the arrival of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and had about 800 members by 2007. The municipality offered them a room in which to hold religious services. To provide better support to the increasingly aged members arriving in the city, a new community was formed in 1996, the “Jüdische Gemeinde Stadt Potsdam,” as well as a center for cultural encounters and integration. ¹³ Community members meet regularly, although the place for their meetings has changed 7 times since its creation. ¹⁴ They often had to leave a site due to renovation or demolition work. The current building hosting the community is centrally located and offers room for about 50 persons to pray or celebrate. The community also uses a number of additional rooms in the building (an office, a kitchen, and a library) to offer support to immigrants from Russia wishing to integrate into German society. Moreover, several celebrations are held outdoors, in public spaces, such as when Chanukka was celebrated in Potsdam’s city hall, attended by hundreds of participants. Although there is still no synagogue in the city, about 30 “stumbling stones” ¹⁵ recall the deportation of citizens and 21 streets signs display the names of former Jewish residents. Two additional orthodox communities have been created in the meantime: the “Synagogengemeinde Potsdam e.V.” and the “Jüdische Gemeinde Mitzwa e.V.” ¹⁶

The first plans for a new synagogue were drafted in the 1990s, but the Land-state government only formally committed itself to such a construction in 2005, by awarding a grant of five million Euros. ¹⁷ Representatives of the “Jüdische Gemeinde,” simple citizens, the churches, the city of Potsdam, and the Land Brandenburg founded the “Bauverein Neue Synagoge Potsdam e.V.,” with the aim of building a community center and a synagogue in the city center. ¹⁸ An international call for architectural projects was launched, inscribing Potsdam within what Oskar Verkaaik (2014, p. 487) has called a “boom of new synagogue construction in Germany.” However, the winning project faced strong opposition from various Jewish community members. Although a rabbi from Jerusalem had served as a consultant, the building was criticized for not being compatible with the Halacha, as was proved by another rabbi’s expertise. ¹⁹ The dispute escalated, to the point that in 2010 the “Minjan Potsdam” praying community split from the “Jüdische Gemeinde.” ²⁰ Some of its members publicly criticized the initial plans for a synagogue, stating that it was not instantly recognizable as a sacred building, arguing instead for a project oriented toward more religious than social aims.

A new association was founded in 2011, the “Synagogen-Förderverein Potsdam e.V.” and it also included non-Jewish supporters. In the same year, the Brandenburg region ordered all construction work to stop, given that the different communities could not agree. ²¹ By 2014, the drafted plans for the synagogue and the community center had been redrawn to take the criticism into account. Under pressure from the city parliament, the communities reached a compromise and construction work could start. ²² In 2015, the Brandenburg Ministry for Religious Affairs surprisingly entrusted the overall leadership of the project to a new association, the “Zentrale Wohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland e.V.” The “Gesetzestreue Landesgemeinde” community vigorously opposed this move, ²³ and the “Jüdische Gemeinde,” together with the “Synagogengemeinde,” proposed that they take over responsibility for the construction. ²⁴ As the latter two communities grew closer, in 2016 it proved possible to draw up a joint concept, and about 700 members formed the “Israelitischer Kultusgemeindenbund e.V.” ²⁵ A working group was created in 2017, with the collaboration of members of both communities. ²⁶ After a series of public workshops, ²⁷ a joint spatial concept was finally agreed. ²⁸ Since 2020, this “Israelitischer Kultusgemeindenbund e.V.” is responsible for the construction of the new Potsdam synagogue. Potsdam will soon no longer be the only German Land-state capital without a synagogue. The foundation stone was laid in November 2021 and construction is still progressing. A mikveh basin (Jewish immersion bath) has already been built in the basement. The Land-state government is financing construction to the tune of almost 14 million Euros. ²⁹

The debate about the synagogue in Potsdam therefore has a double inscription. It concerns both the historical legacy left behind after the destruction by secular regimes and the city’s endeavors to reconcile itself with its past. Today, “stumbling blocks” on the sidewalks, the Jewish cemetery, and a memorial slab to the former synagogue are considered important for educational purposes. Potsdam schools carry out research on biographies of deported Jews. When Jewish emigrants from Russia came to Potsdam in the 1990s, their desire for a new synagogue fell on fertile ground, staunchly backed by a lively association, the “Gesellschaft für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit,” which organizes talks and excursions with and about Jewish citizens. As public opinion in Germany is very sensitive to Shoah-related issues, voices critical of the new synagogue played only a minor role in the debate. The lines of conflict ran instead within the Jewish congregation, where one faction favored functionality as opposed to sacredness and identification upon sight. Moreover, two groups within the community—orthodox and strict orthodox—demanded their own synagogue. The State Ministry for Cultural Affairs mediated between the different claims.

The Garrison Church: A Dispute About German History ³⁰

The history of the now destroyed Garrison church starts with King Frederick Wilhelm I (1688–1749), who nurtured an enthusiastic approach to military affairs. He invested much in supporting his soldiers with regard to religion, whatever their faith, and ordered that a church be built where both Lutherans and Reformed believers could hold services. ³¹ The Garrison church was inaugurated in 1732: It boasted a pulpit decorated with the Roman god of war, Mars, as well as Minerva, and a tower of more than 88 m in height to introduce military symbolism to the city skyline in the form of a weather vane with an eagle, a sun, and the king’s monogram. ³² For years, elites of the Prussian army used the Garrison church to celebrate victories in battle, honor fallen soldiers, and bury their kings.

The strong connection between church and state continued to be underscored by such celebrations until the beginning of the 20th century. The church became a symbol of Prussian spirit, patriotism, and militarism (see Borgmann et al., 2002; Borgmann & Leinemann, 2005). Its preachers often linked enthusiasm for God to enthusiasm for war and considered the latter a duty to God (Wriedt, 2017). The most spectacular moment, however, probably occurred in 1933, when the constitution of the new parliament was celebrated there, as the Reichstag in Berlin had burned down. The National Socialists labeled the moment the “Tag von Potsdam,” the day when power passed from the president, Paul von Hindenburg, to Adolf Hitler, via a handshake. Under the Third Reich, “Deutsche Christen” met in this church to experiment with National Socialist Christian rituals and songs (Gailus, 2001; Grünzig, 2017). Although the building itself would henceforth clearly be associated with the military, its actual practitioners displayed a variety of political profiles. Several of those involved in the attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944 also frequented the place. The bombings of 1945 partially destroyed the building. The ruins of the tower, still 57 meters high, came to symbolize the victims. The ruins were first stabilized under the GDR and only demolished in 1968. The Protestant community, the “Heilig-Kreuz-Gemeinde,” which came into existence in 1949, pressed for the church to be reconstructed, though inscribing it into an anti-militarist perspective.

Toward the end of the GDR, new actors entered the debate over how to reconfigure Potsdam’s city center: one community lobbied for the sole renovation of the tower with the carillon (“Traditionsgemeinschaft Potsdamer Glockenspiel”). Through a founding member, it was closely linked to a foundation for the preservation of Prussia’s cultural heritage (“Stiftung Preußisches Kulturerbe”), which favored the reconstruction of the church in the name of Prussian tradition. Numerous citizens of Potsdam opposed these plans and argued for the necessity to critically engage with the country’s past, symbolized by the church. In 2002, the city council decided to support the project, provided that it was meant as a center for reconciliation and that no financial support be given. A few individuals formed a new society to promote the reconstruction of the church in 2004. The endowment was dissolved in 2005. In 2008, the Protestant Church created another foundation, with the aim of rebuilding the Potsdam Garrison church as “an urban church, a place to learn about consciousness and a school for the arts of peace” ³³ while also introducing a new idea into the debate, that is, to reconstruct the tower only, as a center for commemoration and conciliation where Potsdam’s history could be reevaluated in connection with activities fostering peace, and to include a small prayer room. This project gained the support of numerous private persons and institutions, such as the Reformed Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Schlesische Oberlausitz. In 2010, the municipality transferred legal ownership of the Garrison Church site to the Protestant Church’s foundation free of charge.

However, critics also loudly argued that there was no need for a church there, given the shrinking communities of the neighboring Protestant churches. Others again raised their voices against this project because it neglected to take into account the local historical value of the adjacent GDR-period computing center, which would have had to be torn down to make way for the reconstruction of the Garrison church. ³⁴ In 2011, a further initiative against the project, “Potsdam without a Garrison church”, fanned controversy. The battle was brought out into the streets of Potsdam, with demonstrations, graffiti, and national media coverage. The local church community built a little chapel, called the “Nagelkreuzkapelle.” The reference to the nailed cross comes from the gift made to German Christians by Coventry Cathedral after it was destroyed by German bombs in 1940. In 2013, the plan for the reconstruction of the tower received official authorization, but finance was lacking, and opposition arose from antifascist groups. ³⁵ The state-Land and church authorities therefore agreed to rebuild the tower alone. A light wooden building with a glass front and a freestanding pier arch displaying sacks filled with the ruins of the bombed Garrison church was opened as a temporary chapel in 2015, fitting about 80 persons between a piano and an altar. The place slowly became a meeting point for city residents after disasters or attacks. ³⁶ As a symbol of reconciliation, the nailed cross hangs outside this provisional chapel, where religious services take place. Contrary to the original plans to place the nailed cross on the top, the so-called imperial weathervane (with a sun, an eagle reaching toward it, a crown, and the initials of Frederick Wilhelm I) was put there, causing further protests. Private donors continue to offer money for the reconstruction, to the tune of about €10 million in 2018.

The “Nagelkreuzkapelle” community, which had in the meantime reached a membership of hundreds, acts to keep alive the memory of the meaning the destroyed church had in the downfall of the Weimar Republic and during the GDR, Today, it focuses on transforming the place into a memorial for reconciliation. Numerous brochures, flyers, websites, and texts about reconstruction are produced by all sides in the dispute. ³⁷ Construction work finally began in autumn 2019 but slowed down during the coronavirus pandemic. The issue is regularly mentioned in the local press and debates over it also involve academics and prominent German authorities.

The case of the protestant Garrison church clearly shows that a religious building does not necessarily emerge from the cultic needs of an existing community. Instead, the idea of the building prompted a new congregation—consisting mostly of supporters—to initiate religious and educational activities. The debate took place in newspapers and public discussions as well as in ritual forms such as counter-demonstrations by critics and religious services by supporters. Different topics overlap: the relationship between state and church, between Prussian, Nazi and GDR histories and present-day society, between Potsdam’s natives and residents who settled there after 1990, between those who want to restore a historical site and those who are in favor of a modern design, and between Protestants who want to invest a large chunk of church tax money and others claiming it for other church projects. The memory of a building whose ruins were torn down 50 years earlier plays an active role here in allowing people to forge their own views of the world, to take Silke Steets’ approach. An imaginary church building, with its own ontological weight, as Bruno Latour ³⁸ would say, assembled a congregation, raised money, and retrieved an artwork. The Garrison church braids together historical, political, and ecclesial threads.

The Al Farouk Mosque: A Dispute Over Visibility ³⁹

Although a few Muslims gradually came to Potsdam as traders, soldiers of the king (Höpp, 1997), or, later, as workers under the GDR, no mosque existed before German reunification. Ironically, one historical building, ordered by King Frederick Wilhelm IV in the 1840s, does indeed resemble a mosque, but it is actually a pump house feeding the fountains of the palace. ⁴⁰ After reunification, most Muslims in the Potsdam region were asylum-seekers. ⁴¹ When a group of Potsdam Muslims, mostly Kurdish students from Turkey, founded the “Al Farouk ⁴² Moschee” association in 1998, they used a small apartment in the city center for their prayers. After moving twice, they ended up in two flats on the ground floor of a prefabricated building halfway between the railway station and the historical city center. Due to a high turnover of believers, the community displays a great variety of languages, ethnic and national origins, and affirms an inclusive theological identity as “classic Sunnism.” ⁴³ With the arrival in 2015 of large groups of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan, its numbers grew about tenfold and the community started to be noticed and to have more interactions with the municipality. No sign indicates the presence of a mosque to passers-by. The space inside, about 120 m², is divided into a vestibule, a prayer room, and an office. It is a very simple functional space, with few decorative elements, reflecting the community’s limited financial means. ⁴⁴

Since, after 2015, several hundred Muslims showed up for Friday prayers, they could not all fit into the room and many had to remain outside on the sidewalk. Media started to report this, showing pictures of the situation. ⁴⁵ The community became the target of Islamophobic attacks, which compelled the municipality to find a provisional solution in 2016, ⁴⁶ namely, Friday prayers for more than 500 persons could be held in the Orangerie, the large tropical hall of Potsdam’s botanical garden. ⁴⁷ The city has no legal competence to intervene in the recognition of the Muslim community, but it took an active part in finding a solution, as the issue touched upon problems of public security and integration. The mayor supported finding a spatial solution and asked the community to clarify its organization as an association by forming a board. These steps brought the process into higher public visibility, to which right-wing conservatives reacted by disseminating ideas via the internet and public demonstrations about foreign infiltration of German municipalities. Nevertheless, Potsdam’s city authorities continued to support the community project in discussions within interreligious circles as well. As the Muslim community would not accept money from supporters outside Germany (Weiss, 2018, p. 140), the municipality even helped find a cheap and easy solution and advanced the necessary financial means, which are progressively being reimbursed. An empty and unused boiler house of about 200 m² adjacent to the community’s rooms was identified as a possible place for the community. In 2017, the boiler house was rather quietly repurposed as a mosque in accordance with numerous building regulations. Since 2018, the mosque has been used by the community, which is now better able to control its public visibility or invisibility, as it is situated very discretely among several apartment blocks. ⁴⁸ The mosque is open to the public on the German day of mosques (October 3rd) and is visited by neighbors and interested persons. The community board constantly receives invitations to participate in public interreligious discussions and events, to the point that they lack the resources to honor all requests. ⁴⁹ In a few public discussions, organized by the city officials, Muslim representatives did not appear. The community is under pressure to welcome school classes, media, and other interested persons to demonstrate its transparency while at the same time maintaining a sense of intimacy for its members inside the mosque. ⁵⁰

To sum up, the mosque debate started with the visible sight of Muslims praying on the sidewalk, in public space, because the mosque had become too small for the growing community. The city administration intervened and worked with the migrants, who are not used to public debates and even shun publicity, to find solutions. The Muslims just wanted to have a functional room for prayer, arguing simply in terms of their numbers; they never wished to build a representative mosque, preferring a humble building in order not to stir up anti-Muslim opinions. The small number of people involved in the planning on one hand and the proactive, transparent approach of the city administration on the other, resulted in a relatively calm debate, especially when compared with mosque projects in other German cities.

Concluding Remarks

The religious-secular initiatives we have briefly described in this article have been simultaneously occupying Potsdam’s public space for different reasons. The construction of the synagogue involves questions of memory and an internally fragmented Jewish diaspora with conflicting priorities. The project for the reconstruction of the Garrison church displays a scenario involving a nonexisting parish and the collective idea of a historical building symbolizing the tense relationship with past conceptions of war and peace. Finally, the search for a new mosque reflects the place-making strategy of a fast-growing community facing hostility. The (re-)construction plans of the three buildings not only involve their respective religious communities; they also result from complex ties between different actors: newspapers, protest groups, the city administration, concerned citizens, factions within the respective congregations, single intellectuals, individual politicians, and cause-oriented associations. The representatives of the three congregations play a role, but not the leading role. In Potsdam, where space is a highly desirable asset, claims by different social groups compete. The range of debate is different in each case. The three cases differ strongly in the vehemence of the reactions: The more inconspicuous a building appears (e.g., the mosque debate), the less it evokes controversies, and vice-versa. With its tower and symbols, the Garrison church signals an obtrusive claim. This building is not confined to its own site but reaches out to the whole city. The level of attention to the different projects also depends on two other factors.

First, religious buildings draw special attention because their functionality (prayer, worship) is rather unfamiliar to the general public. Public opinion does not react vehemently to buildings constructed for private use, like an apartment block, and would accept a building for public use, such as a government ministry, but it is irritated by religious buildings that appear to be nonfunctional, ⁵¹ being open to the public and yet equally meant for a special congregation. They thus occupy a space beyond the “public” and “private” blurring the distinction. A synagogue, a church, or a mosque does not just consist of the obvious bricks and mortar; it also conveys an imaginary space that a secular public can guess at but cannot grasp: an anticipation of a world to come, a dwelling place of the divine, and a reactualization of a sacred past. They are a place for extra temporality and as such they provoke debate.

Second, the different levels of attention result from different social situations. In the case of the synagogue, it is Germany’s historical burden since the Shoah that lends caution to public debate and that encourages the Jewish community to express its needs. In Potsdam, the latter is superdiverse and the controversies over its self-definition have grown out of it to the public.

In the case of the Garrison church, varying interpretations of German history clashed with one another. Unlike the other two cases, this is the majority discoursing on its self-definition. This is probably why it was the most belligerent. In the case of the mosque, the fear of anti-Muslim reactions prompted the city to make the process as transparent as possible. Yet, the Muslim community prefers to keep a low profile and is reluctant to voice its needs.