From 1945 to 1990 communist East Germany was an officially atheistic state. Nevertheless, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practiced their religion there. "Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State "is based on primary sources---government and church documents, interviews, and private leters ---to create a documentary history of the church during that historical period.

The history of church-state relations begins with attempts to terminate the church's legal status in the early 1950s, continues with the building of the Freiberg Temple from 1983 to 1985 (the only...