Using the example of the Evangelical Church in Leipzig, the author examines and compares the politics towards the church and the reaction of the pastors in the time of the Third Reich and the GDR up to 1958. The focus is on the one hand on questions of the implementation of church policy guidelines from official bodies and the secret services, on the other hand, the behavior of the Leipzig pastors before and after 1945. Using sources from Saxon archives evaluated here for the first time and concrete examples, the author shows the differences and similarities between the two dictatorships in their relationship to the Protestant Church.