East Germany | Co-founder of the Eastern SPD: Martin Gutzeit died

Berlin's Governing Mayor Michael Müller (l, SPD) congratulates the former Berlin State Commissioner for Stasi Records, Martin Gutzeit, on November 24, 2017 in Berlin on his successful term in office. Photo: dpa/Britta Pedersen Berlin. The co-founder of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR and long-time Berlin state representative for the Stasi files, Martin Gutzeit, is dead. He died on Tuesday at the age of 74 in a hospital. Gutzeit's political companion and close friend, Stephan Hilsberg, told the dpa. The “Tagesspiegel” previously reported.

According to the statement, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “Martin Gutzeit was a pioneer of our country, united in freedom and democracy. As a courageous pastor in the GDR, he created freedom in the midst of lack of freedom and became a leading figure in the opposition. His Christian faith gave him the strength to fight for a free country with free people.

The Berlin representative for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, Frank Ebert, praised Gutzeit as an original thinker and courageous opposition figure. "With him, Berlin is losing an outstanding actor in the peaceful revolution and the coming to terms with the SED dictatorship," it said in a statement.

Born in Cottbus in 1952, Gutzeit worked in East Berlin in the 1980s as a vicar in Pankow and later as a priest in Neustrelitz. In 1989, together with Hilsberg, he was one of the initiators of the SDP in the GDR, which was founded on October 7th of that year in a rectory in Schwante, north of Berlin. In 1990, Gutzeit was elected as an SPD member of the freely elected People's Chamber of the GDR and was also a member of the Bundestag between October and December. From 1993 to 2017 he was the Berlin state representative for the Stasi documents and dedicated himself to coming to terms with the GDR. dpa/nd

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