Siegmar Faust

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Siegmar Faust (born December 12, 1944 in Dohna , Pirna district , Saxony ) is a German writer and former political prisoner in the GDR . From 1996 to 1999 he was the state representative for the Stasi records in the Free State of Saxony .

Life

In the DDR

Faust was born as the son of the technical draftsman Ingeborg Kayenberg and a Cypriot who had become a German prisoner of war as a British soldier of the anti-Hitler coalition . He grew up in Heidenau near Dresden . After graduating from high school, he studied art education and history at the University of Leipzig from 1964 , from which he was de-registered in the summer of 1966 because of “lack of discipline and political unreliability” because he had organized a lecture with uncensored poetry . After the reunification and peaceful revolution in the GDR , the rector of the university determined in 1993 that the de-registration was clearly politically motivated and thus represented a typical act of arbitrariness against those who think differently.

After successful production in production , he was allowed to study again. Faust was accepted to study at the Leipzig Literature Institute "Johannes R. Becher" , but was also de-registered there in the spring of 1968 for political reasons.

Faust mainly earned his living as an unskilled worker , while also working as a writer. For the time being, his works were circulating among friends. Faust has been observed and persecuted by the Stasi since 1968 . When his attempts to publish in the Federal Republic were exposed, he was first imprisoned. After his release, he hired himself as a transport worker. In the summer of 1968 he initiated the Leipzig reservoir reading , which resulted in further political reprisals and the discovery of Wolfgang Hilbig as a poet. After an official application to leave the country had been rejected by the GDR authorities, he initiated a petition signed by 45 people, "Against the denial of human rights," referring to the GDR's membership in the United Nations . He was then arrested again and sentenced by the Dresden District Court to four years and six months in prison.

Faust, who saw himself as a Marxist at the time , was imprisoned for a total of 33 months in the 1970s , including 17 months in Stasi remand centers and seven weeks in the Waldheim Neurological and Psychiatric Detention Hospital (“Klapsmühle Waldheim”) The rest of the time in the Cottbus prison . There he contrasted the SED - Central Organ New Germany with the handwritten newspaper Armes Deutschland , which was passed from hand to hand. For this purpose, Faust was held captive for over 400 days in a double-barred, damp and cold cellar cell ("tiger cage"). Fellow inmates supported him and smuggled ballpoint pen refills and butter into his cell. Overall, he was in solitary confinement for over two years . In March 1976, after an intervention by Robert Havemann with Erich Honecker and effective protests at home and abroad, he was released prematurely for “good conduct”. In September 1976 he was allowed to leave the Federal Republic of Germany. Until he left, he stayed with Wolf Biermann's circle of friends .

A master's thesis written by Michael Nitsche in 2011 is devoted to the literary and sociological work of Siegmar Faust at the time of his imprisonment.

In the Federal Republic

When Faust arrived in the west, a great disenchantment ensued:

“No one was interested in the fact that I saw giant Stalin posters in addition to Marx, Engels and Lenin posters in the cafeteria on Hardenbergstrasse and ran away in despair. The publisher Axel Springer was the devil, otherwise I should talk to Gerhard Löwenthal , Matthias Walden , the Bundeswehr , the CDU , especially the CSU , from country teams and fraternities , the Wall Museum , the Society for Human Rights and in general from all anti-communists, Americans and Keeping away from conservative enemies of progress gave me to understand those who would help me, or better still: save me. "

He worked as a freelance writer, screenwriter, reviewer and lecturer. In 1980 he applied for membership in the FDP together with 30 former GDR prisoners, including the former East Berlin conscientious objector Nico Huebner . Faust is a longstanding member of numerous victim associations:

He is also a member of the authors' circle of the Federal Republic of Germany and worked in the Stasi Museum Berlin.

Faust also publishes socio-political essays and newspaper articles, u. a. for The European , Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung , Junge Freiheit .

Faust has five sons and one daughter. He lives in Berlin.

Political positions

In 1994, Faust signed the "Berlin Appeal" warning against the resurgence of socialism. In 2006 he signed the “Appeal for Press Freedom” of the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit against its exclusion from the Leipzig Book Fair . In 2010 he was co-author of a memorial for Wolfgang Venohr , writer and former member of the Waffen SS. In 2012 Faust was a co-signer of an election call for the state elections in Thuringia published in the newspaper "Die Welt", in which critical positions were expressed on almost all of the larger parties eligible for election, namely the SPD, the CDU and the Left.

Faust sympathizes with the AfD and openly represents anti-Islamic positions.

In 2018 he signed the "Chemnitz Declaration", which spoke out against the political co-ordination of a murder case that occurred in Chemnitz in late summer 2018.

Activities and incidents

The Margot Pietzner case

In 1991 Faust met the pensioner Margot Pietzner (1921–1998) in the memorial library in honor of the victims of Stalinism , where he was employed. Pietzner had - by his own account - served as an SS supervisor in a labor camp of her previous employer, the Arado Flugzeugwerke in Wittenberg , as well as in satellite camps of the Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps , such as Belzig . In 1946 a Soviet military tribunal sentenced her to death and then to 25 years in prison. In 1956 she was given an amnesty. Faust played an active part in ensuring that Pietzner was recognized as a political prisoner. After a number of manipulations in the recognition process, she received compensation for imprisonment totaling 64,350 DM in 1993. The process triggered two scandals.

For one thing , the Foundation for Former Political Prisoners , which was entrusted with the rehabilitation process, had not researched Pietzner's known SS past. The Gauck authority , which has now been switched on, and the Wittenberg researcher Renate Gruber, however, found incriminating evidence. This is how Pietzner mistreated concentration camp prisoners. Faust and Ursula Popiolek, the head of the memorial library, are said to have known about Pietzner's work as a concentration camp guard, but to have concealed it. The Pietzner case and the reversal of alleged Nazi perpetrators to victims of Stalinism by active members of the memorial library triggered the withdrawal of several GDR civil rights activists from the library's bodies. In 1996, Pietzner's status as a former political prisoner was revoked and the state reclaimed the compensation because violations of the principles of humanity precluded such a payment. Pietzner accepted this.

However, Pietzner had quickly given away most of the money beforehand. This turned into the second scandal; the Popiolek family received 20,000 and Faust 7,000 marks. He was therefore dismissed without notice after his new job became known, the Berlin State Commissioner for the Stasi files. Faust claims to have urged von Pietzner to accept the money, initially kept it in cash and later given it to an organization for the benefit of women from the Hoheneck prison or to the foundation for former political prisoners .

The co-founder of the Bärbel Bohley Memorial Library as well as Jürgen Fuchs and Wolfgang Templin left the association due to the scandal.

State representative for the Stasi documents

As of May 1996, Faust was the successor to Fritz Arendt as the state representative for the Stasi documents in the Free State of Saxony. On April 22, 1999, he was recalled from office by the state parliament; In May 1998 the SPD and PDS tried unsuccessfully to recall him because of his contacts with the "psychosect" association for promoting psychological knowledge of human nature. According to the Justice Minister, Faust had accessed paid websites with pornographic content from his office PC. Faust admitted the incidents but did not step back because he had not consciously consulted such sites. In court he was charged with not having attended a computer course because he could not read the English commands. He surfed for around 20 DM per month  , although it was not possible to differentiate between private and business use. Faust won the trials against the Ministry of Justice in both instances and received salaries from the Free State of Saxony until the end of his regular service in 2001.

Employees at the Hohenschönhausen Memorial

From 2008, Siegmar Faust, as a contemporary witness, led groups of visitors through the Hohenschönhausen Memorial . This parted with Faust at the end of May 2018. The director of the memorial, Hubertus Knabe , distanced himself from Faust after he had been quoted in the Berliner Zeitung with “ AfD- related statements and statements that relativized the Holocaust ”. Knabe emphasized that the quoted statements of Faust did not correspond to the opinion of the foundation, which stands behind the memorial. Rather, Faust's statements are "capable of massively damaging the concern of coming to terms with the SED dictatorship as a whole and thus also the work of the memorial and its employees". In a reply, Faust declared: "What was put in my mouth in the report, I never said that". He had verbally agreed with the Berliner Zeitung that he would be able to proofread the quotations before publication in order to then approve the interview. The journalist agreed, but then did not get in touch.

Siegmar Faust is also no longer allowed to look after groups of visitors at the Cottbus prison memorial . The Saxon representative for the Stasi documents, Lutz Rathenow , explained at the beginning of June 2018 that Siegmar Faust would no longer receive financial support for contemporary witness appearances at Saxon schools.

Works

Monographs

  • The apprenticeship and miracle years of Faustus Simplicissimus. Documented in an afterword by Lutz-Peter Naumann, in four drawings by Sieghard Pohl , as well as six original letters from prison and forty-one poems, Verlag Klaus Guhl, Berlin (West) 1979
  • In which country does Mephisto live? Writing in Germany, Günter Olzog Verlag, Munich 1980
  • I want to get out of here. Letters, poems, documents, receipts and caricatures, Verlag Klaus Guhl, Berlin (West) 1983
  • Everyone has their suffering. Experimental essay, Verlag Klaus Guhl, Berlin (West) 1984
  • Human trafficking in the present . GDR literature on the witness stand, MUT-Verlag , Asendorf 1986
  • The free swimmer. The end of a youth in Dresden, Roman, Anita Tykve Verlag, Böblingen 1987
  • The provocateur. A political novel . Herbig-Verlag, Munich 1999. ISBN 3-7766-2137-0 (autobiographical novel about Faust's alter ego Bob Kayenberg)

Anthologies, film scripts, documentaries (selection)

  • Ralph Grüneberger (Ed.) / Society for Contemporary Poetry . New poetry album . Issues 1/2008, 1/2012, 1/2015
  • Freedom i mean. About Christians and Marxists in the GDR, six-part ZDF feature film series, 1979
  • Longing for an organ. Lecture film for the Märtyrerkirche relief operation, Überlingen 1983
  • This is my country too. Three portraits of writers on the German question: Reiner Kunze, Hans-Joachim Schädlich and Ulrich Schacht. Lecture film by the All-German Institute, Bonn 1986
  • We thought the war was over. ZeitZeugen documentation with internees from so-called special camps, together with Dirk Jungnickel , Berlin 1996
  • Against forgetting. Time witnesses in the GDR Museum Pforzheim. 10 portraits, Pforzheim 2006

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Siegmar Faust in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ^ Siegmar Faust in the contemporary witness portal
  3. ↑ lr-online.de
  4. ↑ stasiopfer.de
  5. ↑ Resistance with all its consequences (PDF; 84 kB)
  6. ↑ a b c Biography (PDF) Konrad Adenauer Foundation
  7. ↑ a b When inmates buy their prison . In: Berliner Zeitung , July 30, 2012.
  8. ↑ [1]
  9. ^ Klaus J. Groth , Joachim Schäfer: Stigmatized - The terror of the do-gooders . Aton-Verlag , 2003, ISBN 3-9807644-5-1 ; Chapter: The Dissident ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) Background information on the Knütter source @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.links-enttarnt.de
  10. ^ Political parties: Nico Hübner . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1980 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Gedenkstaetten-bw.de ( Memento of the original from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gedenkstaetten-bw.de
  12. ↑ hss.de ( Memento of the original from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hss.de
  13. ↑ Free German Authors' Association  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / fda.de  
  14. ↑ Siegmar Faust: The "totalitarian democracy" . In: TheEuropean . February 20, 2018 ( theeuropean.de [accessed November 28, 2018]).
  15. ↑ nz: Celebrities stand up for “Young Freedom”. Archived from the original on January 13, 2014 ; accessed on January 2, 2013 (in Netzeitung , February 7, 2006).
  16. ↑ Charter 2017 - an appeal for freedom of opinion and art . In: Conservo . October 19, 2017 ( wordpress.com [accessed November 28, 2018]).
  17. ↑ Dieter Stein, Günther Deschner, Herbert Ammon, Manfred Backerra, Berndt Banach: A life for Germany. Commemorative publication for Wolfgang Venohr 1925-2005 . 1st edition. Junge Freiheit, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-929886-24-5 ( amazon.de [accessed on November 28, 2018]).
  18. ↑ https://www.welt.de/bin/Aufruf-131916737.pdf
  19. ↑ http://www.fr.de/politik/afd-ddr-buergerrechtler-auf-rechte-abwegen-a-1515864,0
  20. ↑ https://vera-lengsfeld.de/2017/12/10/referendare-endung-berufsverbot-fuer-politischen-haeftling-der-ddr/
  21. ^ Havemann Gesellschaft Berlin: Civil rights activists publish "Declaration on Chemnitz". Retrieved November 28, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Andreas Weigelt et al. (Ed.), Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947) , Göttingen 2015, on Margot Kunz (maiden name of Pietzker) p. 192, with notes 116 and 117
  23. ↑ Thomas Moser, History Processes. The case of a concentration camp guard who was compensated as a victim of Stalinism and other proceedings. In: Kritische Justiz, Volume 34 (2001), Issue 2, pp. 222-227. - Robert Havemann Gesellschaft, "Der Fall Margot Pienzler" collection , archive inventory for the RBu 100 material collection, website, accessed on September 10, 2018
  24. ↑ Andreas Schreier, All Sacrifice; or what? , in: taz, December 1, 1994, online, accessed on September 10, 2018. - Thomas Moser, History Processes. The case of a concentration camp guard who was compensated as a victim of Stalinism and other proceedings. In: Kritische Justiz, Volume 34 (2001), Issue 2, p. 225 f. -
  25. ↑ Felizitas Raith, you were there: followers, beneficiaries, perpetrators under National Socialism. Conference report on the 8th Dachau Symposium on Contemporary History, 2007, especially Lavern Wolfram's lecture on Pietzner, online, accessed on September 10, 2018. - Declaration by Siegmar Faust, letter to the editor in taz, December 15, 1994, online , accessed on September 10, 2018
  26. ↑ Renate Oschlies, supporting a concentration camp guard brought the club into twilight. Faust defends the cooperation of cult activists. Renger sees her name misused by the memorial library , in: Berliner Zeitung , August 21, 1996, online , accessed on September 10, 2018
  27. ↑ Andreas Schreier, All Sacrifice; or what? , in: taz, December 1, 1994, online, accessed on September 10, 2018. - Felizitas Raith, you were there: followers, beneficiaries, perpetrators of National Socialism. Conference report on the 8th Dachau Symposium on Contemporary History, 2007, online, accessed on September 10, 2018
  28. ↑ Thomas Moser, History Processes. The case of a concentration camp guard who was compensated as a victim of Stalinism and other proceedings. In: Kritische Justiz, Volume 34 (2001), Issue 2, p. 225 f.
  29. ↑ Uwe Rada: Swept under the carpet. In: taz , January 11, 1995
  30. ↑ Thomas Moser, History Processes. The case of a concentration camp guard who was compensated as a victim of Stalinism and other proceedings. In: Kritische Justiz, Volume 34 (2001), Issue 2, p. 226
  31. ^ Declaration by Siegmar Faust, letter to the editor in the taz, December 15, 1994, online , accessed on September 10, 2018
  32. ^ Unclean money , by Toralf Staud , Die Zeit , August 2, 1996
  33. ^ Jürgen Fuchs Havemann Society
  34. ↑ Wolfgang Templin Memorial Library in Honor of the Victims of Stalinism - The Current Conflict (PDF) Horch und Guck No. 16 pp. 85-90
  35. ↑ Wolfgang Templin ddr89.de
  36. ↑ Throwing in the towel New Germany August 29, 1995
  37. ^ Sect allegation against the Saxon Stasi commissioner . In: Berliner Zeitung , March 16, 1998.
  38. ↑ focus.de
  39. ↑ The CDU no longer holds its protective hand over Faust . In: The world .
  40. ↑ Saxony state parliament plenary 2/101 f of 22 April 1999, p 7337th
  41. ↑ Markus Decker: Holocaust statement: Stasi memorial Hohenschönhausen separates from Siegmar Faust. In: berliner-zeitung.de. May 31, 2018, accessed June 1, 2018 .
  42. ↑ Alleged Holocaust relativization: GDR victim Faust rejects allegations
  43. ↑ Siegmar Faust in his reply to the Berliner Zeitung: "I never said that like that"
  44. ↑ https://www.lr-online.de/lausitz/cottbus/faust-nach-hohenschoenhausen-auch-von-cottbuser-gedenkstaette-suspendiert_aid-23219971
  45. ↑ https://www.lr-online.de/nachrichten/brandenburg/keine-auftritte-mehr-von-faust-in-saechsischen-schulen_aid-23237627
personal data
SURNAME Faust, Siegmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author, GDR dissident, political prisoner in the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Dohna , district of Pirna , Saxony