Eduard Stapel

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Eduard Stapel (left) with Christian Pulz (right) during the shooting of "Unter Männer - gay in the GDR"

Eduard Stapel (born May 30, 1953 in Bismark (Altmark) ; † September 3, 2017 there ) was one of the founders of the church gay movement in the GDR and from 1990 to 2006 spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD). The journalist and theologian lived in Leipzig for many years and was a member of the church opposition movement in the GDR . He was one of the founders and was the main source of ideas for the LSVD , which was founded under the name SVD in February 1990 in Leipzig.

Life

1959–1971, Stapel attended POS and EOS up to high school graduation . 1971–1972 he was a volunteer at the district newspaper of the GDR CDU " Der Neue Weg " in Halle / Saale . From 1972 to 1976 he studied journalism at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig with a degree in journalism. Then Stapel studied from 1975 to 1982 Evangelical Lutheran theology at the Theological Seminary in Leipzig , the largest of the three non-state universities in the GDR. After successfully completing his studies, Eduard Stapel, an avowed homosexual theologian, could not be accepted into the vicariate; the Theological Seminary in Leipzig temporarily employed him as a Konviktsinspektor.

In 1982 he founded the first "Homosexuality Working Group" with Christian Pulz and Matthias Kittlitz in the Protestant student community in Leipzig. Through advertising campaigns at several church days in the Luther year 1983, similar working groups were set up in many larger cities in the GDR. From 1985 to 1990, Stapel coordinated the activities of the working groups in the GDR as an employee for gay work for the Evangelical City Mission Magdeburg .

Stapel completed his vicariate in the Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony in 1984 . However, his application for ordination and assumption of a pastor's position was not granted. The reason was his commitment to the rights of lesbians and gays in the Evangelical Church. Instead, Stapel received a position in the Evangelical City Mission Magdeburg . Stack did not receive any compensation for the rejection of a pastorate.

In 1985 he was one of the co-founders of the " Solidarity Church Working Group " (with Marianne Birthler and Freya Klier, among others ). For a long time, Stapel was one of the speakers.

In 1990 he founded the Gay Association in the GDR / in Germany (SVD) e. V. (LSVD since 1999), of which he was a member of the federal executive board until 2006. From then on he was honorary chairman of the LSVD. In the Volkskammer election in 1990 he was a candidate for the New Forum , and from 1990 to 1991 GDR and federal manager of SVD e. V. and from 1995 to 1997 employee of the research center of the Society for Sexual Science in Leipzig.

Stapel built up numerous homosexual groups within the Evangelical Church in the GDR . The State Security saw in him the "main organizer" of a civil rights movement of homosexuals that was remote from the state. His surgical procedure was called "After Shave". Such suggestive aliases (after) were typical of gay victims of the Stasi.

Stapel was a member of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen and was part of the state executive committee of the party in Saxony-Anhalt . In the federal elections in 2005 and 2009 , he ran as a direct candidate for his party in the Altmark constituency .

Stapel died in September 2017 at the age of 64 in his birthplace in Bismark in Saxony-Anhalt . He was buried on September 30, 2017 in the Bismark cemetery.

Honors

Works

  • Eduard Stapel: Warm brothers against cold warriors. Gay movement in the GDR in the sights of the State Security (= those affected remember. Part 10). Saxony-Anhalt, State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the Former GDR Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg 1999, DNB 958340617 .
  • Eduard Stapel, Kurt Starke: Gay East. Homosexual men in the GDR. With an introduction by Bert Thinius and an interview with Eduard Stapel. Links, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-86153-075-9 .

additional

Eduard Stapel was one of the protagonists of the documentary film Unter Männer - Schwul in der DDR, made in 2012 by Ringo Rösener and Markus Stein.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ In addition to the Language Convict Berlin and the Catechetical Oberseminar Naumburg (Saale) .
  2. ↑ The three dormitories of the non-resident students at the Theological Seminary in Leipzig were referred to as “Konvikte”.
  3. ↑ Markus Löffler: The departure of lesbians and gays in the regional church of Saxony in the 80s. In: frei-und-fromm.de. August 19, 2016, accessed on October 2, 2019 (Summary of the work: The topic of "Homosexuality" in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony in the 1980s, term paper as part of the First Theological Exam, Theological Faculty of the University of Leipzig, Supervision: Prof. . Dr. Klaus Fitschen, Leipzig March 2015).
  4. ↑ A great civil rights activist. Obituary for Eddy Stapel. In: queer.de. Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany , September 5, 2017, accessed on September 5, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Stack, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian, spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD)
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Bismark
DATE OF DEATH 3rd September 2017
Place of death Bismark