Erich Kranz

Memorial plaque for Erich Kranz in Weimar, Am Jakobskirchhof 9

Erich Kranz (born February 24, 1929 in Breslau ; † March 19, 1999 ) was a German Protestant pastor and has been an honorary citizen of the city of Weimar since 1991 .

Live and act

Erich Kranz was a political prisoner from 1949 to 1956 in the prison known as Yellow Misery in Bautzen , Walter Kempowski was a fellow prisoner and cell neighbor .

Kranz studied Protestant theology at the Theological Seminary in Leipzig from 1957 to 1961 and took over the Umpferstedt parish after graduating in September 1964 . He also looked after the parishes of Schwabsdorf , Wiegendorf and Rödigsdorf .

In 1977 Erich Kranz was appointed pastor at the Jakobskirche in Weimar and at the same time youth pastor . Under his leadership there were regular baptism seminars, which were increasingly popular with independently thinking young people. In September 1987 he received the participants of the Olof Palme Peace March of the Christian Peace Conference Thuringia in front of the Herder Church and welcomed their commitment to a Europe free of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, in and around Weimar, Kranz became a role model and a leading figure in the resistance to injustice and oppression of the GDR state. Despite years of spying by the Ministry for State Security , parish life at the Jakobskirche remained lively and committed - Pastor Kranz protected, promoted and motivated many people, both Christians and non-Christians.

Peaceful revolution in Weimar in 1989

In the time of turning in East Germany in autumn 1989 Erich Kranz in Weimar was one of the role models of the Peaceful Revolution . With his above-average civic engagement, he became one of the regional initiators.

Before that, the faked GDR local elections on May 7, 1989 caused outrage and protest - Pastor Kranz was one of the first in Weimar to question the results and to seek discussion with those responsible. It was also Kranz who, a few months later, invited people to an open discussion in St. James' Church on October 4, 1989 with the biblical phrase "Seek the city's best" . Because a very large crowd was to be expected, they avoided the larger and then also overcrowded city ​​church of St. Peter and Paul .

Starting on October 24, 1989 and starting from the Platz der Demokratie, there were large demonstrations in Weimar on Tuesdays - on October 31, 1989, with an estimated 15,000 participants. The demonstrations led to government agencies, such as the district office of the Ministry of State Security . They were led by Pastor Christoph Victor, Deacon Hans-Jürgen Olbrecht and activists of the New Forum . Kranz was mostly directly, but always indirectly, involved in these events. Initially, democracy in the GDR and the opening of the Stasi archives were called for, and later the reunification of Germany.

On November 6, 1989, three days before the unforeseeable opening of the Berlin Wall , Erich Kranz preached during the peace prayer in the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig .

Honorary citizenship 1991

For his services to and on behalf of the citizens of the Peaceful Revolution who were involved in the civil movement, Weimar's city council decided on September 11, 1991 to award Erich Kranz honorary citizenship . Kranz received the award at the celebratory event on the occasion of the first day of German unity on October 3, 1991 in the German National Theater in Weimar .

The laudation was given by the writer Wulf Kirsten .

“Since the beginning of the eighties, Erich Kranz has offered more and more determined and consistent resistance. His church was open to everyone. He did not retreat into a theologically delimited and isolated snail shell in which the interests of the people were not an object. (...) He had an open ear for everyone who was looking for his advice and assistance. […] I am very proud, who proudly admit to the citizens' movement, that the city of Weimar, on the occasion of the Unity Day, has committed itself to these women and men from autumn 1989 and has chosen the most worthy from among them. (...) Anyone who witnessed the first meeting in the city church on October 4th will remember a unique feeling of irreversible liberation and elevation. He knows that that evening in the city church in Weimar the breath of history breathed into him. "

- Wulf Kirsten

Erich Kranz replied in his acceptance speech:

“Back then, in the autumn of '89, we set out with a spiritual word, it was our request, 'Seek the city's best,' an Old Testament word. But what is the best of a city, our city, our country? That our city is flourishing in art, education, culture, freedom and justice. But it can only do this if we all testify that it is our duty to take responsibility for freedom and justice. Let us use the present for human dignity and human rights. Then we can expect a good future for our children and grandchildren. A people without a vision perish, according to a wisdom from our good old Bible. "

- Erich Kranz

Private

Erich Kranz was married to Ingrid Kranz (1940–2015); who has been the librarian of today's university library at the Bauhaus University Weimar since 1972 and was its director from 1990 to 2000. The couple had three sons.

literature

• Christoph Victor (ed.): The courage to walk upright - memories of the Weimar pastor and honorary citizen Erich Kranz. Weimar 2013. ISBN 978-3-86160-264-4

Web links

• Heinz Voigt: Motto '89: "Seek the city's best ..." In: Listen and look. Journal for the critical reappraisal of the SED dictatorship . Issue 25/1999, pp. 20f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walter Kempowski: A chapter in itself
2. ↑ Heinz Voigt: Motto '89: "Seek the city for the best ..." ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Listen and look. Journal of the Museum Memorial in the “Runden Ecke” Leipzig, 25/1999, pp. 20–21. 
3. ↑ Christoph Victor : October spring. The turning point in Weimar . Ed. Stadtmuseum Weimar, 1992 and 2009. ISBN 3-910053-25-4
4. ↑ http://weimar.tlz.de/web/lokal/leben/detail/-/specific/300-Jahre-Weimarer-Jakobskirche-Pfarrer-Erich-Kranz-mit-Buch-gewuerdigt-161675229
5. ↑ http://www.kirchenkreis-weimar.de/attachment/1e04a530a4a2ea84a5311e0b398655a31b0aa30aa30/1e2918b2edf1342918b11e2818e0505d069a37ba37b/jahresprogramm2013_web.pdf
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 16, 2015 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. 
7. ↑ Christoph Victor (ed.): The courage to walk upright - memories of the Weimar pastor and honorary citizen Erich Kranz. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-86160-264-4 , pp. 89, 91.
8. ↑ On the term "Old Testament" cf. Georg Freuling:  Old Testament / Old Testament. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (eds.): The scientific Bibellexikon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff., Accessed on September 12, 2015 ..
9. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2013 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. 
10. ↑ Ingrid Kranz completed an apprenticeship as a library worker from 1958 to 1961. After various professional positions, she came to the then University of Architecture and Building in Weimar in 1969. There she held various functions at the university library, including a. she was the head of the usage department. From 1971 to 1976 she completed a distance learning course at the Humboldt University in Berlin, which she graduated with a diploma. At the time of the fall of the Wall, Ingrid Kranz was one of the co-creators of a new beginning at the university. From 1991 to 1999 she worked as director first of the university and then of the university library. After her transition into the resting phase of partial retirement, she dealt intensively with the sources on the history of the university during the time of reunification. Here she developed a compendium that can be seen as an important basis for depicting this period in university history. - Source: https://www.uni-weimar.de/de/universitaet/struktur/zentrale-einrichtungen/universitaetsbibliothek/aktuelles/newsletter/newsletter-2015/newsletter-052015/
11. ↑ http://weimar.tlz.de/web/lokal/leben/detail/-/specific/Weimar-nehmen-Abschied-von-Ingrid-Kranz-1811882687
12. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2013 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.