Friedrich Magirius

Friedrich Magirius (2014)

Friedrich Magirius (born June 26, 1930 in Dresden ) is a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian and former local politician.

Professional background

The father, Martin Magirius, was a district judge, the mother Hannah worked as a vocational school teacher. Friedrich Magirius grew up in Radebeul until he graduated from high school . He studied theology from 1948 to 1950 at the Church University of Berlin-Zehlendorf in West Berlin and from 1950 to 1953 at the University of Greifswald . He completed his vicariate at the Inner Mission in Saxony and in the parish of Löbau . From 1955 Magirius worked as a boarding school director and teacher at the church preschool at the Moritzburg deaconess house.

In 1958 he took up his first pastor's position in Einsiedel , later he became pastor at the Dresden Kreuzkirche . From 1974 to 1982 he was the head of Action Reconciliation in the GDR , where he earned a reputation in Poland .

From 1982 until his retirement in 1995 Magirius was superintendent of the Leipzig-East church district and, together with Christian Führer, pastor at the Leipzig Nikolaikirche , where he influenced the course of the Leipzig Monday demonstrations and the revolution of 1989.

From 1990 to 1994 he also held the office of mayor of Leipzig, which only existed during this transition period.

Political activity

Its role before and during the peaceful revolution in 1989 is controversial. For him well-meaning people try to portray him as a “man of balance”. The Leipzig GDR civil rights activists criticize that Magirius had always worked against them as a church official. Even as the moderator of the “round table”, he was unable to hide his one-sidedness in favor of the old parties and organizations of the SED state. He was in favor of ending the Monday demonstrations, but was never able to prevail.

Particularly in the run-up to awards, actors from the former organized resistance turned to the public, most recently in 2005 before the city of Leipzig was awarded the Medal of Honor .

The dismissal of the SED-critical pastor Christoph Wonneberger as coordinator for the prayers for peace at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig in August 1988 goes back to a decision by Magirius. He wrote: “Dear Brother Wonneberger […] We have prepared a new design for the peace prayers for the next few weeks. For my part, I once again state that you are released from your previous task. ” Christian Führer , the pastor of the Nikolaikirche, bowed to pressure from government agencies and supported the Superintendentur Ost in excluding all Leipzig civil rights groups from the organization of peace prayers.

It was only after several months of intense protests that Christoph Wonneberger and the organized Leipzig opposition - such as the Human Rights Working Group , the Leipzig Working Group on Justice , the Life Initiative Group, the Environmental Protection Working Group, Women for Peace - were able to reach a compromise that allowed the groups to organize their prayers for peace under the leadership and responsibility each made possible by a pastor. In addition to Christoph Wonneberger, the groups were then supported by the Protestant pastors Klaus Kaden and Rolf-Michael Turek as well as the Catholic priest Hans-Friedrich Fischer .

According to the Hamburger Abendblatt of February 15, 1992, Magirius himself defended his actions with the words: “As a Christian, one always sits between stools. Christ was nailed to the cross for this. "

Honors

• 1989 Award of the "Golden Camera"
• In 1990 Friedrich Magirius was awarded the Gustav-Heinemann-Bürgerpreis in the Paulskirche, where “civil rights activists unrolled the banner with the inscription 'Superintrigent Magirius - revolutionary hero after broadcasting'.” The neologism “Superintrigent” was a deliberate allusion to office and way of acting.
• 1995 Appointment as "Officer of the Legion of Honor " by the French Consul General Eugène Berg in Leipzig
• 1997 Award of the Commander's Cross of the “ Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland ” by the Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Leipzig in the presence of Ambassador Andrzej Byrt
• 2005 Awarded honorary citizenship of the Polish city of Kraków / Krakow .
• 2005 Awarded the " Medal of Honor of the City of Leipzig "
• Friedrich Magirius is an honorary member of the Leipzig City Schoolchildren Council (reason: co-founder of the Leipzig SSR)

literature

• Friedrich Magirius: Lived Reconciliation - My Memories. Autobiography. Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle / Saale 2017, ISBN 978-3-95462-796-7
• Karl Czok (Ed.): Nikolaikirche, open to everyone. Edited on the basis of the files of Christian Führer and Friedrich Magirius. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-374-01740-1 .
• Hermann Geyer: Nikolaikirche, Mondays at five. The political services of the turning point in Leipzig . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-534-18482-8 (habilitation thesis, University of Leipzig, 2006; table of contents ).
• Ehrhart Neubert :  Magirius, Friedrich . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Thomas Rudolph , Oliver Kloss , Rainer Müller , Christoph Wonneberger (eds.): Way in the uprising. Chronicle of opposition and resistance in the GDR from August 1987 to December 1989. Vol. 1, Leipzig, Araki, 2014, ISBN 978-3-941848-17-7 ; Preface as a reading sample.
• Sylvia Kabus : Nineteen eighty-nine. Psychogram of a city. Beucha, Sax Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86729-041-8 , pp. 157, 160 f., 164-168, 170-175.
• Friedrich Magirius , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 50/1997 of December 1, 1997, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

• Friedrich Magirius in archive.org
• Christine Reuther: A man of balance , in: Der Sonntag. Weekly newspaper for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Saxony, June 24, 2010.
• IFM archive Saxony (ed.): Friedrich Magirius - The Multi Dear I .
• IFM Archive Saxony (Ed.): Friedrich Magirius - The Much Honored II .
• IFM Archive Saxony (Ed.): Friedrich Magirius - The Much Honored III .
• IFM archive e. V. (Hrsg.): From the MfS files of the GDR on church politics in Saxony. Non-personal operational information from the Leipzig-Stadt district office of the Ministry for State Security. On the role of church leaders in Saxony. Digitized, Leipzig, 2015.
• Christian Dietrich and Uwe Schwabe (ed. On behalf of the Archives Citizens Movement Leipzig eV): FRIENDS AND FEINDE. Prayers for peace in Leipzig between 1981 and October 9, 1989. Documentation. (PDF file; 3.91 MB) With a foreword by Harald Wagner, Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1994.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Society for Contemporary History: Friedensgebete
2. ↑ Cf. Christian Dietrich, Uwe Schwabe (edited on behalf of the Archives Citizens Movement eV Leipzig): Friends and Enemies. Prayers for peace in Leipzig between 1981 and October 9, 1989. Documentation. (PDF file; 3.91 MB) With a foreword by Harald Wagner, Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1994.
3. ↑ Biography of the former Nikolaikirche pastor Friedrich Magirius published. In: lichtfest.leipziger-freiheit.de. March 10, 2017, accessed August 5, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Christine Reuther: A man of balance. In: Sunday . Weekly newspaper for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony. June 24, 2010, archived from the original on March 15, 2014 ; accessed on August 5, 2018 . 
5. ^ Open letter from former participants in subversive groups in Leipzig to Friedrich Magirius on the occasion of a planned honor; February 22, 1995.
6. ^ Open letter to Mayor Wolfgang Tiefensee from June 14, 2005 and open letter to Friedrich Magirius from June 23, 2005
7. ^ Robert Havemann Society: Peaceful Revolution 1989/90.
8. ^ New Forum Leipzig: On the history of prayers for peace . 25 years of prayers for peace in St. Nikolai 2007.
   See the Stasi column: Pastors denounced pastors . In: FOCUS magazine No. 2 of January 9, 1995, p. 13.
9. ↑ Peter Wensierski : Acting instead of praying . In: Der Spiegel 43/2009 of October 19, 2009, pp. 42–46, here p. 45.
10. ^ Robert Havemann Society: Peaceful Revolution 1989/90. Cf. Christian Dietrich, Uwe Schwabe: Friends and Enemies. Documents on the prayers for peace in Leipzig between 1981 and October 9, 1989 . Edited on behalf of the Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig e. V., Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 1994, ISBN 3-374-01551-4 .
11. ^ Christian Dietrich: Case study Leipzig 1987–1989. The politically alternative groups in Leipzig before the revolution . Commission of Inquiry “Processing the History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany” Volume VII / 1, 1995; Christian Dietrich, Uwe Schwabe on behalf of the Archive Citizens Movement e. V. (Ed.): Friends and enemies. Documents on the prayers for peace in Leipzig between 1981 and October 9, 1989 ; Leipzig 1994.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Wensierski: Acting instead of praying . In: Der Spiegel 43/2009 of October 19, 2009, pp. 42–46.
13. ↑ GOLDEN CAMERA 1990 - 25th award. In: Goldenekamera.de. Retrieved August 5, 2018 . 
14. ↑ Honorable Stasi informer . In: Focus 9/1995 of February 25, 1995, p. 15.
15. ^ Frank holiday: Magirius - officer on special duty at President Mitterrand's [sic] court table . In: telegraph, Heft 2 (1995), Berlin, pp. 11–12 (PDF file; 3.50 MB)
16. ↑ Magirius receives Commander's Cross , in: Leipziger Volkszeitung of June 18, 1997, p. 19.
17. ^ Open letter to OBM Wolfgang Tiefensee dated June 14, 2005.
18. ↑ Leipzig honors Magirius with the city's medal of honor  ( 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. ; Radio Dresden, June 26, 2005  
19. ↑ Honorary Members. Accessed June 21, 2018 (German).