Ingo Braecklein

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Ingo Braecklein (born August 29, 1906 in Eisenach ; † August 5, 2001 in Triptis ) was Bishop of the Evangelical Church of Thuringia and an unofficial employee of the GDR State Security .

Life

Braecklein studied theology in Jena , Marburg and Tübingen and was from 1933 vicar and later pastor in Allendorf . He joined the NSDAP and the SA in 1933 , but was at the same time a co-signatory of the “Wittenberger Bund”, which turned against German Christianity . From 1939 to 1945 he was a war volunteer, most recently with the rank of first lieutenant . He came into British captivity .

After his return to Germany he was pastor in Allendorf and Saalfeld / Saale and from 1950 to 1959 superintendent in Weimar . From 1959 he was a member of the regional church council of Thuringia and deputy of the regional bishop Moritz Mitzenheim . As a member of the “Weimar Working Group”, he campaigned for church policy close to the state and the organizational separation of the Protestant churches in the GDR from the EKD .

Braecklein was a member of the Christian Peace Conference (CFK) and participated in the First All-Christian Peace Assembly (ACFV) in 1961 and the II. ACFV, which took place in Prague in 1964.

From 1968 to 1970 he was President of the General Synod of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in the GDR (VELK) and in 1969 President of the Synod of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the GDR . In 1970, despite protests because of his past as a Nazi officer, he was elected bishop of the Thuringian regional church, because his career was strongly supported by the Ministry for State Security and this appointment as bishop was planned by Erich Mielke since 1957 . In June 1970, Braecklein's senior officers at State Security, Hans Buhl and Hartmut Kullik, congratulated their colleague “Ingo” on their election as bishop. Braecklein was Senior Bishop of the VELK from 1971 to 1977. He campaigned for the "togetherness of Marxists and Christians" in the GDR, the Ministry of State Security noted that he had "decisively" helped to enforce state policy "through his personal commitment" in the church. In 1971 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold . In 1978 Braecklein retired.

In 1991 he was entrusted by the Thuringian regional church with the management of the trust committee for the processing of MfS contacts of church employees. In 1992 Manfred Stolpe named him as a confidante of his conspiratorial contacts with the MfS. In 1996, documents emerged showing that Braecklein had been providing information to the State Security for around 30 years from 1956 and had worked as an unofficial employee of "Ingo" at the Ministry of State Security from 1959 . He delivered spy reports about his pastors and promised the State Security to fire employees who were unpopular.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters. Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , p. 50.
  2. ↑ Christian Dietrich : The Weimar Working Group, the Eastern CDU and the Thuringian Way of the Evangelical Church , in: epd documentation No. 20/2012 (May 15, 2012), pp. 38–52
  3. ^ Gerhard Besier: The Church, obedient servant of the state ; in: Die Welt from September 11, 1996
  4. ↑ a b Stasi: Often just embarrassing ; Der Spiegel, 35/1996 of August 26, 1996; Pp. 76-77.
  5. ↑ Working Group Objective Hermeneutics: Program of the 12th meeting of the Working Group Objective Hermeneutics eV on 21. – 23. March 2003, Frankfurt am Main: "Religiousness in the secularized world"
personal data
SURNAME Braecklein, Ingo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman, bishop of the Evangelical Church of Thuringia, unofficial employee of the GDR state security
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Eisenach
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 2001
Place of death Triptis