Kathrin Mahler Walther

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Kathrin Mahler Walther (born December 29, 1970 in Leipzig ) is a German sociologist and civil rights activist . She is the managing director of EAF Berlin (www.eaf-berlin.de), an independent research and consulting institute for the promotion of diversity in leadership. In the 1980s, Kathrin Walther belonged to the civil rights movement and organized resistance in the GDR . In Leipzig, she worked in the working group on human rights and the working group on environmental protection , and was spokeswoman for the justice working group , which made a significant contribution to initiating mass protests against the SED rule with public actions . In 1989 she was a full-time employee in the coordination group of the Justice Working Group and the Human Rights Working Group .

Life

Childhood and early adolescence

During her school days, Kathrin Walther was a member of the FDJ , at times also the FDJ secretary of her school class until she resigned from this office in 1985. In that year, in addition to the officially desired youth consecration, she also took part in the confirmation of the Reformed Church . As a result of her work in the Young Community , she was later able to participate in the Leipzig City Youth Convention and in the Speaker Committee of the State Youth Convention of Saxony and in the Youth Convention of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the GDR .

The ten-class polytechnic high school was followed by apprenticeship training as a skilled worker for writing technology at Urania Verlag Leipzig . She was already visited several times in the apprenticeship training company by employees of the MfS , brought to the room of the SED party secretary for a conversation, in order to be questioned and warned. From the summer of 1989, Kathrin Walther was a full-time employee of the Leipzig Justice Working Group . In January 1990 Kathrin Walther took over the management of the Saxony regional association for the Peace and Human Rights Initiative .

Political-subversive engagement until the 1989 revolution in the GDR

Organized resistance against the GDR state

In the autumn of 1987 Kathrin Walther joined the Human Rights Working Group (AGM) at Pastor Christoph Wonneberger's Lukas Congregation in Leipzig and was its youngest employee. She helped to organize the AGM event on Social Peace Service (SoFd) in the Reformed Church in November .

As a result of the arrests after the Liebknecht-Luxemburg demonstration in Berlin in 1988, Kathrin Walther took an active part in the peace prayers for the liberation of the prisoners in January and February. She increased her participation in the AGM , sent letters to old people's homes in Leipzig with the request for support of the SoFd initiative, after which the summons to the council of the Leipzig-West city district followed. Her parents were summoned to their factories, the father to the party control commission and the mother to the director with external reinforcement by Stasi officers.

In consideration of the politically difficult situation for her parents, Kathrin Walther initially withdrew from the Human Rights Working Group. For this she got involved in the environmental protection working group at the youth parish office, where she supported the publication of the "Streiflichter" together with Roland Quester . From 1987 to 1990 she worked on the printing and writing of matrices for various samizdat publications by the Environmental Protection Working Group , the Human Rights Working Group , the Justice Working Group and the Peace and Human Rights Initiative . In the last three years of the GDR, Kathrin Walther participated in the conception and implementation of prayers for peace in the Nikolaikirche with the AG Human Rights and the AK Justice . Together with Silke Krasulsky , Kerstin Heuchert, Michaela Ziegs u. a. In 1988 she initiated a women's group to deal with the past and present of the social and legal position of women. In 1988, Kathrin Walther was summoned to the district mayor of Leipzig-West, where she was given a warning.

At the meeting of the base groups in Karl-Marx-Stadt in January 1989, Kathrin Walther was elected to represent the human rights groups in the preparatory committee for the base group meeting of the Saxony region . Shortly thereafter, she became the spokesperson in the coordination group of the Leipzig Justice Working Group . In January 1989, after the Liebknecht-Luxemburg-Demonstration in Leipzig, Kathrin Walther took part in the coordination of the contact telephone for the liberation of the Leipzig prisoners together with Peter Grimm from the initiative Peace and Human Rights Berlin. In 1989 Kathrin Walther took part in the establishment of the opposition center of the Human Rights Working Group and the Justice Working Group in the parish hall of the Lukas Church parish of Pastor Christoph Wonneberger in Juliusstrasse with a library, printer and assembly room. She also helped organize the monthly meetings for the GDR-wide networking of opposition groups in the Saturday Circle .

Together with Thomas Rudolph and Frank Richter , Kathrin Walther was responsible for regular trips to Berlin to get in touch with or to pass on information to journalists from the Federal Republic who were accredited in East Berlin. With Thomas Rudolph she organized the regular transports from Samizdat from Berlin to Leipzig, e.g. Sometimes with the "unsuspecting" support possible from her brother, who drove his Trabant. From the summer of 1989, Kathrin Walther was a member of the editorial team of “Die neue Grüne” from Berlin and of the “Forum for Church and Human Rights” for the Justice Working Group . She received a summons to the Ministry for State Security in the run-up to the local elections and the Leipzig Street Music Festival . On May 26, 1989 - she wanted to go to Prague with Thomas Rudolph and Frank Richter to meet representatives of Charter 77 - she was taken from the train at the border and was banned from traveling to Czechoslovakia.

“The most important action she describes was the instead of kirchentag in the summer of '89: 'To commemorate the victims of the massacre on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, I carried a large democracy banner with Chinese characters during the demo into the city. Stasi people snatched the poster, people's police blocked the way, the protest ended in the care of St. Peter's Church. '"

- Thomas Mayer

Beginning at the closing event of the Kirchentag in the Scheibenholz, a demonstration in the direction of the city center against the massacre welcomed by the SED on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and for democratic changes in the GDR was successful. The way was blocked again and again by police chains. Kathrin Walther and Rainer Müller led the demonstration and led it to St. Peter's Church. There Kathrin Walther conducted an intercession devotion for the participants. After negotiating with the church leadership, the demonstrators were able to leave the church unscathed.

From July 1989 Kathrin Walther went full-time as a "full-time" employee of the AG Justice and the AG Human Rights together with Thomas Rudolph , Frank Richter and Rainer Müller . They received a monthly amount from donations and sales proceeds from the samizdat magazines to cover their living expenses.

Engagement during the 1989 revolution

In September 1989, the Justice Working Group joined the Peace and Human Rights Initiative (IFM) as the Leipzig regional group, as this Berlin group had called for GDR-wide expansion in March. In September 1989 Kathrin Walther was one of those in the Nikolaikirchhof who shouted “We stay here” at the demonstration after the prayers for peace and not “We want out”.

In preparation for the Monday demonstration on the decisive October 9, 1989, Kathrin Walther was busy composing, typing and printing the joint appeal “No violence” by the Justice Working Group, Human Rights Working Group and Environmental Protection Working Group . On October 9th she was one of the distributors of the roll call in the city center and in the churches of the prayers for peace.

As a member of the parish of the Reformed Church, she was able to give the Berlin photographers Aram Radomski and Siegbert Schefke access to the church tower of the Reformed Church through Pastor Jürgen Sievers, where the famous film footage of the Monday demonstration was made. During the demonstration, she sat in the dark rooms of the consistory of the Reformed Congregation and wrote slogans and poster texts of the demonstrators and transmitted them to the demo telephone , the place of strategic public relations work to protect the demonstration in the Lukaskirch community. In October and November 1989 the chanted slogans and the poster texts were recorded there and transmitted to the West journalists accredited in East Berlin.

From autumn 1989 Kathrin Walther was the representative of the IFM at the round table of the city as well as at the round table of the Leipzig district . She helped found the Leipzig IFM office at Demmeringstrasse 21, organized events, edited the “IFM Info” and organized its dissemination for the Monday demonstration.

In autumn she was elected a member of the GDR board of the IFM , in 1991 she was a member of the negotiating group for the merger of IFM and democracy now in Leipzig and Saxony. In 1990 she was a member of the election committee of the electoral alliance for the Saxon state parliament and also ran for the state parliament. In 1990 and 1991 she represented the IFM in the negotiating group on the merger to form Alliance 90 .

Work since the unification of Germany

From January 1991 to October 1992 Kathrin Walther was an advisor to the MdL Cornelia Matzke in the Alliance 90 / Greens parliamentary group of the first democratically elected Saxon state parliament in the Federal Republic. After resigning from the state parliament, Kathrin Walther chose unemployment in order to gain time and distance, to be able to deal intensively with history and to find her place in the new political system.

From 1994 to 1997 she completed her Abitur on the second educational path at the Berlin College with a scholarship from the Hans Böckler Foundation, where she was involved in student administration. From 1997 to 2003 she studied social science in Jena , Berlin and New York with a scholarship from the Hans Böckler Foundation . She was involved in the scholarship structures of the Hans Böckler Foundation, u. a. as an elected member of the selection committee for scholarship holders , in the editorial team of the women's info for the scholarship holders, worked in the women’s group and initiated the scholarship project on the change in the world of work .

As a contemporary witness of the Peaceful Revolution, she is involved in various media and at events for political education as well as at the ceremony of the State of Berlin on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 in the Berliner Festspielhaus.

“Kathrin Mahler Walther, the youngest of yore, is still full of dynamism today. In Berlin she works as a board member and deputy managing director of the European Academy for Women in Politics and Business (EAF). The non-profit organization conducts research, advice, further training in matters of equal opportunities and family friendliness [...] Women are prepared by the EAF for management tasks. "

- Thomas Mayer

In October 2015, she and 46 other former GDR civil rights activists from various political camps signed the open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, initiated by Katrin Hattenhauer , in which it says at the beginning: “We support your policy of open borders. We support your refugee policy and your efforts for the sake of the people. With the greatest respect, we see your firm stance on accepting asylum-seekers in Germany [...] 70 years after the Holocaust, Germany opens its borders and saves people from need and death. "

In May 2019, Kathrin Mahler Walther initiated the open letter to the commission "30 Years of Peaceful Revolution and German Unity" , with which 57 civil rights activists spoke out in favor of placing October 9th as the anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution at the center of the anniversary celebrations. At the Festival of Lights on October 9, 2019, on the 30th anniversary, the civil rights activist spoke in front of 75,000 people in Leipzig on Augustusplatz in memory of the Peaceful Revolution.

Honor

  • 2019: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon

literature

  • Thomas Mayer: Jeanne d'Arc from Lindenau. Young and fearless - Kathrin Walther risks a lot for a new life at the age of 16. In: Ders .: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution. 18 portraits of pioneers from Leipzig. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2009, pp. 110–117.
  • Kathrin Mahler Walther: You can stand, but crouch slightly. From the upright gait of Christoph Wonneberger. In: Andreas Peter Pausch: Resistance - Pastor Christoph Wonneberger , Berlin, Metropol, 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-184-1 , pp. 201-206.
  • 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 .
  • Hermann Geyer: Nikolaikirche, Mondays at five: the political services of the time of the fall in Leipzig . Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007 (University of Leipzig, Habil.-Schr. 2006), ISBN 978-3-534-18482-8 , table of contents .
  • Reinhard Bernhof : The Leipzig protocols . Halle, projekte verlag, 2004, p. 32 as well as autumn marathon - interiors of a revolution. Leipzig, 2006, ISBN 3-938442-13-1 , reading sample .
  • Ehrhart Neubert : History of the opposition in the GDR 1949–1989. Berlin, Christoph Links Verlag, 2nd edition 1998 (Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 2000) ISBN 3-86153-163-1 .
  • Sylvia Kabus : Nineteen eighty-nine. Psychogram of a city. Beucha, Sax Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86729-041-8 , pp. 167 and 170.
  • Peter Wensierski : The uncanny ease of the revolution. How a group of young people from Leipzig dared to rebel in the GDR. Munich, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2017, ISBN 978-3-421-04751-9 . [The Leipzig Initiativgruppe Leben (IGL) is at the center of this presentation , but people from the Justice Working Group were also included in the plot.]

Web links

Commons : Kathrin Mahler Walther  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Television documentary

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas Mayer: Jeanne d'Arc from Lindenau. Young and fearless - Kathrin Walther risks a lot for a new life at the age of 16. In: ders .: Heroes of the peaceful revolution. 18 portraits of pioneers from Leipzig. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2009, pp. 110–117, pp. 16 f.
  2. ↑ Kathrin Walther: China-Demo in Leipzig in July 1989 , in: Soziale Politik und Demokratie No. 1/1992 of April 9, 1992, Düsseldorf, ISSN 0941-6064, p. 25 f.
  3. ↑ Working Group Justice Leipzig , Human Rights Working Group and Working Group on Environmental Protection : appeal of organized resistance to non-violence on 9 October 1989 , digital copies of the documents several printed versions of 8 October 1989th
  4. ↑ See e.g. B. IFM-Info No. 3/1990 .
  5. ^ Thomas Mayer: Jeanne d'Arc from Lindenau. Young and fearless - Kathrin Walther risks a lot for a new life at the age of 16. In: ders .: Heroes of the peaceful revolution. 18 portraits of pioneers from Leipzig. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2009, pp. 110–117, p. 17.
  6. ↑ Deutsche Welle: The open letter to Angela Merkel in the wording on refugee and asylum policy of October 23, 2015.
  7. ↑ Open letter to the commission "30 Years of Peaceful Revolution and German Unity"
personal data
SURNAME Mahler Walther, Kathrin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walther, Kathrin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sociologist and GDR civil rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig