Matthias Klipp

Matthias Klipp (born June 20, 1961 in Berlin ) was the only oppositional member of a parliament in the history of the GDR before the Volkskammer elections of 1990. He was elected to the district assembly of the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg in the local elections in the GDR in 1989 .

Life

Klipp was born on June 20, 1961 in Berlin. After completing his vocational training with a high school diploma, he began studying engineering at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1981 and graduated with a diploma .

Since 1986 Klipp has been involved in citizens' groups and opposition groups in the GDR. Above all, he campaigned in a citizens' initiative on Oderberger Straße , located in Prenzlauer Berg near the Berlin Wall , against the planned but never carried out clear-cut restoration in the district, which is still the largest contiguous old building area in the Federal Republic of Germany. The citizens' initiative also organized readings or planted or renewed dilapidated properties and sidewalks on their own. Klipp is married and has four children.

Candidate for the local elections in 1989

At the beginning of 1989, Klipp and the citizens' initiative decided to intervene in district politics. To do this, they went to the residential area committee (WBA) in their neighborhood, which was able to nominate the respective candidates for the unit list of the National Front . Since the WBA had only a few and, on average, very old colleagues, Klipp and his supporters were able to quickly gain the majority. They elected a new chairman and eventually nominated Klipp as a candidate for the upcoming elections.
After the nomination, everything was done by the authorities to prevent Klipps from running. It was claimed that the list was already full, and Klipp was monitored by the State Security to prove that he had committed criminal acts, but it did not succeed. Despite all efforts, the candidacy could not be prevented and Klipp became the first and only opposition candidate in the GDR before the last Volkskammer elections in 1990. In the heavily opposition district of Prenzlauer Berg, Klipp held large election parties with thousands of visitors and was very well received.

Klipp later reported that on election day itself, May 7, 1989, he voted against himself. The reason for this was that a valid dissenting vote was only possible if all names on the unit list were crossed out. The "usual" voting process in the GDR consisted of folding the ballot paper, which was visible to all those present, and then throwing it into the ballot box. Although the laws of the GDR guaranteed the use of a voting booth, anyone who made use of this right, as Klipp did, made himself suspicious.

The local elections in the GDR in 1989 were already accompanied by a noticeably growing opposition, which monitored the counts and documented the results obtained there in minute detail in order to later be able to prove electoral fraud. Prenzlauer Berg was one of the nationwide strongholds of these movements, the MfS counted there with 64 the most polling stations visited by election observers. The election fraud could later be proven beyond doubt. The actual result of the election resulted in an approval of the candidates from the National Front of around 90 percent. Egon Krenz , who acted as election supervisor, announced an official result of 98.85 percent. The obvious election fraud led to demonstrations and other protests in many parts of the GDR, which were suppressed by the police and state security.

Matthias Klipp had to live with the fact that his mandate in the Prenzlauer Berger district council was the result of electoral fraud. On his first day of the meeting it was made clear to him that everything would be tried to suppress opposition work. Klipp reported that the City Councilor for Home Affairs received him and demonstratively told him about the paragraphs of the penal code relating to " subversive agitation ". However, Klipp was able to exercise his mandate as a city district councilor.

During and after the turn

In 1989 Klipp became involved in the New Forum in the opposition in the GDR. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was a building city councilor in the Prenzlauer Berg district office from 1990 to 1996 and became a member of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen . As managing director of an urban development company, he was jointly responsible for the legalization of many squatted houses in Berlin. Since 2009 he was again active in city politics and was Assistant Secretary of Urban Development and Construction in Potsdam . On August 31, 2015, he was suspended from duty due to ambiguities in dealing with his private house construction.

Web links

• Short biography on the website of the Potsdam city administration
• The opposition candidate (website of the mdr)
• I am amazed that nobody throws paint bags , interview in the taz, May 11, 2009

Footnotes

1. ↑ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/wahlfaelschung-in-der-ddr-auf-unserer-wahlparty-wurde-gelacht/9853520.html
2. ^ Document in Matthias Judt (ed.), GDR history in documents, Bonn 1998, p. 75 f.
3. ↑ http://www.mdr.de/damals/archiv/artikel86502.html
4. ↑ http://t.maz-online.de/Lokales/Potsdam/Der-Fall-Matthias-Klipp-eine-Chronologie