Matthias Taatz

Matthias Taatz (* 15. October 1959 ) is an evangelical pastor and activist of the civil society .

Live and act

In 1988 Matthias Taatz became pastor in the city of Mühlberg / Elbe . Even then, he began to collect information about the nearby former Soviet special camp No. 1 Mühlberg . In the course of the political upheaval in the GDR in 1989, a round table was set up in Mühlberg , which at the end of March 1990 formed a Mühlberger Lager working group in which Taatz played a key role. In 1990 Taatz was also president of the Mühlberg city council. Achim Kilian wrote of him: "In the autumn of 1989, the chaplain Matthias Mühlberger Taatz courageously for truth opened the door on both camps and demanded their history." .

Taatz was committed to building a memorial on the camp grounds near Mühlberg both for the prisoners of war of the main camp IV B and for the prisoners of the Soviet special camp No. 1 Mühlberg . Taatz had launched a circular letter campaign and by 1991 had received around 1,500 letters on the history of the Mühlberg camp. In July 1991, the Mühlberger Lager um Taatz working group joined the Mühlberg camps initiative group and Taatz became a member of the extended board and, in 1992, the second chairman of the initiative group. In January 1992 he left Mühlberg and took over a pastor's position in Schenkenberg (Delitzsch) , but without compromising on his work in the Mühlberg camp initiative group. In 1993, Markus Meckel , then a member of the German Bundestag, emphasized at a commemoration ceremony that "Pastor Taatz probably has a great deal of merit in the fact that both groups of victims know that they belong to one another" . Taatz has been chairman of the Camp Mühlberg initiative group since 2001. In 2003 he received the Comitas Gentium Medal of Merit from the contact group of former Dutch prisoners of war in the Bond van Wapenbroeders for his work at the Mühlberg camp memorial .

Simultaneously with the assumption of the pastor's position in Schenkenberg in 1992 Taatz became a Protestant military pastor, first of the Army NCOs School IV and since October 1st, 2003, after reorganization, the NCOs of the Army in Delitzsch . He held this office until 2007. Taatz was an initiator of the integration of the Bundeswehr and the soldiers into the social life of the city of Delitzsch and the region. He contributed significantly to the creation of a pastoral care and meeting center in the Feldwebel-Boldt-Kaserne. In September 2005 he was awarded the Bundeswehr Cross of Honor in Gold for his special services to the Bundeswehr .

Taatz was one of the most important activists for the establishment and operation of the alternative community center Pfarrscheune Schenkenberg as well as the exhibition center for the Generation House Old Parish Lissa in a district of Neukyhna .

Since 2005 Matthias Taatz has been the second chairman of the Association for Pastors in the Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony eV In spring 2013 Taatz took over the position of superintendent for a few months, on March 29, 2014 Taatz was then deputy superintendent of the Evangelical Church District Torgau -Delitzsch elected. He is also a member of the board of the Diakonisches Werk Delitzsch / Eilenburg eV

After the flood in 2013 Taatz was chairman of the donation board of the district of North Saxony to coordinate the offers of help.

Publications

• In memory of the victims of the former German POW camp STALAG IV B Mühlberg / Elbe 1939 - 1945 and the Soviet special camp No. 1 Mühlberg / Elbe 1945 - 1948. A personal report on the development and work of the Initiativgruppe Lager Mühlberg e. V. , In: Remember! Task, opportunity, challenge. No. 2, 2018, Saxony-Anhalt Memorials Foundation, pp. 20-25 ( urn : nbn: de: gbv: 3: 2-25536 )

honors and awards

• Medal of Merit Comitas Gentium of the contact group of former Dutch prisoners of war in the Bond van Wapenbroeders 2003
• Gold Cross of Honor of the German Armed Forces 2005
• Honor for his voluntary work by the President of the Saxon State Parliament Matthias Rößler 2011
• Award from the Federal Agency for Civic Education for outstanding commitment in communicating the peaceful revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2014
• Order of Merit of the State of Brandenburg 2017

Film portraits

• The silence is broken - internment camp in the former Soviet-occupied zone , directed by Ulrike Bürger and Hans H. Wacker, 44 min., Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1991. Taatz is one of six interviewees.
• The break-up - Pastor Taatz moves the province , director: Peter Grimm, 30 min., MDR, 2007

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas Weigelt: Chronicle of the Initiativgruppe Lager Mühlberg eV With an introductory consideration of the perception of the special camps in the time between the end of World War II in 1945 and the founding of the Initiativgruppe in 1991. Initiativgruppe Lager Mühlberg, Mühlberg / Elbe, 2010. P. 202 OCLC 756367270
2. ^ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 201
3. ^ Adam von Watzdorf, Agnes von Kopp-Colomb, Henning von Kopp-Colomb: Book of fate of the Saxon-Thuringian nobility: 1945 . CA Starke Verlag, Limburg an der Lahn, 2005, p. 555 ISBN 3798006059
4. ↑ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 42 ff.
5. ^ A. Weigelt: Chronicle ... , p. 55
6. ↑ Achim Kilian: Mühlberg 1939–1948: A prison camp in the middle of Germany. Böhlau, Cologne 2001, p. 7, ISBN 3412102016 . Limited preview of Google Books
7. ↑ Ulrike Puvogel, Martin Stankowski (ed.): Memorials for the victims of National Socialism: A documentation. Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Thuringia . Federal Agency for Political Education, 1999, p. 314, ISBN 3893313915
8. ↑ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 68
9. ↑ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 62, p. 73
10. ↑ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 77, quoted from: Initiativgruppe Lager Mühlberg eV: Circular Letter No. 9 , March 1994
11. ^ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 133
12. ↑ A. Weigelt: Chronik ... , p. 146
13. ^ Leonhardt Krause: Beautifully diagonally in the middle . Press release of the Evangelical Military Pastoral Care in the Bundeswehr of October 24, 2007, accessed on January 22, 2014
14. ^ ^{A b} Farewell to the local pastor in Delitzsch . Press release of the Bundeswehr Training Command dated October 24, 2007, accessed on January 22, 2014
15. ↑ http://www.pfarrscheune-schenkenberg.de
16. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 8, 2018 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. 
17. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 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. , accessed January 21, 2014 
18. ↑ Newsletter No. 2/2013 of the Evangelical Church District Torgau-Delitzsch ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
19. ↑ Results of the electoral synod of March 29, 2014 ( Memento of the original of June 23, 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. , accessed June 22, 2015
20. ↑ http://www.diakonie-delitzsch.de/impressum.php , accessed on February 2, 2014
21. ↑ Almost 100,000,000 euros in flood damage. Torgauer Zeitung of June 28, 2013, accessed on February 2, 2014
22. ↑ Honorary commitment recognized . Official Journal of the Northern Saxony district. Edition Torgau-Oschatz. 2/2012, p. 1
23. ↑ Gerald Praschl: Memory of difficult GDR history. A prize for Pastor Matthias Taatz from Mühlberg. In: Superillu , November 2014, online version ( Memento of the original dated November 6, 2014 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. , accessed November 5, 2014. 
24. ↑ "Made a contribution to our community" - Woidke presents the State Order of Merit for the Constitution Day, press release of the Brandenburg State Chancellery from June 15, 2017
25. ^ Günter Agde: Pictures next to the pictures. Cinematic perception of the special camps . In: Petra Haustein, Anne Kaminsky, Volkhard Knigge , Bodo Ritscher (eds.): Instrumentalization, repression, reappraisal: the Soviet special camps in social perception from 1945 to today. , Wallstein Verlag, 2006, p. 266, ISBN 3835300512