Peter Kirchner
Peter Kirchner (born February 20, 1935 in Berlin ; † December 9, 2018 in Berlin) was a German specialist in neurology and psychiatry . From 1971 to 1990 he was chairman of the Jewish community in (East) Berlin . As an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security , he chose the name IM Burg .
Life
Peter Kirchner and his Jewish mother were sent to the transit camp in Grosse Hamburger Strasse in 1943 , but could be taken out by his non-Jewish father and lived with relatives in Neustadt (Dosse) until the end of the war . From 1954 he studied medicine at the Humboldt University and from 1967 worked as a specialist in neurology and psychiatry at the Berlin-Lichtenberg hospital .
Since 1971 chairman of the Jewish community in Berlin (East), he was elected vice-president of the Association of Jewish Communities in the GDR from 1985 to 1990 .
Kirchner succeeded in preventing a road from being built across the Weissensee Jewish cemetery . He also objected to the one-sided reporting of the GDR press about Israel and fought increasing anti-Semitic tendencies in everyday life. Finally, he campaigned against the demolition of the Oranienburger Strasse synagogue ruins and for their reconstruction. From 1988 he also became President of the New Synagogue Foundation . In 1988 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.
After German reunification , he worked from 1992 to 1998 as an appraiser at the Federal Insurance Agency for Salaried Employees .
The assignment of IM Burg to Peter Kirchner was only possible in 1997 by the historian Michael Wolffsohn .
Peter Kirchner was married to Renate Kirchner, who was head of the Jewish community library in Berlin until 2002 .
Peter Kirchner died on December 9, 2018 in Berlin. He was buried on December 13, 2018 in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee .
literature
- News sheet of the Jewish communities in the GDR (co-publisher)
- Alfred Etzold, Joachim Fait, Peter Kirchner, Heinz Knobloch : The Jewish cemeteries in Berlin . Henschel Verlag, Berlin (from 1988). ISBN 3-362-00557-8
- Post in Survival Means Remembering , ed. by Wolfgang Herzberg , Berlin 1990.
- Jan Wielgohs: Kirchner, Peter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
Web links
- Wolfgang Herzberg : A "son of duty" , obituary of the VVN-BdA
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neues Deutschland , November 9, 1988, p. 2
- ↑ Jewish Berliners: Life after the Shoah
- ↑ Heiner Emde, Michael Wolffsohn: GDR - The golden footstep . In: Focus magazine, issue 45 from 1997
- ↑ https://www.zeit.de/1988/17/von-new-york-nach-ost-berlin
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kirchner, Peter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (SED), chairman of the Jewish community of (East) Berlin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 20, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 9, 2018 |
| Place of death | Berlin |