Thomas Küttler

Thomas Küttler (born October 26, 1937 in Schwarzbach ; † December 4, 2019 in Leipzig ) was a Lutheran theologian and superintendent of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony .

Live and act

Küttler came from a Saxon pastor's family. In order to get an orderly education, he lived with relatives in Hanover from 1949 . From 1957 to 1962 he studied theology in Göttingen and Münster. His vicariate took him to London and to the seminary of the Loccum monastery . In 1965 Küttler returned to the GDR to marry the teacher Brigitte Bruchhold, whose attempts to move to the West had failed.

From 1965 to 1974 he was pastor in Marbach (church district Leisnig), then he worked for five years as a study inspector at the Predigerkolleg St. Pauli in Leipzig. In 1979, Küttler became superintendent of the Plauen (Vogtland) church district , to which the previously independent church district of Oelsnitz was assigned in 2000.

With his appearance at the first large demonstration in Plauen on October 7, 1989 , Küttler ensured that the rally ended largely peacefully. He formed the Plauen "Group of 20" and headed the Plauen Round Table from December 1989 to March 1990 .

As a retired man he lived in Leipzig since 2002. Küttler had four children.

Other offices

• 1972 to 2002 member of the Saxon regional synod , from 1978 on as vice-president
• 1975 to 1985 member of the Synod of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the GDR
• 1988 to 1989 delegate for the Ecumenical Assembly for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation in the GDR
• 1990 to 2004 member of the ZDF television council for the Free State of Saxony
• 1990 to 2003 member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany , from 2001 as Vice President

Honors

• 1990 honorary citizen of the city of Plauen
• 1995 Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• 1997 Saxon Constitutional Medal
• 2014 Prize of the Deutsche Gesellschaft eV for services to German and European unification.

Works (selection)

• 1990: The Gospel according to Mark, ISBN 3-374-01074-1
• 1991 together with Curt Roeder: Die Wende in Plauen, ISBN 3-929039-15-X
• 2009: Controversial mission to Jews, ISBN 978-3-374-02710-1
• 2009: Just Turnaround? On the Topicality of Texts of the Ecumenical Assembly 1989, in: Remembering - Thanking - Questions, ISBN 978-3-374-02742-2
• 2010: Don't start your revolution on Saturday at three, in: Eckhard Jesse , Thomas Schubert (Ed.): Between Confrontation and Concession, ISBN 978-3-86153-608-6
• 2012: How should the Church of the New Covenant face Judaism ?, in: Folker Siegert (Hrsg.): Church and Synagogue - A Lutheran Votum, ISBN 978-3-525-54012-1

Other literature

• Connelly, Moment of Revolution: Plauen (Vogtland), October 7, 1989, in: German Politics and Society 1990, Issue 20, ISSN  0882-7079
• Schweitzer, Haack and Krätschell (eds.): CVs, over and over, Opladen 1993, ISBN 3-81001-121-5
• Kowalczuk, Endgame - The 1989 Revolution in the GDR, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58357-5
• Schuller, The German Revolution 1989, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-87134573-9

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Küttler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Thomas Küttler in the Saxon Bibliography
• RBB: Chronicle of the fall of October 7, 1989
• RBB: Chronicle of the fall of October 21, 1989
• Plauen chronicle of the turning point
• ZDF TV Council, XI. Term of office from June 30, 2000 to June 29, 2004
• Sunday what for - A question to the state and church; Evangelical responsibility, issue 12/2003
• Transfer after separation: pros and cons ?; Der Sonntag, weekly newspaper for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony, August 2006
• 20 years later - Plauen and "the beginning of the change in our world", panel discussion a. a. with Horst Köhler and Thomas Küttler, DLF, October 7, 2009
• Der Spiegel 30/2009: The unnoticed heroes

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pioneer of the change in Plauen: Mourning Thomas Küttler , accessed December 6, 2019.
2. ^ DIE WELT: German Society honors four GDR civil rights activists . In: THE WORLD . October 29, 2014 ( welt.de [accessed December 11, 2017]).