Thomas Krüger (politician, 1959)

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Thomas Krüger (2008)

Thomas Krüger (born June 20, 1959 in Buttstädt ) is a German politician ( SPD ) and former civil rights activist in the GDR . From 1990 to 1991 he was City Councilor for the Interior in East Berlin and in 1991 Acting Mayor of East Berlin. From 1991 to 1994 he was Senator for Family and Youth in Berlin and from 1994 to 1998 a member of the German Bundestag . Krüger has been President of the German Children's Fund since 1995 and President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education since 2000 .

Live and act

Thomas Krüger (1990)

After training as a skilled worker for plastic and elastomer processing in Fürstenwalde, Krüger studied Protestant theology from 1981 and worked as a vicar in Berlin and Eisenach . He played in independent theater groups and was involved in the Church from Below . In 1989 Thomas Krüger was one of the founding members of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR (SDP), in which he was managing director of the SDP in East Berlin until 1990 . Up to this time he belonged to the People's Chamber of the GDR and was East Berlin's City Councilor for Internal Affairs in the Schwierzina magistrate . From January 11 to 24, 1991 he was the last (provisional) Lord Mayor of East Berlin.

From 1991 to 1994 Thomas Krüger was a Senator for Family and Youth in the Senate of the Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen ( Senate Diepgen III ). During this time he largely prepared the Berlin Implementation Act for the KJHG with extensive positions in youth work, the participation of children and adolescents, in school-related and outreach social work as well as the official release of volunteers in youth work who are employed in the public service. From 1994 to 1998 Krüger was a member of the German Bundestag . Before that he was seen naked on posters during the election campaign with the motto “an honest skin”, which caused a nationwide sensation. In the federal election in September 1998, Krüger did not run again. Since July 2000 he has been President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Since 1995, Krüger has been the honorary president of the non-profit children's rights organization Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk . Since 2012 he has also been the second deputy chairman of the Commission for Youth Media Protection (KJM), after having been a member of the commission since 2003.

In 1997 he married Brigitte Zeitlmann, a daughter of the CSU Bundestag member Wolfgang Zeitlmann , in the Bahai rite . Following his membership in parliament, he took parental leave after the birth of his first child. Krüger now lives separately from Zeitlmann in a new relationship in Berlin.

Controversy

In 2002, Krüger was a member of the jury that presented the Indymedia Internet network with the Poldi Award (the award was also initiated by the Federal Agency for Civic Education ). This step met with criticism because Indymedia is classified as left-wing extremist by several constitutional protection agencies . The Federal Ministry of the Interior , to which the federal headquarters is subordinate, then stated that the results of the covert vote had been unknown until the "corresponding envelopes" were opened and denied an assertion by the excellent Indymedia representatives that Krüger had given a laudatory speech . As a consequence, the Federal Ministry of the Interior declared that it and the Federal Central Office would no longer take part in covert votes in the future.

In 2008, Krüger was heavily criticized by evangelicals for writing a letter accompanying the distribution of the magazine School Without Racism - School With Courage (Q-Rage) , which contained an article on evangelical organizations . In the accompanying letter he had written that "the newspaper [...] contains interesting information on how Islamist and evangelical groups that question important freedoms are courting young people." As a result, Krüger distanced himself from the Q-Rage article and stated that the blanket equation of the evangelical movement with fundamentalism made there is not correct. Because of this distancing, Krüger was again criticized in the taz and in the Spiegel , whose online editors had supported the student editors of the article, and in a statement by the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD). The chairmen of the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education - both Ernst-Reinhard Beck (CDU) and Dieter Grasedieck (SPD) - responded to the protest letters of the Evangelicals that reached their office with the statement: “We hold the equation of Evangelicals and Islamists by the President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Thomas Krüger, for absolutely unacceptable. "

Under Krüger's leadership, the Federal Central Office ordered the withdrawal of an essay by Konrad Löw on the subject of German identity in the constitution and history . Thereupon the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on August 17, 2010 that the behavior of the Federal Central Office towards Löw lacked the balance and the rule of law to be expected from a state institution, so that Löw's general personal rights had been violated.

Memberships

Since April 2018, Thomas Krüger has been a member of the Council for Cultural Education , according to his own statements, an independent advisory body with 13 experts that deals comprehensively with the situation and quality of cultural education in Germany. The Council for Cultural Education is an initiative of the Bertelsmann Foundation , Deutsche Bank Foundation , Karl Schlecht Foundation , PwC Foundation , Robert Bosch Foundation , Mercator Foundation and the Nantesbuch Foundation .

Fonts

  • Thomas Krüger (ed.): The moving city. Berlin at the end of the nineties . FAB Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-927551-57-0 .

Honors

On September 7, 2001, Krüger was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his services to political education in Germany . In 2008, the Polish Ambassador Marek Prawda presented him with the Polish Cross of Merit in silver in recognition of his special commitment to German-Polish reconciliation.

literature

Web links

Commons : Thomas Krüger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anja Reich: Interview with former Berlin Youth Senator Thomas Krüger “At some point it was time to take off your clothes!” Berliner Zeitung, January 5, 2015, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Dr. Thomas Schubert: “A committed and unconventional democrat”. Chemnitz University of Technology, May 23, 2014, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  3. ↑ MDR change of scenery ( Memento from October 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Thomas Krüger: I didn't want to suffocate in the boredom of everyday life in the GDR. In: Thüringer Allgemeine , October 17, 2014
  5. ↑ Image on tagesspiegel.de
  6. ↑ bpb.de
  7. ↑ dkhw.de ( Memento from December 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ welt.de
  9. ↑ Thomas Krüger . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 2004 ( online ).
  10. ↑ http://www.kjm-online.de/die-kjm/organisation.html?L=%2Fproc%2Fself%2Fenviron
  11. ↑ One in eighty million . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 31, 1997
  12. ↑ Anja Reich: Interview with former Berlin youth senator Thomas Krüger “At some point it was time to get naked!” Berliner Zeitung, January 5, 2015, accessed on February 22, 2017 .
  13. ↑ a b c d Guido Heinen : Consequences from the Internet Affair , Welt Online , September 19, 2002.
  14. ↑ Q-rage (PDF; 5.1 MB) i Spiegel Online , November 28, 2008, p. 11
  15. ^ President compares evangelicals with Islamists . In: Die Welt , December 16, 2008
  16. ^ After a controversial publication in the school newspaper Q-rage ( memento of October 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) EAD
  17. ↑ bpb distances itself from the article in Q-rage . Press release December 15, 2008
  18. ↑ Bundeszentrale buckles in the taz
  19. ^ Evangelicals lead crusade against student writers . In: Spiegel Online / schulspiegel, December 20, 2008
  20. ↑ Klaus Jetz: Statement of the LSVD on the dispute over Q-rage . Archived from the original on January 17, 2010. Retrieved February 13, 2010.
  21. ↑ : “Q-rage” debate continues: From the “crusade” of the Evangelicals . Per
  22. ^ Bpb board of trustees opposes President Krüger. In: pro-medienmagazin.de. September 6, 2019, accessed November 9, 2019 .
  23. ↑ Press release of the Federal Constitutional Court No. 87/2010 of September 28, 2010
  24. ↑ Thomas Krüger new to the Council for Cultural Education Advisory Committee expands the expert group Deutschlandfunk Kultur April 26, 2018
  25. ↑ Website of the "Council for Cultural Education"
  26. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Kruger, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdV, MdB, President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Buttstädt , GDR