Volker Külow

Volker Külow, 2013

Volker Külow, 2009

Volker Külow (born November 12, 1960 in Leipzig ) is a German politician ( Die Linke ). From 2004 to 2014 he was a member of the Saxon State Parliament and was an unofficial employee of the GDR State Security .

Life and work

Volker Külow is a son of the cabaret artist and actor Edgar Külow . After graduating from high school, Külow did his military service from 1979 to 1982 with the NVA . From 1982 to 1986 an apprenticeship at the Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig followed to become a certified teacher of Marxism-Leninism / history of the labor movement . There doctorate he 1988 Dr. phil. and worked from 1988 to 1992 as a research assistant at the University of Leipzig.

From 1994 to 2002 he worked for the members of the Bundestag Barbara Höll and Täve Schur . He then worked as a freelance journalist, editor and author for a year until he became a member of the state parliament.

Volker Külow is divorced and has two children.

Political party

Volker Külow became a member of the SED in 1979 . In June 2004 he was elected to the Leipzig City Council for the Linkspartei.PDS . In March 2006, Külow signed the founding appeal of the anti-capitalist left (AKL) observed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and classified as left-wing extremist .

From September 22, 2007 to March 5, 2016 he was chairman of the city association of the DIE LINKE party. Because of his controversial leadership style, five city council members (including three WASG members) resigned in January and February 2008. As chairman of DIE LINKE.Leipzig, Külow pursued a course of budget-oriented social policy and thus increasingly met with criticism from within its own ranks.

MP

Volker Külow was a member of the Saxon State Parliament from October 2004 to September 2014. During the 4th electoral period (2004–2009) he was a member of the Committee for Science and University, Culture and Media and of the investigative committee for omissions and wrong decisions of the state government and its members of the Landesbank Sachsen Girozentrale ( Sachsen LB ) . In the 5th electoral term, Külow was again a member of the Committee for Science and University, Culture and Media. He was also the cultural-political spokesman for the left-wing parliamentary group . In the state elections in Saxony in 2014 , Külow lost his mandate .

Stasi cooperation

Volker Külow attracted national attention through his handling of his past as an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security (MfS). Under the code names Bernau and Ostap he worked for the MfS and until autumn 1989 secretly researched fellow citizens for a fee.

In contrast to other Stasi informants, Külow acknowledges the accuracy of the documents submitted by the Birthler authorities . He is committed to his secret service activity, which he still finds “in order” today and describes it as “legitimate”.

The left-wing parliamentary group in the state parliament as well as the party's state executive have stood behind Volker Külow and decided to remain in the parliamentary group.

On the part of the other parliamentary groups in the state parliament, Külow was asked to renounce his mandate .

In accordance with Art. 118 of the Saxon constitution , the Saxon state parliament decided on December 14, 2007 with the votes of the CDU , SPD , Alliance Greens , FDP and NPD - only with the consent of the latter was the required two-thirds majority - decided to bring MPs charges against Külow. Külow criticized the lawsuit and spoke of party-political instrumentalization. Nowhere else in the whole of Europe is it possible to “remove politicians from their mandate due to past misconduct that is unrelated to the current exercise of their mandate.” Nobody is interested in political work in the post-reunification years. Instead, his 30-year-old political biography has been “cut down to my 18-month Stasi cooperation”.

On December 11, 2008, the Constitutional Court of Saxony rejected the application as inadmissible because “the resolution in the state parliament was not based on an effective vote on the prerequisites for a parliamentary charge” and “the state parliament resolution did not adequately determine the subject of the indictment”.

Web links

Commons : Volker Külow  - Collection of Images

• Volker Külow on the Landtag website ( Memento from April 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dr. Volker Külow. In: volker-kuelow.de. Archived from the original on January 18, 2015 ; accessed on February 5, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Founding appeal “For an anti-capitalist left”. (PDF) March 2006, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
3. ^ LVZ-Online: Party Congress - Leipzig's Left elect Adam Bednarsky as the new party leader - LVZ - Leipziger Volkszeitung. In: www.lvz.de. Retrieved September 22, 2016 . 
4. ↑ An overview of all MPs. State Parliament of Saxony, archived from the original on October 2, 2014 ; accessed on February 14, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Alexander Wendt: LINKSPARTTEI: "Ten percent Stasi". In: Focus Online . August 24, 2009. Retrieved October 14, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Focus : Intelligent Comrades . No. 38, 2004
7. ↑ FAZ : Felt honesty . March 13, 2007, p. 10.
8. ^ Parliamentary group and state chairmen welcome the statement by Volker Külow. Press release 55/2007. February 15, 2007, archived from the original on April 12, 2008 ; accessed on February 5, 2018 . 
9. ^ Leipziger Volkszeitung: Stasi allegations: PDS faction keeps Külow in its ranks . February 15, 2007.
10. ↑ 86 votes in favor, 32 against, 3 abstentions.
11. ↑ ^{a b} young world: »Rule of law standards do not apply to me« , December 15, 2007.
12. ↑ Constitutional Court rejects MP's charge as inadmissible ( memento of the original dated February 6, 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. , Press release of the Saxon Constitutional Court, December 11, 2008 (SächsVerfGH, decision of December 11, 2008 - Vf. 151-IX-07)