Joachim gauck biography kurzer lebenslauf

A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany. During the Peaceful Revolution in , Gauck was a co-founder of the New Forum opposition movement in East Germany, which contributed to the downfall of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany SED and later with two other movements formed the electoral list Alliance Following German reunification , he was elected as a member of the Bundestag by the People's Chamber in but resigned after a single day having been chosen by the Bundestag to be the first Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records.

This made him the Bundestag member with the shortest tenure. He also served as Federal Commissioner from to , earning recognition as a " Stasi hunter" and "tireless pro-democracy advocate" for exposing the crimes of the communist secret police.

Joachim gauck biography kurzer lebenslauf: Joachim Wilhelm Gauck is

He was nominated as the candidate of the SPD and the Greens in the presidential election but lost in the third ballot to Christian Wulff , the candidate of the government coalition. His candidacy was met by significant approval of the population and the media; Der Spiegel described him as "the better President", [ 9 ] while the Bild called him "the president of hearts".

A son of a survivor of a Soviet Gulag , [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] Gauck's political life was formed by his own family's experiences with totalitarianism. He has called for increased awareness of Communist crimes in Europe, and for the necessity of delegitimizing the Communist era. His book Freedom: A Plea calls for the defense of freedom and human rights around the globe.

In , he criticized Germany's policies towards Russia in the period after the Cold War, and said that "we should have listened to the voices of our eastern neighbours — Poles and the Baltic states as well as our Atlantic friends" when they warned about Russian aggression.