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Former East German rights activist Joachim Gauck speaks during a press conference on Feb.19 at the Chancellery in Berlin. The ex-pastor and anti-communist is picked to be the next president of Germany.(John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images)
Joachim Gauck, a former East German civil rights activist, is slated to be the next president of Germany, following the resignation of Christian Wulff last Friday over a corruption scandal.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition along with the opposition agreed to choose East German-born Gauck. The 72-year-old former pastor was a leader of protests that helped topple the former communist East German regime.
Gauck was clearly caught off guard by the nomination.
“I cannot give you a keynote address now in the confusion of my feelings. That is impossible. I’m just off the plane and was in a taxi when the chancellor got hold of me, I haven’t even showered,” he told journalists on Monday, according to Euronews.
Gauck, who has been described as Germany’s equivalent to Nelson Mandela, was born in 1940 in the northern city of Rostok and was only 11 years old when his father was arrested by communist authorities, who claimed that he had ties with Western powers. His father was sent to a labor camp in Siberia—a similar fate suffered by many dissidents and other groups under the harsh Soviet rule.
The experienced forged Joachim Gauck into a staunch anti-communist. He refused to join any communist organization and became a Lutheran pastor.
“We have to delegitimatize [the communist era] not only because of the many victims and criminal acts, but [also because] modern politics in the entire Soviet empire was basically taken backward,” Gauck told Radio Free Europe in 2007.
As a pastor, Gauck would preach against the injustices of the communist regime and promote human rights and freedom.
Later, he was a leader in the peaceful revolution that helped take down the Berlin Wall in 1989. He soon was appointed head of the archives left behind by Germany’s feared Stasi secret police, a post he held for the next decade.
In 2001, he was also appointed to the management board of the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna, among many other honors.
The charismatic Gauck was also host a television show bearing his name.
For Merkel, the choice of Gauck is also comes with a bit of humble pie since in the 2010 election, he had been the opposition’s candidate for president. However, Merkel had pushed forward her own candidate, the now shamed Christian Wulff.
“This man can provide an important impetus for the challenges of our time and the future,” Merkel said at a press conference on Sunday, calling him a “true teacher of democracy.”
There has been strong sentiment that Wulff damaged the presidency in Germany. Some party members hope that Gauck, viewed as somewhat of a moral authority for his work to destabilize the communist regime and expose the crimes committed by the Stasi, can restore the office.
Gauck is “not someone who gets involved in party squabbling,” center-left Social Democrats leader Sigmar Gabriel is quoted as saying by Der Spiegel.
The deadline for the election of the next German president is March 18, although no exact date has been set. Because of broad support across party lines, Gauck is expected to easily win the vote.
