Marianne Birthler
| Marianne Birthler | |
|---|---|
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| Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records | |
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In office 10 October 2000 – 14 March 2011 |
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| Preceded by | Joachim Gauck |
| Succeeded by | Roland Jahn |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
22 January 1948 Berlin |
Marianne Birthler (born 22 January 1948 in Friedrichshain, Berlin) is a German human rights advocate and politician of the Alliance '90/The Greens. From 2000 to 2011, she served as the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, responsible for investigating the past crimes of the Stasi, the former communist secret police of East Germany. In 2016 she was offered the nomination of the CDU/CSU and her own party for President of Germany, but after some time decided not to run; the parties would have had a majority in the Federal Convention, securing her the election.
Birthler grew up in East Germany and was active in child and youth work for the Church, first in her parish in Prenzlauer Berg, then as a youth advisor in the City of Berlin from 1987. In 1986 she co-founded a group called Church Solidarity (Solidarische Kirche), which campaigned for greater democracy in the church and in society. In 1988 she joined the Initiative for Peace and Human Rights, which formed part of the resistance to the Soviet-imposed communist regime in the 1980s.
Birthler was elected to the only democratically elected People's Chamber in the GDR in March 1990, where she served as spokeswoman of the Alliance 90. From German Reunification on 3 October 1990 until the elections of 2 December 1990, she was a member of the Bundestag, the Parliament of Germany. In October 1990, she became a member of the state parliament of Brandenburg, and in November, she was appointed as Minister for Education in the state government of Minister-President Manfred Stolpe. She resigned from the parliament in the summer of 1992 and, in protest over Stolpe's Stasi contacts, from the cabinet in October the same year.
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