Rainer Eppelmann
Eppelmann in 2008
Minister for Disarmament and Defence of East Germany
In office
12 April 1990 – 2 October 1990
Minister-PresidentLothar de Maizière
Preceded byTheodor Hoffmann (as Ministers of Defence)
Succeeded byGerhard Stoltenberg (as Ministers of Defence)
Minister without Portfolio
In office
5 February 1990 – 12 April 1990
Serving with Tatjana Böhm, Sebastian Pflugbeil, Gerd Poppe, Walter Romberg, Klaus Schlüter, Wolfgang Ullmann, Matthias Platzeck
Chairman of the
Council of Ministers		Hans Modrow
Preceded byPosition abolished
Succeeded byPosition established
Member of the Bundestag
for Brandenburg
(Fürstenwalde – Strausberg – Seelow; 1990–1994)
In office
10 November 1994 – 18 October 2005
Preceded bymulti-member district
Succeeded bymulti-member district
In office
20 December 1990 – 10 November 1994
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byMathias Schubert
Member of the Volkskammer
for Berlin
In office
5 April 1990 – 2 October 1990
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Personal details
Born (1943-02-12) 12 February 1943
Berlin, Nazi Germany (now Germany)
Political partyChristian Democratic Union (1990–)
Other political
affiliations		Christian Democratic Union (East) (1990)
Democratic Beginning (1989–1990)
Spouse
Eva-Maria Strauth
​
​
(m. 1969; div. 1988)​
Children5
ResidenceBerlin
Alma materPaulinum
Signature

Rainer Eppelmann (German pronunciationⓘ) (born 12 February 1943 in Berlin), is a German politician. Known for his opposition in the German Democratic Republic, he became Minister for Disarmament and Defense in the last cabinet. He is now a member of the CDU.

Early life and education

The erection of the Berlin Wall forced him to drop out of the school he had attended in West Berlin in 1961 and he was forbidden from taking his Abitur exams in the East for refusing to join the Free German Youth movement.

He then worked as an assistant to a roofer before doing a job training for bricklayer. He is a pacifist.[1] In 1966, for refusing both regular service and Bausoldat (construction soldier in the National People's Army), he was brutally beaten and arrested by the Stasi, and put into prison for eight months where he was starved, tortured, abused and interrogated.

Later, he studied Theology at the theological school in Berlin, an education he completed in 1974 with two exams. He then worked as a Lutheran pastor in at Samariterkirche in Berlin-Friedrichshain and took part in the opposition,[2] such as being the editor of samizdat publications with Thomas Welz. It has been claimed that during this period Eppelmann had contact with the CIA.[3][4]

Political career

In 1990, Eppelmann was one of the founding fathers of the Democratic Awakening, becoming its president. Thus, he took an active part in the round table of 1990, preparing the German reunification. From 18 March 1990 to 2 October 1990 (when it ceased to exist) he was a member of the Volkskammer. He was Minister for Disarmament and Defence of East Germany in the cabinet of Hans Modrow and later in the one of Lothar de Maizière. When the Democratic Awakening joined the Christian Democratic Union in August 1990, Eppelmann became a member and, later, the assisting chairman of the worker's division of the CDU, the CDA.

He was a member of the Bundestag from 1990 to 2005 for the Christian Democratic Union. Then, he was chairman of the commission that coped with the history of the German Democratic Republic.

Eppelmann's trademark is his "Berliner Schnauze", an idiom that is supposed to bring him close to the people of Berlin.

Personal life

Eppelmann is married and has five children. In April 2023, he was one of the 22 guests at the ceremony in which former Chancellor Angela Merkel was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Rainer Eppelmann". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  2. ↑ Samariterkirche: Mourning and Protest in the Samariterkirche. In: Sites of Unity (Haus der Geschichte), 2022.
  3. ↑ Paragraph 6 of "DDR-Opposition bis 1989"
  4. ↑ Middle of "Ein Blick zurück" Archived 2006-12-06 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Kati Degenhardt (17 April 2023), Merkels emotionaler Dank: "Er hatte Vieles auszuhalten" T-Online.

Both retrieved January 2, 2007

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