Gauck was born into a family of sailors inRostock, the son of Olga (née Warremann; born 1910) and Joachim Gauck Sr. (born 1907). His father was an experienced ship's captain and distinguished naval officer (Kapitän zur See – captain at sea), who afterWorld War II worked as an inspector at theNeptun Werft shipbuilding company. Both parents were members of theNazi Party (NSDAP).[21] Following theSoviet occupation of Germany at the end of World War II, theSocialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was installed into power in what became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). When Gauck was eleven years old in 1951, his father was arrested by Soviet occupation forces; he was not to return until 1955.[22] He was convicted by a Russian military tribunal of espionage for receiving a letter from the West and also of anti-Soviet demagogy for being in the possession of a western journal on naval affairs, and deported to aGulag inSiberia,[23] where he was mistreated to the extent that he was consideredphysically disabled after one year, according to his son.[24] For nearly three years, the family knew nothing about what had happened to him and whether he was still alive. He was freed in 1955, following the state visit ofKonrad Adenauer to Moscow. Adenauer negotiated the release of thousands of German prisoners of war and civilians who had been deported.[25]
Gauck graduated with anAbitur from Innerstädtisches Gymnasium inRostock. According to Gauck, his political activities were inspired by the ordeal of his father,[26] and he stated that he grew up with a "well-founded anti-communism".[27] Already in school in East Germany, he made no secret of his anti-communist position, and he steadfastly refused to join the SED's youth movement, theFree German Youth. He wanted to study German and become a journalist but because he was not a member of the rulingCommunist party, he was not allowed to do so.[10] Instead, he chose to studytheology and become apastor in the Protestant church in Mecklenburg. He has stated that his primary intention was not to become a pastor but that the theology studies offered an opportunity to studyphilosophy and the church was one of the few institutions in East Germany whereMarxist–Leninist ideology was not dominant.[28] Nevertheless, he eventually became a pastor. His work as a pastor in East Germany was very difficult due to the hostility of theCommunist regime towards the church, and for many years he was under constant observation and was harassed by theStasi (the secret police).[29][30] The Stasi described Gauck in their file on him as an "incorrigible anti-communist" (unverbesserlicher Antikommunist).[31] He has said that "at the age of nine, I knewsocialism was an unjust system."[10]
In his memoirs, Gauck writes that "the fate of our father was like an educational cudgel. It led to a sense of unconditional loyalty towards the family which excluded any sort of idea of fraternisation with the system."[32]
Career during and after the Peaceful Revolution of 1989
On 2 October 1990, the day before the dissolution of the GDR, the People's Chamber elected him Special Representative for the Stasi Records. After the dissolution of the GDR the following day, he was appointed Special Representative of the Federal Government for the Stasi Records by PresidentRichard von Weizsäcker and ChancellorHelmut Kohl. As such, he was in charge of the archives of the Stasi and tasked with investigating Communist crimes. In 1992, his office became known as the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records. He served in this position until 2000, when he was succeeded byMarianne Birthler.
Gauck served as a member of theBundestag, the Parliament of Germany, from 3 to 4 October 1990. The 1990 People's Chamber was granted the right to nominate a certain number of MPs as part of the reunification process and he was one of the 144 Volkskammer co-opted to the Bundestag. He stepped down following his appointment as Special Representative of the Federal Government. As such, he was the shortest serving member of the Bundestag in history. He was succeeded by fellow civil rights activistVera Lengsfeld.
Gauck refused the position of president of theFederal Agency for Civic Education as well as offers to be nominated as a candidate for parliament by the SPD. Voices inside the CSU proposed him as a possible conservative presidential candidate (against SPD career politicianJohannes Rau) in 1999,[33] and his name was also mentioned as a possible candidate for CDU/CSU and Free Democratic Party in subsequent years. For instance the Saxon FDP state party proposed him as a liberal-conservative candidate in 2004, before the leaders of the parties agreed onHorst Köhler.[34] Since 2003, Gauck has been chairman of the associationGegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie ("Against Forgetting – For Democracy"), and he served on the Management Board of theEuropean Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia 2001–2004.[35]
Gauck has written on Soviet-era concentration camps, such as theNKVD Special Camp No. 1, the crimes of Communism, and political repression in East Germany, and contributed to the German edition ofThe Black Book of Communism. In 2007, Gauck was invited to deliver the main speech during a commemoration ceremony at theLandtag of Saxony in memory of thereunification of Germany and the fall of the Communist government.[36] All parties participated, exceptThe Left (the successor of SED), whose members walked out in protest against Gauck's delivering the speech.[37] Gauck supports the observation of The Left by theFederal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the corresponding state authorities.[38] Gauck has lauded the SPD for distancing itself from The Left.[39]
On the occasion of his 70th birthday in 2010, Gauck was praised byAngela Merkel as a "true teacher of democracy" and a "tireless advocate of freedom, democracy and justice".[44]The Independent has described Gauck as "Germany's answer toNelson Mandela".[45]The Wall Street Journal has described him as "the last of a breed: the leaders of protest movements behind the Iron Curtain who went on to lead their countries after 1989", comparing him toLech Wałęsa andVáclav Havel.[46]Corriere della Sera has referred to him as the "German Havel".[47]
In an interview withRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2007, Gauck said that "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."[1] According toThe Wall Street Journal, he "has dedicated his life to showing that the Soviet system's evils were no less than the Third Reich's".[46] In his 2012 bookFreedom. A Plea, he outlines his thoughts on freedom, democracy, human rights, and tolerance. In 2012, Gauck said that "Muslims who are living here are a part of Germany"; he refused to say whether Islam was a part of Germany, as asserted by previous presidentChristian Wulff. TheCentral Council of Muslims in Germany welcomed the remarks.[50] In May 2015, Gauck urged Germans to openly acknowledge that "millions of soldiers of theRed Army lost their lives duringNazi internment."[51]
In 2022, Gauck 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.[52]
"Citizens for Gauck," a demonstration in support of Gauck in front of theBrandenburger Tor in 2010Joachim Gauck photographed byOliver Mark, Berlin 2010
On 3 June 2010, Gauck was nominated forPresident of Germany in the 2010 election by the SPD and the Greens.[53] Gauck is not a member of either the SPD or the Greens (although his former party in East Germany eventually merged with the Greens after reunification),[54] and has stated that he would also have accepted a nomination by the CDU.[55] Gauck once described himself as a "leftist, liberal conservative",[54] After his nomination, he stated: "I'm neither red nor green, I'm Joachim Gauck."[56] TheFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described him as aliberal conservative.[57]
Gauck is widely respected across the political spectrum,[58] and is very popular also among CDU/CSU and FDP politicians due to his record as an upstanding, moral person during the Communist dictatorship, as well as his record as a "Stasi hunter" in the 1990s.[59] His main contender,Christian Wulff, and politicians of all the government parties, stated that they greatly respected Gauck and his life and work.[60]Jörg Schönbohm, former chairman of the CDU ofBrandenburg, also supported Gauck.[61]
The only party that in principle rejected Gauck as a possible president was the legal successor of the East German Communist party,Die Linke, which interpreted the nomination of the SPD and Greens as a refusal to cooperate with Die Linke.[62] CSU politician Philipp Freiherr von Brandenstein argued that the election of Gauck would prevent any cooperation between SPD/Greens and Die Linke for years to come, saying that "Gauck has likely made it perfectly clear to[Sigmar] Gabriel that he will never appoint any of the apologists of the Communist tyranny as government members."[61] Die Linke nominated their own candidate, former journalistLuc Jochimsen,[63] and chose to abstain in the third ballot.[64][65] Die Linke's refusal to support Gauck drew strong criticism from the SPD and Greens.[66][67] Gabriel, the SPD chairman, described Die Linke's position as "bizarre and embarrassing", stating that he was "shocked" that the party would declare Gauck their main enemy due to his investigation of Communist injustice.[68] According to Gabriel, Die Linke had manifested itself once again as the successor of the East German Communist party.[66] A politician of Die Linke compared the choice between Gauck and Wulff to the choice betweenAdolf Hitler andJoseph Stalin, drawing strong condemnation from the SPD and Greens.[69]
In the election on 30 June 2010, Gauck was defeated by Wulff in the third ballot, with a margin of 624 to 490.[70] Gauck was originally proposed as a presidential candidate for the Greens byAndreas Schulze, then communications adviser to the Greens in the Bundestag. Schulze was appointed as Gauck's spokesman in 2010, and again in 2012.[71]
Following the resignation of Wulff on 17 February 2012, Gauck was nominated on 19 February as the joint candidate for President of Germany by the government parties CDU, CSU, and FDP, and the opposition SPD and the Greens. This happened after the FDP, the SPD, and the Greens had strongly supported Gauck and urged the conservatives to support him.[72] Gabriel said Gauck was his party's preferred candidate already on 17 February, citing Gauck's "great confidence among the citizens".[73] Reportedly, Merkel gave in to FDP chairmanPhilipp Rösler's staunch support for Gauck; the agreement was announced after the FDP presidium had unanimously voted for Gauck earlier on 19 February.[74][75] He was thus supported by all major parties represented in theFederal Convention, except Die Linke.[1]
According to a poll conducted forStern, the nomination of Gauck was met with high approval. The majority of the voters of all political parties represented in the Bundestag approved of his nomination, with the Green voters being most enthusiastic (84% approval) and Die Linke's voters least (55% approval); overall, 69% supported him, while 15% opposed him.[76] His nomination was "broadly welcomed" by the German media,[77] which were described as "jubilant".[78] His candidacy was criticized by Die Linke, and met with some other individual criticism; he was criticized by individual CSU members for not being married to the woman he lives with,[79][80] and by individual politicians of the Greens, notably for his earlier statements on Sarrazin and the Occupy movement.[79] Gabriel stated that the reason that Die Linke was the only party that did not support Gauck was its "sympathy for the German Democratic Republic".[81][82]
David Gill was appointed head of Gauck's transition team,[83] and later became head of theBundespräsidialamt.[84] On 18 March 2012, Gauck was elected President of Germany with 991 of 1.228 votes in the Federal Convention.[85] Upon accepting his election, he assumed the presidency immediately.[86] The new president took the oath of office required by article 56 of Germany's Constitution on 23 March 2012 in the presence of the assembled members of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.[87][88][89] On 6 June 2016, Gauck announced he would not stand for re-election in 2017, citing his age as the reason.[90]
Gauck has visited a significant number of countries as president. In 2014, he boycotted the2014 Winter Olympics inSochi, Russia, in order to make a statement against violations ofhuman rights in Russia.[91][92] On 3 August 2014, Gauck joinedFrançois Hollande to mark the outbreak of the war between Germany and France in 1914 duringWorld War I by laying the first stone of a memorial inHartmannswillerkopf, for French and German soldiers killed in the war.[93]
Gauck married Gerhild "Hansi" Gauck (née Radtke), his childhood sweetheart whom he met at age ten;[97] the couple has been separated since 1991.[98] They were married in 1959, at 19, despite his father's opposition, and have four children: sons Christian (born 1960) and Martin (born 1962), and daughters Gesine (born 1966) and Katharina (born 1979). Christian, Martin and Gesine were able to leave East Germany and emigrate toWest Germany in the late 1980s, while Katharina, still a child, remained with her parents. His children were discriminated against and denied the right to education by the communist regime because their father was a pastor.[99] His son Christian, who along with his brother decided to leave the GDR in early 1984 and was able to do so in 1987, studied medicine in West Germany and became a physician.[100]
2007:Diktaturerfahrungen der Deutschen im 20. Jahrhundert und was wir daraus lernen können. (Schriftenreihe zu Grundlagen, Zielen und Ergebnissen der parlamentarischen Arbeit der CDU-Fraktion des Sächsischen Landtages; Band 42), Dresden 2007[107]
2009:Die Flucht der Insassen: Freiheit als Risiko. (Weichenstellungen in die Zukunft. Eine Veröffentlichung derKonrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.). Sankt Augustin-Berlin 2009.ISBN978-3-941904-20-0
2009:Winter im Sommer, Frühling im Herbst. Erinnerungen. [Winter in Summer, Spring in Autumn. Memoirs]. München: Siedler 2009ISBN978-3-88680-935-6
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