Werner Schulz | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Schulz in 2010 | |
| Born | (1950-01-22)22 January 1950 Zwickau, Saxony,East Germany |
| Died | 9 November 2022(2022-11-09) (aged 72) Berlin, Germany |
| Occupations |
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| Political party | Alliance '90/The Greens |
| Awards | Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany |
Werner Gustav Schulz (22 January 1950 – 9 November 2022) was a German politician ofAlliance '90/The Greens. Trained in food technology at theHumboldt University of Berlin, he worked as a research assistant. He was an activist for peace ecology and human rights in several oppositional groups from the 1970s. He lost his university job in 1980 when he protested against theSoviet Invasion of Afghanistan. In thePeaceful Revolution, he was in 1989 a founding member of theNew Forum, representing the group at theRound Table. He was elected to the first freely electedVolkskammer. After German reunification, he was a member of the GermanBundestag from 1990 to 2005, and amember of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014.
Schulz was born inZwickau, then part ofEast Germany, on 22 January 1950.[1][2][3] He grew up there, the son of an independent haulage contractor and former professional officer from a social-democratic dominated family.[4] From 1964 to 1968, he attended theKäthe-Kollwitz-Gymnasium [de]. His father recommended him not to join theYoung Pioneers.[5]
Schulz received a degree in food technology at theHumboldt University of Berlin in 1974.[3][6] From 1974 he worked as a research assistant at the university. He was dismissed in 1980 because he protested against theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan.[7] He then worked as a research assistant at the Institut für Sekundärrohstoffwirtschaft, dealing with recycling technology. From 1988, he directed the departmentUmwelthygiene of the Kreishygieneinspektion Berlin-Lichtenberg.[2]
Schulz was active from the beginning in the Protestant church movements for peace, ecology and human rights. He was an activist in several oppositional groups from the 1970s, and a member of the Friedenskreis Pankow from 1982.[2][8] During thePeaceful Revolution, he was a founding member of theNew Forum in 1989,[2][9] representing the group at theRound Table and contributing to its constitution.[2][3]
Schulz became a member of theGreen Party in Germany,[3] elected to the first freely electedVolkskammer in 1990, where he served from March to October 1990 as speaker of his party. After the reunification of Germany, he was a member of theBundestag until 2005, as his party's CEO in parliament (Parlamentarischer Geschäftsführer) from the beginning and its economic speaker from 1998.[2]
In April 1998, Schulz ran for mayor ofLeipzig. With 8.2 percent of the vote, he came fourth in the first round of voting. Schulz did not run in the second round; insteadWolfgang Tiefensee of the SPD was elected.[10]
WhenChancellorGerhard Schröder engineered the loss of ano-confidence vote in Parliament and asked PresidentHorst Köhler to allow anearly vote in 2005, Schulz andJelena Hoffmann of Schröder's Social Democrats filed a complaint before theFederal Constitutional Court against the dissolution of parliament.[11][12][9] His speech was honoured as the Speech of the Year by the seminar of rhetoric of theUniversity of Tübingen, with the jury saying that he used his limited time for a concise analysis and personal confession, although it was not immediately successful.[13]
Schulz was vice president of the council of theFederal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship from 2003 to 2008,[14] and a member of the board of theDeutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag from 2003 to 2009. In 2009, he was a founding member, together withChristian Führer andFriedrich Schorlemmer, and a member of the board of theStiftung Friedliche Revolution (Foundation Peaceful Revolution) in Leipzig.[15]
In a political come-back, Schulz became aMember of the European Parliament in 2009.[9] He served until 2014,[1][3] as vice chair of the delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, as a member of theCommittee on Foreign Affairs, and as a member of the parliament's delegation to theEuronest Parliamentary Assembly from 2012 to 2014, among others.[1]
Schulz was married and the couple had two children.[16] The family lived in theBoitzenburger Land in Brandenburg, where he founded a support association for his church parish.[17]
Schulz died from a heart attack in Berlin on 9 November 2022, at age 72. He had been scheduled to speak at a memorial event atSchloss Bellevue where he collapsed.[3]
Schulz was awarded theOrder of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2015; PresidentJoachim Gauck honoured him and others who had worked towards a united Germany onGerman Unity Day.[17] In 2022, he was awarded theDeutscher Nationalpreis [de].[18] Ex-President Gauck described Schulz as "a tireless fighter for a policy based on democratic values".[19]
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