The President of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), Prof. Dr. Thomas Paul Schirrmacher, congratulated former German President Joachim Gauck on receiving the Hermann Ehlers Medal on behalf of the German section of the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) and the international umbrella organization ISHR.
Thomas Schirrmacher congratulates former Federal President Joachim Gauck © IGFM/Martin Warnecke
Gauck is the epitome of what the IGFM fought for even before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Schirrmacher expressly thanked Gauck for delivering the keynote speeches at the 30th and 50th anniversaries of the IGFM in 2002 and 2022.
As part of the German Protestant Church Congress, the Protestant Working Group of the CDU/CSU (EAK) awarded former Federal President Joachim Gauck the annual Hermann Ehlers Medal. In his laudatory speech, the chairman of the EAK, Member of the German Bundestag Thomas Rachel, said that Gauck was a personality of contemporary history—even before his time as Federal President. And even as a pastor in Rostock, he spoke out against the GDR regime. Gauck trained himself to become an independent thinker. It is to Gauck’s credit that the word “citizen” has regained its charisma and prestige. He is now being honoured for his contribution to the Peaceful Revolution.
Gauck expressed his deep gratitude for the award. He said that hope had always been the driving force behind his actions, and that this remained true to this day. Referring to the church and its dwindling membership, he said that in 1989 Christians had emerged from a position of absolute minority to become a force for social change. “Even though we are a minority, we are a force to be reckoned with, and one that should not be underestimated.”
Joachim Gauck during his acceptance speech © IGFM/Martin Warnecke
The EAK has been awarding the Hermann Ehlers Medal since 2004 to personalities from the church and politics for their services to Protestantism. Ehlers was President of the German Bundestag from 1950 until his early death at the age of 50 in 1954. In 1946, he was one of the founders of the “Protestant Conference of the CDU,” the origin of the Protestant Working Group of the CDU/CSU, which was later continued jointly with the CSU and of which he was chairman from 1952.
Schirrmacher also used the reception as an opportunity to talk to other politicians, including the Secretary General of the CDU, Carsten Linnemann.
The International Society for Human Rights is a human rights organization with sections in 48 countries around the world. The German section (IGFM) is based in Frankfurt am Main, as is the international umbrella organization, the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR). Among other things, it is a member of the German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR), the Human Rights Forum, and the Union of Victims’ Associations of Communist Tyranny (UOKG e. V.) and has corresponding status at the UN in New York, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and the African Union.
Joachim Gauck 2002 at a press conference on the occasion of his anniversary speech 30 years IGFM in Bonn © IGFM
In 2022, Gauck said in his anniversary speech:
“As a former commissioner for the Stasi files, I know only too well about the work of the Ministry for State Security against society, a destructive, subversive work that was partly carried out by willing helpers in the West of the Federal Republic for money or out of political and ideological conviction. The Ministry for State Security had assigned over 100 informants to infiltrate West German human rights organizations. Thirty of these were assigned to the IGFM alone. And even in 1989, unofficial employees from the GDR were sent to the West. And yet you did not allow yourselves to be deterred and continued to help, educate, and denounce.”
