Martin Gutzeit
1952–2026Martin Gutzeit (1952–2026) was a German Protestant theologian, DDR citizen-rights activist, and co-founder of the East German SPD who later served as Berlin's commissioner for Stasi files.
Particulars
Martin Gutzeit was born in 1952 in Cottbus, East Germany, and trained as a Protestant theologian. During the 1980s he worked as a vicar in Pankow and later as a pastor near Neustrelitz, a role that placed him within the oppositional church milieu of the German Democratic Republic.
In 1989 Gutzeit was, together with Stephan Hilsberg, one of the initiators of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the DDR, founded on 7 October 1989 in a parish house in Schwante north of Berlin. The party's creation was widely seen as a decisive step toward dismantling SED rule during the peaceful revolution.
After reunification, Gutzeit was elected in 1990 as an SPD deputy to the first freely elected Volkskammer and, from October to December, also served as a member of the Bundestag. From 1993 to 2017 he was Berlin's state commissioner for the Stasi files (Stasi-Unterlagen), dedicating himself to investigating the legacy of the SED dictatorship and supporting its victims.
In 1995 Gutzeit and other citizen-rights activists were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. He died on 15 September 2026 in a Berlin hospital at the age of 74.
Compiled from source reports. Automated record.