Martin Gutzeit, co-founder of the Eastern SPD and Berlin commissioner for Stasi files, is dead

The co-founder of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR and long-time Berlin state representative for the Stasi files, Martin Gutzeit, is dead. He died on Tuesday at the age of 74 in a hospital. Gutzeit's political companion and close friend, Stephan Hilsberg, told the dpa news agency. The “Tagesspiegel” previously reported.

The Berlin commissioner for reappraisal, Frank Ebert, praised Gutzeit as an original thinker and courageous opposition figure. "With him, Berlin is losing an outstanding actor in the peaceful revolution and the coming to terms with the SED dictatorship," it said in a statement.

State Commissioner for Stasi Records

The Protestant theologian Gutzeit founded the Social Democratic Party in the GDR (SDP) together with Markus Meckel in October 1989. In 1990, Gutzeit was elected as an SPD member of the GDR's first freely elected People's Chamber and was also a member of the Bundestag between October and December.

His companion Hilsberg, also a founding member of the Eastern SPD, called Gutzeit “courageous and clever.” He gave the resistance movement in the GDR “the decisive push” with his realized idea of ​​founding a social democratic party. "That was the most radical step towards disempowering the SED."