Rainer Eppelmann | |
Nationality: | German |
Office3: | Minister for Disarmament and Defence of East Germany |
1Namedata3: | Lothar de Maizière |
Term Start3: | 12 April 1990 |
Term End3: | 2 October 1990 |
Office12: | Minister without Portfolio |
Alongside12: | Tatjana Böhm, Sebastian Pflugbeil, Gerd Poppe, Walter Romberg, Klaus Schlüter, Wolfgang Ullmann, Matthias Platzeck |
1Namedata12: | Hans Modrow |
Termstart12: | 5 February 1990 |
Termend12: | 12 April 1990 |
Predecessor12: | Position abolished |
Successor12: | Position established |
Office13: | Member of the Bundestag for Brandenburg |
Term Start13: | 10 November 1994 |
Term End13: | 18 October 2005 |
Predecessor13: | multi-member district |
Successor13: | multi-member district |
Term Start14: | 20 December 1990 |
Term End14: | 10 November 1994 |
Predecessor14: | Constituency established |
Successor14: | Mathias Schubert |
Office15: | Member of the Volkskammer for Berlin |
Term Start15: | 5 April 1990 |
Term End15: | 2 October 1990 |
Predecessor15: | Constituency established |
Successor15: | Constituency abolished |
Birth Date: | 12 February 1943 |
Residence: | Berlin |
Children: | 5 |
Alma Mater: | Paulinum |
Signature: | Signature2 Zwei plus Vier Vertrag.JPG |
Rainer Eppelmann (born 12 February 1943 in Berlin), is a German politician. Known for his opposition in the German Democratic Republic, he became Minister for Disarmament and Defense in the last cabinet. He is now a member of the CDU.
The erection of the Berlin Wall forced him to drop out of the school he had attended in West Berlin in 1961 and he was forbidden from taking his Abitur exams in the East for refusing to join the Free German Youth movement.
He then worked as an assistant to a roofer before doing a job training for bricklayer. He is a pacifist.[1] In 1966, for refusing both regular service and Bausoldat (construction soldier in the National People's Army), he was brutally beaten and arrested by the Stasi, and put into prison for eight months where he was starved, tortured, abused and interrogated.
Later, he studied Theology at the theological school in Berlin, an education he completed in 1974 with two exams. He then worked as a Lutheran pastor in at Samariterkirche in Berlin-Friedrichshain and took part in the opposition,[2] such as being the editor of samizdat publications with Thomas Welz. It has been claimed that during this period Eppelmann had contact with the CIA.[3] [4]
In 1990, Eppelmann was one of the founding fathers of the Democratic Awakening, becoming its president. Thus, he took an active part in the round table of 1990, preparing the German reunification. From 18 March 1990 to 2 October 1990 (when it ceased to exist) he was a member of the Volkskammer. He was Minister for Disarmament and Defence of East Germany in the cabinet of Hans Modrow and later in the one of Lothar de Maizière. When the Democratic Awakening joined the Christian Democratic Union in August 1990, Eppelmann became a member and, later, the assisting chairman of the worker's division of the CDU, the CDA.
He was a member of the Bundestag from 1990 to 2005 for the Christian Democratic Union. Then, he was chairman of the commission that coped with the history of the German Democratic Republic.
Eppelmann's trademark is his "Berliner Schnauze", an idiom that is supposed to bring him close to the people of Berlin.
Eppelmann is married and has five children. In April 2023, he was one of the 22 guests at the ceremony in which former Chancellor Angela Merkel was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.[5]
Both retrieved January 2, 2007