Horst Kasner (born Horst Kaźmierczak; 6 August 1926 – 2 September 2011) was a German Protestant theologian and father of former German
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
.
Biography
Kasner was born as Horst Kaźmierczak in 1926, the son of a policeman in the
Pankow
Pankow () is the most populous and the second-largest borough by area of Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee; the resulting borough retained the name Pankow. P ...
suburb of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, where he was brought up. His father
Ludwig Kaźmierczak (born 1896 in
Posen,
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
- died 1959 in Berlin) was born out of wedlock to Anna Kazmierczak and Ludwik Wojciechowski, ethnic
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
and citizens of the German Empire from the Poznań area. Ludwig was mobilised into the
German army
The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
in 1915 and sent to France, where he was taken prisoner of war and joined the Polish
Haller's Army
The Blue Army ( Polish: ''Błękitna Armia''; French: ''Armée bleue''), or Haller's Army, was a Polish military contingent created in France during the latter stages of World War I. The name came from the French-issued blue military uniforms ...
fighting on the side of
Entente
Entente, meaning a diplomatic "understanding", may refer to a number of agreements:
History
* Entente (alliance), a type of treaty or military alliance where the signatories promise to consult each other or to cooperate with each other in case o ...
. Together with the army he returned to Poland to fight in the
Polish-Ukrainian war and the
Polish-Soviet war. After Posen had become part of Poland, Ludwig moved with his wife in 1923 to Berlin, where he served as a policeman, and changed his family name to Kasner in 1930.
While Kasner served in the military during World War II, little is known about Horst Kasner's
wartime service; he was held as a prisoner of war at the age of 19. During his high school years he was a member of the
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
, with the last service position of a troop leader. From 1948 he studied theology, first in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
then in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
. It was in Hamburg that he got to know and later married Herlinde Jentzsch,
an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
teacher, born on 8 July 1928 in
Danzig (now
Gdańsk
Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...
, Poland) as the daughter of Danzig politician
Willi Jentzsch.
Migration to the German Democratic Republic
Several weeks after the birth of their daughter, the family moved from Hamburg to
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
. The
interior border was not yet completely closed, but most German migration was in the opposite direction (see also:
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
). In the first five months of 1954, 180,000 people had fled the GDR, and during the building of the border defenses between 1949 and 1961 around
Templin
Templin () is a small town in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg, Germany. Though it has a population of only 17,127 (2006), in terms of area it is, with 377.01 km2 (145.56 sq mi), the second largest town in Brandenburg (after Wittstock) and ...
, Kasner moved to the East according to the wishes of Youth Pastor Hans-Otto Wölber,
the later (1964–1983) Bishop of Hamburg, who feared a shortage of pastors in the East would work against the church. Kasner found a pastor's position with the
Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and the family moved to a rectory in the village of Quitzow near
Perleberg
Perleberg (; North Margravian: ''Perlberg'') is the capital of the district of Prignitz, located in the northwest of the German state of Brandenburg. The town received city rights in 1239 and today has about 12,000 inhabitants. Located in a mostl ...
. Pastors took various positions in their willingness to cooperate with the communist authorities.
Pastor in Templin
Three years later in 1957, Kasner moved to the small Brandenburg town of
Templin
Templin () is a small town in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg, Germany. Though it has a population of only 17,127 (2006), in terms of area it is, with 377.01 km2 (145.56 sq mi), the second largest town in Brandenburg (after Wittstock) and ...
. There, at the request of
Albrecht Schönherr, then
General Superintendent for the Sprengel (ecclesiastical region)
Eberswalde
Eberswalde () is a major town and the administrative seat of the district Barnim in the German State ( Bundesland / ''federated state'') of Brandenburg, about 50 km northeast of Berlin. Population 42,144 (census in June 2005), geographic ...
, he took a development position in the religious education office. Schönherr, in a 2004 interview, indicated he made the appointment "due to the good working conditions and Kasner's abilities as a pedagogue." The location of the continuing education buildings was the Waldhof, a complex of church buildings erected outside the center of Templin, which from 1958 on, also housed a facility for the mentally handicapped.
Their daughter Angela had been born on 17 July 1954. Marcus Kasner, who has grown up to become a
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
,
was born on 7 July 1957 and a second daughter, Irene, on 19 August 1964.
Kasner was regarded as a religious leader and idealist who did not oppose the church governance or the policies of the Socialist party, unlike Schönherr and Hanfried Müller (members of the Weissensee Work Group (''Weißenseer Arbeitskreis'') standing in opposition to dominant national-conservative trend of Berlin-Brandenburg bishop
Otto Dibelius
Friedrich Karl Otto Dibelius (15 May 1880 – 31 January 1967) was a German bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, a self-described anti-Semite who up to 1934 a conservative who became a staunch opponent of Nazism and commu ...
). From a perspective of governance, Kasner was considered one of the more "progressive" forces. His nickname during GDR times, quoted repeatedly in the press, was "Red Kasner." He was the longtime director of the pastoral college in a key position within the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. All theologians were required as part of their education and training to spend some time as a vicar with their second theological examination in Templin. In this context there is little record of any pressure put on pastors to conform to the system. Theologian Richard Schröder wrote in 2004:
For me, Kasner was always trustworthy and certainly no conformist. The Pastor's College in Templin was always for us a window on the West through means of Western lecturers and Western literature. The theological speakers were not handpicked to toe the line.
Kasner took trips abroad as part of the
National Front and was given the privilege of travelling to the West either by company car or private vehicle, which could be procured through Genex. On the other hand, his wife, Herlind, was forbidden to do so due to her position as a GDR teacher. A recruitment effort by the Stasi is presumed to have failed. Unlike the children in other pastors’ families, the higher education of the Kasner children was not impeded.
From the late 1960s onwards, Kasner criticised the social order of West Germany: he did not support
reunification
A political union is a type of political entity which is composed of, or created from, smaller polities, or the process which achieves this. These smaller polities are usually called federated states and federal territories in a federal governm ...
.
Kasner's regular interlocutors in terms of church politics were
Wolfgang Schnur
Wolfgang Schnur (8 June 1944 – 16 January 2016) was an East German civil rights lawyer and a longtime informer of the dreaded East German secret service Stasi. He was closely involved with the Association of Evangelical Churches (''"Bund der ...
and Clemens de Maizière, the father of the later last GDR prime minister
Lothar de Maizière
Lothar de Maizière (; born 2 March 1940) is a German Christian Democratic politician. In 1990, he served as the only premier of the German Democratic Republic to be democratically elected freely and fairly by the people. He was also the last ...
. Schnur, later chairman of the opposition party
Democratic Awakening
Democratic Beginning (german: Demokratischer Aufbruch) was an East German political movement and political party that was active during the Revolutions of 1989 and in the period leading up to the German reunification. While it was a relatively ...
, was a member of the Synod (cf.
general assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...
) of the
Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg (german: Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Mecklenburgs; abbreviated ELLM) was a Lutheran church in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, serving the citizens living in Mecklenburg. The seat of ...
and temporarily vice president of the Synod of the
Evangelical Church of the Union
The Prussian Union of Churches (known under multiple other names) was a major Protestant church body which emerged in 1817 from a series of decrees by Frederick William III of Prussia that united both Lutheran and Reformed denominations in Pr ...
and the Synod of the Federation of the Protestant Churches in the GDR (''Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR''). He was, alongside the Synod of the Berlin-Brandenburg Church, one of the earliest members of the
Christian Democratic Union in East Germany. Also negotiating alongside Kasner, Schnur, and de Maizière with the East German government from 1979 to 1988 and its state secretary for church affairs,
Klaus Gysi
Klaus Gysi (3 March 1912 – 6 March 1999) was a journalist and publisher and a member of the French Resistance against the Nazis. After World War II, he became a politician in the German Democratic Republic, serving in the government as Minister o ...
.
After ''
Die Wende
The Peaceful Revolution (german: Friedliche Revolution), as a part of the Revolutions of 1989, was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the West, the end of the ruling of the Socialist Unity ...
'', Kasner advocated against further military use of the so-called Bombodrom, a military allotment in northern
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
and fell out of good relations with Lothar de Maizière when the latter's association with the Stasi was exposed.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kasner, Horst
1926 births
2011 deaths
People from Pankow
German people of Polish descent
German Protestant clergy
Angela Merkel
People from Bezirk Neubrandenburg
Clergy from Berlin
Hitler Youth members
German military personnel of World War II
German prisoners of war in World War II
People from Templin