Thomas Welz (born 1957 as Thomas Berndt in

Bad Berka Bad Berka () is a German spa town, situated in the south of Weimar region in the state of Thuringia. With its almost 8,000 inhabitants Bad Berka is the second biggest city in Weimarer Land district (after Apolda, 23,000). The river flowing throu ...

) grew up in the suburbs of

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. As head of the information department, he was editor and author of several illegal

samizdat publications Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual repr ...

with

Rainer Eppelmann 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. Earl ...

of the peace circle of the

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

Samariterkirche (Church of the Good Samaritan) in

Berlin-Friedrichshain Friedrichshain () is a quarter (''Ortsteil'') of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzl ...

. Many of them became the mouthpiece of the East German civil rights movement, including publications like "Shalom", "Wegzehrung" and "Wendezeit", one of the first publications, in where term "Wende" was used. During his military service in the NVA, Thomas Welz was detained for five months from October 1978 in the infamous military prison in

Schwedt Schwedt (or Schwedt/Oder; ) is a town in Brandenburg, in northeastern Germany. With the official status of a ''Große Kreisstadt, Große kreisangehörige Stadt'' (major district town), it is the largest town of the Uckermark (district), Uckermark ...

. Welz, active in various initiatives and ''ad hoc'' groups of the East German opposition and the peace movement was co-founder of the oppositional political group

Democratic Awakening Democratic Awakening (), or Democratic Beginning, 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 minor ...

in 1989. After

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

in 1990, he was active in the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

. He is married and has two sons. He lives in

References and media

Ehrhart Neubert Ehrhart Neubert (2 August 1940 – 17 November 2024) was a German evangelical minister and theologian. During its final decade he emerged as an opponent of the East German one-party dictatorship, becoming a member of the League of Evangelical ...

: ''Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949–1989''. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Schriftenreihe Band 346, Bonn 1997, . * Ehrhart Neubert: ''Unsere Revolution. Die Geschichte der Jahre 1989/90''. Piper-Verlag, München–Zürich 2008, . *

: ''Fremd im eigenen Haus. Mein Leben im anderen Deutschland.'' Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2003, . * RBB-Magazin Stilbruch
Ab nach Schwedt! Die Geschichte des DDR-Militärstrafvollzugs
(German) * MDR-Magazin Barbarossa
Der Mythos Schwedt - über das Militärgefängnis der NVA
(German)

External links

"Schalom" Samisdat-Publikation der Samaritergemeinde

Zeitzeugenportal 1989/1990
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welz, Thomas German reunification 1957 births Living people East German dissidents