Joachim Gauck

Garbės daktaras / Honorary Doctor (Suteiktas vardas 2022-03-23)

Joachim Gauck is a former President of the Federal Republic of Germany (2012-2017), politician, and civil rights activist.

On 23 March 2022, he was awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of Vytautas Magnus University for his merits in the fields of international cooperation, peacekeeping, and strengthening of democracy, as well as for his significant contribution to fostering the values of freedom, justice, and solidarity.

In 1967, Gauck was ordained an Evangelical Lutheran priest. Because of this, and because of his undisguised anti-communist views, he was under constant surveillance by the East German secret police (Stasi). In 1989, Gauck took part in anti-communist protests in East Germany and founded the opposition movement New Forum, which contributed to the collapse of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

In his activities, Joachim Gauck focuses on the crimes of communist regimes and political repression in East Germany. From 1990, he served for a decade as the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records Agency, which uncovered the crimes of the communist East German secret police. In 2008, he was one of the signatories of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, which calls for the condemnation of communism, the exposure of communist crimes, and their punishment. The British newspaper The Independent has called Gauck Germany’s Nelson Mandela, while The Wall Street Journal has compared him to Václav Havel and Lech Wałęsa, describing him as “one of the leaders of the protest movements behind the Iron Curtain who went on to lead their countries after 1989.”

Gauck’s political views were strongly influenced by his family’s experiences: in 1951, his father was deported to Siberia for no reason. After four years of uncertainty, his father returned, having been profoundly changed by the exile, both physically and psychologically. “Our father’s fate was like an ‘educating’ cudgel. It made me feel unconditional loyalty to my family, rejecting any thought of fraternising with the regime,” the former German President wrote in his memoirs.

In his academic work, Gauck has written extensively about Soviet-era concentration camps, communist crimes, and political repression in East Germany. Among his most important works is the book “Freedom: A Plea for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights Around the Globe” (2012), which focuses on the importance of defending freedom and human rights. His awards include the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Imre Nagy Prize (Hungary), the Leo Baeck Medal, and the Order of Vytautas the Great with the Golden Chain.

Speech by Joachim Gauck, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany (in Lithuanian).

Speech by Joachim Gauck, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany (in English).

Speech by Joachim Gauck, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany (in German).