The Federal Parliamentary Commissioner for the Victims of the SED Dictatorship

Parliamentary mandate

On 10 June 2021, the Bundestag elected Evelyn Zupke as the first Federal Parliamentary Commissioner for the Victims of the SED Dictatorship. Her task is to act as an ombudswoman, to engage in political and public advocacy for the victims of the dictatorship in the Soviet Zone of Occupation and under the SED, and to contribute to the recognition and acknowledgement of victims of Communism in Germany. The Commissioner advises the German Bundestag, the Federal Government and public agencies and institutions on all issues affecting the victims of SED injustice. In addition, she supports the Bundestag in raising awareness regarding the concerns of the victims of Communist tyranny in Europe and at international level. She also works with the victims’ associations, the commissioners in the Länder (federal states) who deal with the legacy of the SED dictatorship, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Germany, the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany, as well as advisory centres, archives, memorial sites, research institutes and civil-society initiatives. In public, the Parliamentary Commissioner creates awareness of the different experiences which people had during the period when Germany was divided, thus fostering understanding within society. The Parliamentary Commissioner performs her functions as an auxiliary organ at the German Bundestag. The Commissioner is elected by Parliament for a term of five years and reports directly to Parliament. She is independent in her work and answerable only to the law. 

Evelyn Zupke

Evelyn Zupke was born on 28 February 1962 in Binz. Even at school, she refused to toe the line set by the regime; against the background of her opposition to the regime, she became a social care worker under the auspices of the Protestant Church and, from 1987 onwards, became active in the Weißensee peace circle.  In 1989, Evelyn Zupke played a major role in uncovering the first evidence of electoral fraud in the local elections in the GDR on 7 May. After 1989, she was part of the committee responsible for the dissolution of the Office for National Security and at the archive of the Robert Havemann Society documenting the history of the GDR opposition. Before becoming Federal Parliamentary Commissioner for Victims of the SED Dictatorship, she spent 25 years working in the area of social care and trauma therapy and visited schools throughout Germany to share her first-hand experience of resistance and the peaceful revolution in the GDR. 

Contact details

The Federal Parliamentary Commissioner for the Victims of the SED Dictatorship
Evelyn Zupke
Platz der Republik 1
11011 Berlin

Tel.: +49 30 227 37893
Fax: +49 30 227 23 37894

Email: sed-opferbeauftragte@bundestag.de(E-Mail)

Instagram: @sed_opferbeauftragte