Stanislaw Tillich (Sorbian: Stanisław Tilich) born on 10 April 1959 in Neudörfel (Sorbian: Nowa Wjeska) near Kamenz (Sorbian: Kamjenc) is a German CDU politician. He is the Minister-President of the Free State of Saxony. Tillich is of Sorbian ethnicity and lives in Panschwitz-Kuckau (Pančicy-Kukow), which is some 35 kilometres north-east of Dresden near Kamenz.
Tillich studied construction and drive techniques at the Dresden University of Technology after finishing his Abitur at the Sorbian Gymnasium in Bautzen in 1977. He graduated from university with a Diplomingenieur degree in 1984. Tillich was an employee of the district administration of Kamenz between 1987 and 1989. Later he became an entrepreneur.
Stanislaw Tillich joined the Christian Democratic Union (East Germany) in 1987 and became a member of the CDU after German reunification in 1990. He was a member of the Volkskammer in 1990 and was delegated as an observer of the European Parliament between 1991 and 1994. He joined the European People's Party and was a member of the European Parliament between 1994 and 1999 where he was rapporteur of the European Union's budget.
Tillich has been a minister in the government of Saxony since 1999. He was State Minister for Federal and European Affairs until 2002 when he became State Minister and Head of the Staatskanzlei. In 2004 he became the Saxon State Minister for Environment and Agriculture. He was Saxon State Minister of Finance since 2007 and has been a member of the Landtag of Saxony since 2004.
Tillich was proposed by Georg Milbradt on 14 April 2008 to became his successor as the Minister-President of Saxony. The Landtag of Saxony elected him on 28 May 2008. He is the first Sorbian Head of Government in more than thousand years of Sorbian-German coexistence in Saxony.
Beside his native language Upper Sorbian, Tillich speaks fluent German, Czech and very good Polish. His wife knows Polish from home - she is half-Polish, half-Sorbian. Her father was a forced labourer, who settled in Lusatia after World War II, and married a Sorbian woman.
Famous quotes containing the word tillich:
“Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. Although, in daily life, we do not always distinguish these words, we should do so consistently and thus deepen our understanding of our human predicament.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)