Heinz Kessler, minister behind the shoot-to-kill policy at the Berlin Wall

Born: January 26, 1920;

Died: May 2, 2017

HEINZ Kessler, who has died aged 97, was a former East German defence minister who was later convicted of incitement to manslaughter for upholding a shoot-to-kill policy at the border. He was one of only a few leading communists sentenced and jailed for crimes committed before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and East and West Germany were reunited in 1990.

Kessler was defence minister from 1985 until November 1989 and became a member of the communist party's politburo in 1986.

His promotion to minister and general followed a long career in the senior ranks of the military and as a deputy defence minister.

He was committed to communism from an early age and remained unrepentant about the actions of the East German regime until his death. He was born in Lower Silesia and by the time he was 10 was a member of the Young Spartacus League, a communist youth group.

After the war, he progressed quickly through the ranks of the communist hierarchy in East Germany and by 1956 was head of the East German air force.

In 1985 Erich Honecker – the country’s leader from 1971 until just before the fall of the Wall – appointed Kessler defence minister, and he became a member of the politburo. An estimated 700 to 800 people died fleeing East Germany under the regime's shoot-to-kill policy before the wall came down and Kessler was one of the men responsible for enforcing it.

In January 1990, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kessler was ejected from the party along with others from the hardline communist era.

He was arrested in May 1991 after officials in the reunited Germany, angry at East German leader Erich Honecker's escape to Moscow, were told he would try to flee the country wearing a Red Army uniform.

Police blocked entrances to a Soviet air base in Sperenberg for several hours but Kessler was eventually arrested in Berlin.

In 1993, he was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

The case went as far as the European Court of Human Rights, which in 2001 upheld Kessler's conviction - along with that of East Germany's last hardline leader, Egon Krenz, and other officials.

Kessler remained defiant about his actions all his life - a fact reflected in the title of his memoirs Without The Wall, There Would Have Been War.

Speaking about his time in power, he said: “On some matters I cannot change my position. I refuse to sacrifice my communist beliefs to the fashion of the day. I am and remain a believer in democratic centralism and a revolutionary socialist party. The systems that are now in place are not solving people’s economic, social and environmental problems. Other ways have to be found. New social structures will emerge, including some that embrace the socialist principles I believe in.”

He also believed that the Berlin Wall was a force for good. “While the wall was standing, there was peace,” he said. “Today there’s hardly a place that isn’t in flames. The wall was our protection – it was fantastic for me to be part of it. Were you ever in East Germany? It was a wonderful country.”

Kessler was pre-deceased by his wife Ruth in 2013.