My friend Walter Friedrich, who has died aged 85, was an academic psychologist and political thinker who played an influential role in events leading up to the first democratic elections in East Germany in 1990.
In 1994, in a long conversation with me, Egon Krenz, the former East German communist leader, revealed that it had been Walter who had convinced him that the developing dramatic situation in Leipzig, in October 1989 – when thousands of citizens demonstrated to demand greater democracy – could not be resolved by armed force. The Stasi chief, Gen Erich Mielke, was ready to use force, but Krenz overruled him. Had Mielke prevailed, events would have unfolded very differently.
Son of a shoemaker and his wife, Walter was born in the village of Neuland in German Silesia. His parents adopted a non-political attitude to the Nazi regime, but like many young people he was seduced by the Nazis, taking part in the Hitler Youth. However, the reality of war – he witnessed a concentration camp prisoner being shot in the street – brought increasing doubts about Hitler’s Reich. Like thousands of others, Walter was forced to flee in 1945. His village became part of Poland.
In 1948, Walter became a “new teacher”, the hastily trained replacements for war casualties and former Nazis. He decided he wanted to climb the academic ladder and, in 1950, was accepted by Leipzig University to study education and psychology. He graduated in 1957. In 1959 he was given a post at the German Sports University in Leipzig, which played a leading role in building up the German Democratic Republic’s sporting elite. This was only possible because of his active participation in the dominant political organisations of the Soviet Zone and, after 1949, the GDR. Friedrich joined the Free German Youth, then run by Erich Honecker, in 1947, and the leading party, the SED.
In the more relaxed atmosphere of the post-Stalin period, he married a teacher, Regina, and the couple had a son and three daughters. Having gained his doctorate for a thesis on youth psychology, he was appointed in 1965 to work in the Office for Youth of the GDR government. In this capacity he was asked to found the Central Institute for Research on Youth, based in Leipzig. He directed the institute from 1965 until it was disbanded in 1990. In 1984 Walter was awarded the Fatherland’s Order of Merit in Gold. He was bitterly disappointed by the closure of his institute, but continued to work in the field for some years.
Walter was a man of passion, doubt and conviction. He hoped to avoid bloodshed in 1989 and he hoped the demonstrations would lead to a more democratic and successful GDR.
He is survived by his second wife, Svetla, and their son, Martin; and by his son, Wolfgang, and daughters, Undine, Katrin and Jana, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.