Heinz Kessler, Who Led East Germany’s Military, Dies at 97 Mr. Kessler was one of the few former senior East German officials still alive and one of the very 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. By ALISON SMALEMAY 8, 2017 BERLIN — Heinz Kessler, a former head of East Germany’s armed forces and a die-hard Communist to the last, died on May 2 in eastern Berlin. Mr. Kessler was found guilty in 1993 of inciting border guards to kill people fleeing west across the wall or the heavily fortified border between East and West Germany. Mr. Kessler and Mr. Streletz, his former deputy, were both sentenced to prison, Mr. Kessler for seven and a half years and Mr. Streletz for five and a half. Unlike hundreds of other German Communists who made their way to the Soviet Union during the war, Mr. Kessler survived Stalin’s various purges and returned to Berlin immediately afterward.
