E. German General Who Organized Construction of Berlin Wall Dies

Heinz Hoffmann, the East German defense minister who organized the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, died Monday of heart failure at age 75, the official news agency ADN said.

Hoffmann, a prominent hard-liner in the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance, was his country’s highest-ranking general and had been a member of the ruling Politburo since 1973.

He was made defense minister in 1960 and the next year oversaw the construction of the Berlin Wall and other border fortifications that made the frontier between Soviet-allied East Germany and NATO-allied West Germany one of the most heavily armed and dangerous in the world.

Born in Mannheim in what is now West Germany, Hoffman became active in the then-outlawed Communist Party in 1930 and in 1936-37 fought in the Spanish Civil War with a communist brigade that was part of the Loyalist alliance opposing the forces of Gen. Francisco Franco.

After Franco became dictator of Spain, Hoffmann went to the Soviet Union to study communist military-political theory. He was given Soviet citizenship and served during World War II as a lieutenant colonel in the Red Army.

In 1946, he moved to the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany that later became East Germany and served as a personal adviser to East German Communist Party leader Walter Ulbricht.