Harry Tisch; First E. German Leader Tried After Unification
Harry Tisch, a communist labor leader who became the first East German Politburo member put on trial after the Berlin Wall’s fall, has died at age 68.
Tisch, who had been ill for several months, died of cancer Sunday (at his apartment in the Hellersdorf district of Berlin, his wife said.
Tisch led the 9-million-member East German labor federation for 14 years. He was arrested for corruption in December, 1989, and convicted of spending $54,000 in union funds on private uses, including family vacations. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in June, 1991.
Tisch, a construction worker, joined the Communist Party in 1945 and spent his career in the East German labor bureaucracy, rising to the inner circle in 1975.
He was considered a die-hard loyalist to former East German leader Erich Honecker. But at Tisch’s trial, witnesses testified that he plotted with other Politburo members to oust the East German leader in October, 1989, and flew to Moscow to inform Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the conspiracy.
Honecker resigned Oct. 18, 1989. The Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, and German unification occurred less than a year later.
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