Friedrich Wolff, among the most prominent lawyers in communist East Germany, has died. He was 101.
He died peacefully at home on Monday afternoon in Wandlitz, a town north of Berlin, his publisher announced on Tuesday on behalf of Wolff's widow.
Wolff, who was born in a Jewish family in Berlin in 1922, survived Nazi persecution during World War II and joined the Communist Party shortly after the end of the war.
He eventually became best-known in East Germany for hosting a television programme on legal issues, "Alles was Recht ist."
He rose to prominence as the defence at East German show trials in the early 1960s against Hans Globke and Theodor Oberländer, both former Nazis who held political office in West Germany at the time. Both were convicted in absentia by the East German courts for crimes committed under Adolf Hitler's regime.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification, Wolff defended prominent East German politicians in court, including East German communist leaders Erich Honecker and Hans Modrow and long-time Politburo member Hermann Axen.
He later published a number of books, including memoirs and other autobiographical writings.
According to his publisher, Frank Schumann, Wolff will be buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Berlin district of Weissensee, where his parents acquired a family grave plot in 1935.