The far-left Die Linke party announced on Saturday that Hans Modrow, the final prime minister of communist East Germany, had passed away at the age of 95.
A party spokeswoman confirmed that Modrow passed away overnight.
He was born on January 27, 1928, in Pomerania, modern-day Poland, and served as prime minister from November 1989—four days after the fall of the Berlin Wall—to April 1990.
Modrow was viewed as a reformer, much like Mikhail Gorbachev in Soviet Russia, even though he never rejected the Communist philosophy.
His government established a body in 1990 to aid East Germany’s transition to a market economy.
Owners of homes and farms were able to purchase the land that their buildings stood on thanks to a law that bears his name.
During World War II, Modrow was a part of the Volksturm, a civic militia tasked with defending the Third Reich. He was taken to the old USSR at the end of the war, where he was imprisoned there until 1949.
He eventually ascended the ranks of the SED, the Communist party in power in East Germany, after being freed.
He joined the Bundestag and the European Parliament after the reunification of Germany. Later, he criticized the reunification, claiming that it was rushed and that East Germany had suffered as a result.
