Walter Friedrich obituary

My friend Walter Friedrich, who has died aged 85, was an academic psychologist and political thinker who played an influential role in events leading up to the first democratic elections in East Germany in 1990.

In 1994, in a long conversation with me, Egon Krenz, the former East German communist leader, revealed that it had been Walter who had convinced him that the developing dramatic situation in Leipzig, in October 1989 - when thousands of citizens demonstrated to demand greater democracy - could not be resolved by armed force. The Stasi chief, Gen Erich Mielke, was ready to use force, but Krenz overruled him. Had Mielke prevailed, events would have unfolded very differently.