Harry Ott

Harry Ott (15 October 1933 – 24 June 2005) was a German diplomat who became a politician towards the end of his professional career.

Between 1974 and 1981 he served as the ambassador of the German Democratic Republic to the Soviet Union.

Life Harry Ott was born into a working-class family in Kappel, an industrial quarter that had been subsumed into Chemnitz back in the nineteenth century. Chemnitz was part of the large industrial belt in the south of what was at the time the central part of Germany. His father, Heinrich Ott, was a weaver. The year of Harry's birth, 1933 had seen the NSDAP (Nazi party) take power in January: by the time of his birth in October progress towards the establishment in Germany of one-party government was well advanced. Ott attended junior school in Kappel till 1948. As a child he was a member of the Hitler Youth organisation in 1944/45 Later in 1953 he was transferred to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Ott left his Moscow posting in January 1981. In the meantime he had been elected to an equally important job back home, elected in May 1976 as one of the 145 members of the East German Party Central Committee. He remained a member till the Central Committee resigned at the end of 1989 as part of the sequence of events leading to German reunification the next year.

During the run-up to reunification Harry Ott became a consultant with the Berlin-based Society for the protection of civil rights and human dignity, an association of former GDR dignitaries and members of the Staatssicherheit. He also acted as a consultant for businesses wishing to do business in Russia.

Awards and honours 1969: Patriotic Order of Merit in Bronze 1970: Lenin Jubilee Medal 1973: Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver 1979: Banner of Labor 1980: Order of Friendship of Peoples 1983: Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold 1983: Order of Karl Marx 1988: Star of People's Friendship in Silver