Horst Brünner

Horst Brünner (1929–2008) was deputy Defense Minister in the East German Council of Ministers and chief of the Central Political Administration of the National People's Army.

Life The son of a bricklayer, Brünner trained between 1943 and 1946 for a career in industry and commerce. In 1945 the frontier between Poland and Germany moved west and Brünner was one of the millions of Germans obliged to relocate as part of this militarily and politically driven process, ending up in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany which was in the process of becoming the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). In 1947 he switched to railway construction work.

He joined the FDJ in 1946, and the new country's ruling SED (party) in 1948. In the end the call of the hardliners went unheeded.

Horst Brünner later appeared in one of the series of trials of former East German senior officials accused of involvement in the murder of people killed while trying to cross the Berlin Wall from East to West Berlin. In the early summer of 1998 the Berlin Regional Court sentenced Brünner, along with his co-accused Manfred Grätz, Wolfgang Herger and Heinz Tappert, to a two-year suspended jail term.

Awards 1978 Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver 1980 Ernst Schneller Medal in Gold 1981 Honoured member of the National People's Army 1984 Scharnhorst Order 1986 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold 1989 Order of Karl Marx