Friedrich Schorlemmer, peace activist in East Germany, has died

Friedrich Schorlemmer, a theologian and sharp critic of the East German communist regime who became one of the leading figures of the peaceful revolution that toppled the Berlin Wall, died on Sunday.

He was 80 years old.

As a preacher, Schorlemmer became a leading figure in the 1980s peace movement in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), and he took part in a demonstration in 1983 that forged swords into ploughshares, a biblical reference that became a slogan for the movement.

He is also remembered in part for his call for non-violence during a mass demonstration on East Berlin's Alexanderplatz on November 4, 1989, less than a week before the fall of the wall.

Stephan Dorgerloh, a retired German politician who worked closely with Schorlemmer, confirmed his death to dpa on Tuesday.

Born in May 1944 in the eastern German town of Wittenberge, Schorlemmer clashed with the communist regime in East Germany from a young age.

He was forbidden from taking his university entrance exam in school and had to take night classes instead in order to study theology at the University of Halle.

His involvement in peaceful protests and non-violent resistance, including during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, brought him into the sights of the GDR's notorious Ministry of State Security, or Stasi.

He played a leading role in the peaceful revolution that overthrew the East German regime, and went on to join Germany's centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1990.

Schorlemmer wrote a number of books and remained an outspoken activist late into his life, speaking out in defence of democracy and to criticize xenophobia in Germany.

Looking back, he once said: "My life was not easy in many ways, but it was rich."