Gottfried Anton Nicolai Lessing (14 December 1914 – 11 April 1979) was a German lawyer, political activist, and diplomat.
[1] First he sought refuge in the UK, and later he moved to Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe).
He worked as a lawyer in Salisbury from 1941 to 1946 and took part in the founding of the small Southern Rhodesia Communist Party, becoming a leading member.
From 1962 to 1965 he was back in East Germany, working as the head of the Africa section at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He and his third wife were killed during the Fall of Kampala in 1979, as Tanzania and its Ugandan rebel allies occupied Uganda's capital and overthrew dictator Idi Amin.