Herbert Crüger (17 May 1911 – 17 January 2003) was a German political activist and politician (KPD) who, as a young man during the Nazi years, became caught up in espionage activity. During the postwar decade, as the division of Germany seemed to have become permanent, millions of people fled from East Germany to West Germany. More unusually, Herbert Crüger was one of those who, having ended up in "the west", crossed the internal frontier in the other direction, probably, at least in part, because his communist politics made it hard for him to obtain suitable employment in the west. In the east, he became a university lecturer and author. In 1958, he fell foul of a political purge and spent some years in the vast . He was released in 1961 but had to wait till 1990 for his formal rehabilitation.