Erich Honecker
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Erich Honecker (25 August 1912–29 May 1994) was a German Communist politician who led East Germany from 1971 until 1989. After German re-unification, he first fled to the Soviet Union but was extradited by the new Russian government to Germany, where he was imprisoned and tried for high treason and crimes committed during the Cold War (specifically the deaths of 192 Germans who tried to escape the Honecker regime). However, as he was dying of cancer, he was released from prison. He died in exile in Chile shortly after.
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Early political career
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen (Saar), now in Saarland, as the son of a politically militant coal miner. He joined the Young Communist League of Germany (KJVD), the youth section of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), in 1926 and joined the KPD itself in 1929. That year he was sent to Moscow to study at the International Lenin School. He returned to Germany in 1931 and was arrested in 1935 after the Nazis had come to power (Machtübernahme). In 1937 he was sentenced to ten years for Communist activities and remained in captivity until the end of World War II.
At the end of the war, Honecker resumed activity in the party under leader Walter Ulbricht, and in 1946 became one of the first members of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED), made up of the old KPD and the Social Democrats of eastern Germany. Following a sweeping victory in the October 1946 elections, he took his place amongst the SED leadership in the short-lived parliament. The German Democratic Republic was proclaimed on October 7, 1949 in the Soviet Occupation Zone with the adoption of a new constitution. In a political system similar to that of the Soviet Union, he was a candidate member for the secretariat of the Central Committee in 1950 and full member in 1958.
Leadership of East Germany
In 1961 Honecker was in charge of the building of the Berlin Wall. In 1971, he initiated a political power struggle that led, with Soviet support, to himself becoming the new leader, replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party. In 1976 he also became Chairman of the Council of State (Staatsratsvorsitzender). In 1987, Honecker became the first East German leader to visit West Germany since World War II.
Despite Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to liberalize communism in the late 1980s, Honecker remained opposed to any political or economic reform. However, as reform spread throughout the Eastern bloc, mass demonstrations against the East German government erupted, most prominently the 1989 Monday demonstrations in Leipzig. Faced with civil unrest, Honecker's politburo comrades colluded to replace him. He was forced to resign on October 18, 1989, and was replaced by his short-lived successor Egon Krenz.
Depictions of Erich Honecker
As in many communist countries, the image of the leader was everpresent (the main photo on this page is an example) in public offices, in newspapers, and on television news. The record for most number of photographs of Erich Honecker in the official SED newspaper, Neues Deutschland, was 41, in the edition of 16 March 1987, on the occasion of Honecker's opening of the Leipzig Messe, as he was shown with different politicians and exhibitors.
Post-1989
After the GDR was abolished, Honecker initially remained in a Soviet military hospital near Berlin before he fled to Moscow, trying to avoid prosecution over Cold War crimes, specifically the 192 deaths of those trying to escape over the Berlin Wall, and high treason. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union he was extradited to Germany in 1992. But when he did come to trial in 1993 he was released due to ill-health and moved to Chile where he died in exile of liver cancer in Santiago some months later, in May 1994. His body was cremated.
Personal
Honecker married Margot Feist in 1953 and remained married until his death. They had a daughter named Sonja in 1951. Feist was the Minister for National Education in East Germany (1963-1989).
Famous quotes
- "The Wall will remain so long as the conditions that led to its erection are not changed. It will be standing even in 50 and even in 100 years, if the necessary conditions are not removed." (Berlin, 19 January 1989)
- "We have done our perestroika, we have nothing to restructure."
- "Neither an oxen nor a donkey are able to stop the progress of socialism" (Den Sozialismus hält in seinem Lauf/ weder Ochs noch Esel auf) (Berlin, October 7 1989)
External links
| Preceded by: Walter Ulbricht |
General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany 1971-1989 |
Succeeded by: Egon Krenz |
| Preceded by: Willi Stoph |
Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic 1976-1989 |
