Erich Honecker (1912 - 1994) |
Erich Honecker (25. August 1912 - 29. May 1994) was a German Communist politician who
led East Germany from 1971 until 1989.
After the re-unification with West Germany,
he was tried for high treason by
Germany, but was released due to ill health.
Early political career
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in the Saar, as the son of a politically militant
coal miner. He joined the youth section (Jugendverband) of the Communist Party of
Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, 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. In 1946, Honecker was 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
7. October 1949 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 the GDR (East Germany)
Honecker in official function |
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).
During the 1980s, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
began his reforms, Honecker remained a hard-line Communist. However, as reform
spread throughout the Eastern bloc, popular protest led to Honecker's resignation
on October 18, 1989, and he was replaced by his short-lived successor Egon Krenz.
As in many communist countries, the image of the leader was everpresent in public
offices (where portraits such as the one above were hung), 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.
Honecker after the fall of the wall (1989)
From 1989 until 1993, Honecker avoided prosecution over alleged Cold War crimes,
specifically the 192 deaths of those trying to escape over the Berlin Wall. He
initially remained in a Soviet military hospital near Berlin before leaving for
Moscow. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union he was returned 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 of liver cancer in Santiago in May 1994.
Famous quote
"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)
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