Erich Honecker (25 August
1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German Communist
politician who led the German Democratic
Republic (East
Germany
) from 1971 until 1989.
After
German reunification, Honecker
first fled to the Soviet
Union
but was extradited to Germany by the new Russian
government. Back in Germany, he was imprisoned and tried for
high treason and crimes committed during the
Cold War.
In particular, he was indicted for ordering
border guards to shoot any person trying to cross the East German
border into West
Germany
or West Berlin.
However, during the trial, Honecker became ill with terminal
cancer and was subsequently released from
prison.
He
died in exile in Chile
about a year
and a half later.
Origins and early political career
Honecker
was born on Max-Braun-Straße in Neunkirchen, now Saarland
, as the son
of a coal miner, Wilhelm, who in 1905 had married Caroline
Catharina Weidenhof. There were six children born to the
family: Katharina (Käthe), Wilhelm (Willi), Frieda, Erich, Gertrud
(b. 1917; m. Hoppstädter), and Karl-Robert.
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.
Between 1928 and 1930 he worked as a
roofer,
but did not finish his apprenticeship. Thereafter he was sent to
Moscow to study at the
International Lenin School and
for the rest of his life remained a full-time politician.
He returned to Germany in 1931 and was arrested in 1935, two years
after the
Nazis had come to power. In 1937,
he was sentenced to ten years for Communist activities and remained
a prisoner 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), which was formed by the merger of the KPD and the
Social Democratic Party
(SPD) in the
Soviet occupation
zone of Germany.
Following the SED victory in the October 1946 elections, Honecker
took his place amongst the SED leadership in the first postwar East
German parliament, the
German
People's Congress (Deutscher Volkskongress).
The German
Democratic Republic was proclaimed on 7 October 1949 with the
adoption of a new constitution, establishing a
political system similar to that of the Soviet Union. Honecker was a candidate member for the
secretariat of the
Central
Committee in 1950; by 1958, he had become a full member of the
Politbüro.
Leadership of East Germany
Erich Honecker
In 1961,
Honecker, as the Central Committee secretary for security matters,
was in charge of the building of the Berlin Wall
. In 1971, he initiated a political power
struggle that led, with Soviet support, to his becoming the new
leader, replacing
Walter Ulbricht as
First Secretary of the SED Central Committee and as chairman of the
National Defense
Council. In 1976, he also became Chairman of the Council of
State (
Vorsitzender des Staatsrats der
DDR) and thus the
de facto head of state.
Under Honecker's leadership, the GDR adopted a program of "consumer
socialism," which resulted in a marked improvement in living
standards already the highest among the
Eastern bloc countries. More attention was
placed on the availability of consumer goods, and the construction
of new housing was accelerated, with Honecker promising to "settle
the housing problem as an issue of social relevance."
[6653] Yet, despite improved living conditions,
internal dissent was not tolerated. Around 125 East German citizens
were killed during this period while trying to illegally cross the
border into West Germany or West Berlin.
In foreign relations, Honecker renounced the objective of a unified
Germany and adopted the "defensive" position of ideological
Abgrenzung (demarcation). He combined loyalty to the USSR
with flexibility toward
détente,
especially in relation to rapprochement with West Germany. In
September 1987, he became the first East German head of state to
visit West Germany.
In the late 1980s Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev introduced
glasnost and
perestroika, reforms to liberalise communism.
Honecker and the East German government, however, refused to
implement similar reforms in the GDR, with Honecker reportedly
telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika, we have nothing
to restructure."
[6654] However, as the reform movement spread
throughout Central and Eastern Europe, mass demonstrations against
the East German government erupted, most prominently the 1989
East German Monday
demonstrations in Leipzig
.
Faced with
civil unrest, Honecker's
Politbüro comrades colluded to replace him. The elderly
and ill Honecker was forced to resign on 18 October 1989, and was
replaced by
Egon Krenz.
Post-1989
After the GDR was dissolved in October 1990, the Honeckers stayed
with the family of the Lutheran pastor Uwe Holmer. Honecker then
stayed in a Soviet military hospital near Berlin before later
fleeing with Margot Honecker to Moscow, to avoid prosecution over
charges of
Cold War crimes. He was accused
by the German government of involvement in the deaths of 192 East
Germans who tried to illegally leave the GDR.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in December 1991, Honecker took refuge in the Chilean embassy in
Moscow, but was extradited by the Yeltsin administration to Germany in
1992. However, when the trial formally opened in early 1993,
Honecker was released due to ill health and on 13 January of that
year moved to Chile to live with his daughter Sonja, her Chilean
husband Leo Yáñez, and their son Roberto.
He died of liver cancer in Santiago
. His body was cremated and the ashes are
believed to be in the possession of his widow Margot.
Personal
Honecker married
Edith Baumann in 1950
and divorced her in 1953. They had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950). In
1953 he married
Margot Feist and
they remained married until his death. They had a daughter, Sonja,
born in 1952. Margot Honecker served for more than 20 years as the
GDR Minister for People's
Education.
It is claimed that Honecker was addicted to
game hunting and was directly involved in the
over-hunting a number of native game species. Such was his passion
that animals bred and reared in neighbouring communist countries
had to be supplied for his regular hunting parties.
Famous quotes
- "The Wall will be standing in 50 and even in 100 years, if the
reasons for it are not yet removed." (Berlin, 19 January 1989)
(Original: "Die Mauer wird in 50 und auch in 100 Jahren noch
bestehen bleiben, wenn die dazu vorhandenen Gründe noch nicht
beseitigt sind")
- "Neither an ox nor a donkey is able to stop the progress of
socialism." (A rhyming couplet in the original German: "Den
Sozialismus in seinem Lauf hält weder Ochs noch Esel auf",
Berlin, 7 October 1989), one of Honecker's favorite adages,
originally coined by August Bebel
- "The future belongs to socialism" (Original: Die Zukunft
gehört dem Sozialismus) (early 1980s)
- "Always forwards, never backwards." (Original: Vorwärts
immer, rückwärts nimmer) (early 1980s)
In popular culture
Notes
- "The Lost World of Communism", Episode 2 - A Socialist
Paradise: East Germany, BBC 1, broadcast 14 March 2009
Further reading
- Honecker's autobiography Aus meinem Leben is
translated into English as From my life. New York :
Pergamon, 1981. ISBN 0080245323.
- Fulbrook, Mary, The people's state: East German society
from Hitler to Honecker, Yale University Press, c2005.
External links
), painted by artist Dmitri
Vrubel.
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search