In the following week, Honecker faced a torrent of criticism.

Unable to stop the growing civil unrest, Erich Honecker was forced to resign in October, and on 9 November, East German authorities unexpectedly allowed East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany.

File: BerlinWall01b. jpg | Mural on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery featuring Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker riding together in a Trabant ( Spring 2002 ).

Erich Honecker, watched by his mentor Walter Ulbricht at the 5th Party Congress, 1958

Honecker got another rude shock at the GDR's 40th anniversary gala in September, when several hundred members of the Free German Youth — the SED's supposed future vanguard — began chanting, " Gorby, help us!

During his report at the seventh party congress in 1967, Erich Honecker had called for a return to an orthodox Socialist economic system, away from the recently instituted New Economic System.

Honecker was more specific about the SED's position toward the intelligentsia at the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee, where he stated: " As long as one proceeds from the firm position of socialism, there can in my opinion be no taboos in the field of art and literature.

Following the riots in the GDR in October 1989, including those in East Berlin and Leipzig, on 18 October 1989, at a special Politbüro meeting, Honecker was forced to resign ; he was replaced by Egon Krenz.

Erich Honecker ( East Germany | GDR, left ) and Helmut Schmidt ( West Germany | FRG ) at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975

* The quest for Christa Wolf an interview with Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns and Stephan Lebert about private chats with Honecker, a German society in check mate, the influence of Goethe, the shortcomings of Brecht, and the lasting effects of Utopia at signandsight. com.

Other Communist countries with leaders in their 70s or 80s have included Albania ( First Secretary Enver Hoxha was 76 at death ), Czechoslovakia ( President Gustáv Husák was 76 at his resignation ), East Germany ( General Secretary and head of state Erich Honecker was 77 when forced out ), Hungary ( General Secretary János Kádár was 75 when forced out ), Laos ( President Nouhak Phoumsavanh was 83 at retirement ), North Korea ( President Kim Il-sung was 82 at death ), Romania ( General Secretary and President Nicolae Ceauşescu was 70 when he was killed ), Vietnam ( President Truong Chinh was 80 at retirement ), Yugoslavia ( President Josip Broz Tito was 87 at death ).

In June 1989 Interflug introduced the first Western-built aircraft in the form of three Airbus A310s as its director at the time, Dr. Klaus Henkes, successfully appealed to the then leader of the GDR, SED General Secretary Erich Honecker, to purchase Western aircraft in order to position Interflug as a modern airline.

* ' Early in the morning, Honecker arrives at his office and opens his window.

" Honecker works, and then at noon he heads to the window and says: " Good day, dear Sun!

On the occasion of a state visit in June 1972 by Erich Honecker, Fidel Castro renamed the island in honour of German Communist politician and activist Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the Communist Party of Germany ( KPD ) during much of the Weimar Republic, whom was imprisoned without trial after the rise of the Nazi Party, and after eleven years of solitary confinement was shot by order of Adolf Hitler at Buchenwald concentration camp.

She met her future husband, Erich Honecker, at FDJ meetings when he was the director of the Freie Deutsche Jugend.

The revolts culminated with the revolt in East Germany against the Stalinist regime of Erich Honecker and demands for the Berlin Wall to be torn down.

Honecker was pressured to resign from office and the new government committed itself to reunification with West Germany.

Wollweber resigned in 1957 after clashes with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke.

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 ".

Honecker and the East German government refused to implement similar reforms in the GDR, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: " We have done our perestroika, we have nothing to restructure ".

Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping Honecker, along with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a " Gang of Four "— a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make necessary reforms.

Honecker was back in charge by September, and immediately had to deal with a new refugee problem.

On 18 October 1989, they voted to oust Honecker and replace him with Egon Krenz.

Honecker then stayed in a Soviet military hospital near Berlin before later fleeing Germany with Margot Honecker to Moscow, to avoid prosecution over charges of Cold War crimes.

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.

The New Economic System was not very popular within the party, however, and from 1965 onwards opposition grew, mainly under the direction of Erich Honecker and with tacit support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

On 3 May 1971 Ulbricht was forced to resign from virtually all of his public functions ' due to reasons of poor health ' and was replaced – with the consent of the Soviets – by Erich Honecker.

At the same time, although allowing different views to be heard, the SED rejected many of these criticisms in light of its effort to maintain the special relationship with the Soviet Union emphasized by Honecker.

In his speeches, Honecker, along with other SED officials, devoted greater attention to Third World countries than he had done in the past.

However, after a final round of talks with Gorbachev, Honecker signed a hard-line communiqué that openly attacked the policies of the West German government.

Brandt's successor Helmut Schmidt with East German party leader Erich Honecker, Döllnsee 1981.

In a speech, Krenz attempted a reckoning with history, which also criticized his political mentor Honecker.

Another party with this name was formed in 1990 in East Berlin by members of the GDR leadership who were expelled from the PDS, including Erich Honecker.

Gorbachev already did not think much of Zhivkov ; he had lumped Zhivkov in with a group of inflexible hardliners that included East Germany's Erich Honecker, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu.

In October 1989, Schabowski, along with several other members of the Politburo, turned on longtime SED leader Erich Honecker and forced him to step down in favour of Egon Krenz.

With the rise of Erich Honecker in May 1971 and the increasing international recognition of the GDR, the regime attempted to abandon the concept that the GDR was part of a larger German nation ; instead, the policy of Abgrenzung ( demarcation ) was instituted, with the desired effect of creating a separate GDR national identity.

Combined with the large non-violent demonstrations carried out throughout the country, it was enough to force Honecker to resign on October 18, in favour of his top lieutenant, Egon Krenz.

Built during the era of Nation Building, this street is connected with historical events like the rebellion on the 17th of June 1953, in which the construction workers played an important role, the sudden disappearance of the Stalin monument, the demonstrations on the 1st of May and the parades during the era of Erich Honecker.

Several other members of the Politburo also resigned that day, including Margot Honecker, Erich Mielke, Kurt Hager, and Hans Tisch.

Castro explained this to Erich Honecker, communist dictator of East Germany, by saying that Siad Barre was " above all a chauvinist ".

In the late summer of 1984, the Soviet Union also prevented a visit to West Germany by East German leader Erich Honecker.

The two countries exchanged permanent representatives in 1974, and, in 1987, East Germany's leader Erich Honecker paid an official state visit to West Germany.

For example, in 1984, the Soviet Union prevented a visit to West Germany by East German leader Erich Honecker.

The grassroots democracy movement that forced the dismissal of East German head of state Erich Honecker in 1989 also empowered a younger generation of reform politicians in East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party who looked to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika as their model for political change.

These developments greatly disturbed hardline communists such as the East German leader Erich Honecker, who condemned the end of the traditional " socialist unity " of the Soviet bloc and appealed to Moscow to rein in the Hungarians.

* In 1971, Erich Honecker was chosen to lead East Germany, a role he would fill for the whole of the 1970s and 1980s.

* Erich Honecker ( East Germany )

** Erich Honecker, East German leader ( d. 1994 )

** The Communist leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, is forced to step down as leader of the country after a series of health problems, and is succeeded by Egon Krenz.

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 ).

During a National People's Army exercise in southern East Germany, 1960: Ivan Yakubovsky, Otto Grotewohl, Erich Honecker, Heinz Hoffmann

With some reluctance, Honecker allowed them to go — but forced them to go back through East Germany on sealed trains and stripped them of their East German citizenship.

( 2008 ) The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker.

Honecker mentioned the continually increasing numbers of young people from African, Asian, and Latin American countries who received their higher education in East Germany, and he referred to many thousands of people in those countries who had been trained as apprentices, skilled workers, and instructors by teams from East Germany.