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

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.

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

* 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 (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994 ) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until 1989, serving as Head of State as well after Willi Stoph's relinquishment of that post in 1976.

Following the definite end of the Cold War, Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes and was ousted by the party in late 1989 and removed from power.

Honecker was born on Max-Braun-Straße in Neunkirchen, now Saarland, as the son of Wilhelm Honecker, a coal miner and political activist, who in 1905 had married Caroline Catharina Weidenhof.

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.

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.

In 1961, Honecker, as the Central Committee secretary for security matters, was in charge of the building of the Berlin Wall.

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 ".

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 recovering from bladder cancer, leaving his colleagues unable to act decisively.

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

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.

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.

It is claimed that Honecker was addicted to game hunting and was directly involved in the over-hunting of a number of native game species.

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.

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.

On 18 October, Erich Honecker was forced to resign as head of the SED and as head of state and was replaced by Egon Krenz.

Honecker had to resign on October 18.

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.

The transition to Erich Honecker ( General Secretary from 1971 to 1989 ) led to a change in the direction of national policy and efforts by the Politburo to pay closer attention to the grievances of the proletariat.

This change from the strict rule of Baron von Stumm to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism.

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

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.

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.

He was Honecker's deputy from 1984 onward, until he succeeded Honecker in 1989 amid protests against the regime.

Although he was the youngest member of the Politburo ( and indeed, one of only two people elevated to full membership in that body from 1976 to 1984 ), speculation abounded that Honecker had tapped him as his heir apparent.

Although Krenz had been the number-two man in the regime, Honecker had kept the true state of the economy a secret from him.

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.

He was prevented from rising any further than a local party boss, however, largely because he was one of the few SED leaders who dared to publicly criticise longtime SED chief Erich Honecker.

* to exclude controversial figures from certain eras of German history, like Adolf Hitler and Erich Honecker.

In 1954, Wollweber became a delegate to the Volkskammer and a member of the SED ’ s Central Committee, but in 1956 his influence began to wane when he clashed with Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker on issues ranging from East Germany ’ s policies towards Poland to the estimate of the number of anti-Communist groups within the GDR.

Erich Honecker from East Germany and Nicolae Ceauşescu from Romania offered the Soviet Union military assistance in case it decided to use force and break up the demonstration.

Discussions with Margot Honecker, in which Honecker speaks about the history of the GDR from her perspective.

On 19 July 2008, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, Margot Honecker received the order for cultural independence " Rubén Dario " from President Daniel Ortega.

The tenth Congress, which took place in April 1981, celebrated the status quo ; the meeting unanimously re-elected Honecker to the office of general secretary, and there were no electoral surprises, as all incumbents except the ailing 76-year-old Albert Norden were returned to the Politbüro and the Secretariat.

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