Honecker, Erich (1912–1994)

German communist politician, in power in East Germany 1973–89, elected chair of the council of state (head of state) in 1976. He governed in an outwardly austere and efficient manner and, while favouring East–West détente, was a loyal ally of the USSR. In 1989, following a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations, he was replaced as leader of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and head of state by Egon Krenz, and expelled from the Communist Party. He died in exile in Chile.

Honecker, the son of a Saarland miner, was brought up as a communist and joined the socialist Young Spartacus Union at the age of ten. He joined the German Communist Party in 1929 and was a propagandist in the Saar until his imprisonment by the Nazis 1935–45 for ‘subversive’ antifascist activity. He directed the party's youth movement in East Germany after World War II, was elected to the East German parliament (Volkskammer) in 1949, and became a member of the SED Politburo in 1958. He was responsible for security, and instigated the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the infamous Schiessbefehl (shoot-to-kill order) against would-be escapees. During the 1960s he served as a secretary of the National Defence Council before being appointed first secretary of the SED in 1971. After Walter Ulbricht's death in 1973, Honecker became leader of East Germany. He permitted only limited economic reform and cultural liberalization during the 1970s and 1980s, but did foster closer relations with West Germany.

Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika initiatives in the Soviet Union, combined with the loss of Moscow's backing, resulted in large-scale civil disturbances in 1989, and Honecker was replaced by his protégé Egon Krenz. Three weeks after his overthrow as Communist Party leader, the Berlin Wall was opened and the process of German reunification began. Within a year the two Germanys were reunited.

Honecker was placed under house arrest in 1990 and charged with high treason, misuse of office, and corruption. In 1991 he was transferred from a Soviet military hospital to Moscow, but the German government demanded his return to face manslaughter charges in connection with the killing of those illegally crossing the Berlin Wall 1961–89. He returned to Germany in 1992, but the courts ruled that he was too ill to stand trial.