Erich Honecker

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Lore & Background

Honecker was born into a devout Protestant family in Neunkirchen, Saarland, on 25 August 1912, the fourth child of coal miner and political activist Wilhelm Honecker and Caroline Catharine Weidenhof. After his tenth birthday in 1922, he joined the Spartacus League's children's group, and at age 14 entered the Young Communist League of Germany (KJVD), later serving as its leader for Saarland from 1931. In 1930, aged 18, he entered the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He studied at the International Lenin School in Moscow under the cover name 'Fritz Malter', sharing a room with Anton Ackermann. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he worked underground; arrested in Essen but released, he fled to the Netherlands. On 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias 'Marten Tjaden' with a printing press. On 4 December 1935 he was detained by the Gestapo, and on 3 July 1937 sentenced to ten years imprisonment for 'preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents'. He spent most of his incarceration in Brandenburg-Görden Prison. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945, he escaped and hid at the apartment of a female prison guard, Lotte Grund, but was persuaded to turn himself in. After liberation by Soviet troops on 27 April 1945, he remained in Berlin.

Reader's Guide

Honecker's political career resumed after the war when he was taken to the Ulbricht Group in May 1945. In 1946, he co-founded the Free German Youth (FDJ) and served as its chairman until 1955. After the SED's formation in April 1946, he swiftly became a leading party member. In 1950 he was named a candidate member of the Politbüro. During the 1953 uprising, he sided with First Secretary Walter Ulbricht. In 1958 he became a full member of the Politburo, taking over military and security issues. As Security Secretary, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and bore administrative responsibility for the 'order to fire' along the Wall and the inner German border. In 1970, with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's support, he replaced Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, East Germany adopted 'consumer socialism' and normalised relations with West Germany, becoming a full UN member. As Cold War tensions eased with perestroika and glasnost, Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes, citing the hardliner attitudes of Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro and Nicolae Ceaușescu. His fragile health and growing dissent led the SED Politburo to dismiss him in October 1989; the regime collapsed entirely the following month. After German reunification, he sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow but was extradited back to Germany in 1992 to stand trial for human rights abuses. The proceedings were abandoned due to terminal liver cancer, and he was freed to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.

Did You Know?

• Honecker was born into a devout Protestant family in Neunkirchen, Saarland, and joined the Spartacus League's children's group after his tenth birthday in 1922.
• He studied at the International Lenin School in Moscow under the cover name 'Fritz Malter', sharing a room with Anton Ackermann.
• On 6 March 1945, during an Allied bombing raid, Honecker escaped from prison and hid at the apartment of a female prison guard, Lotte Grund, before being persuaded to turn himself in.
• Honecker was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and bore administrative responsibility for the 'order to fire' along the Wall.
• After German reunification, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow but was extradited to Germany in 1992; his trial for human rights abuses was abandoned due to terminal liver cancer.