Erich Ernst Paul Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker was viewed as a dictator. During his leadership, the country had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
Altmarkkreis Salzwedel is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is bounded by the districts Gifhorn, Uelzen, Lüchow-Dannenberg in Lower Saxony, and the districts of Stendal and Börde (district).
The Altmark is a historic region in Germany, comprising the northern third of Saxony-Anhalt. As the initial territory of the March of Brandenburg, it is sometimes referred to as the "Cradle of Prussia", as by Otto von Bismarck, a native of Schönhausen near Stendal.
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Dubbed "The Master of Fear" by the West German press, Mielke was one of the most powerful and most hated men in East Germany.
Günter Schabowski was an East German politician who served as an official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling party during most of the existence of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Schabowski gained worldwide fame in November 1989 when he improvised a slightly mistaken answer to a press conference question about the future of the Berlin Wall. That raised popular expectations much more rapidly than the government planned and so massive crowds gathered the same night at the Wall, which forced its opening after 28 years. Soon afterward, the entire inner German border was opened.
The Palace of the Republic was a building in Berlin that hosted the Volkskammer, the parliament of East Germany, from 1976 to 1990.
The Peaceful Revolution – also, in German called Die Wende – was one of the peaceful revolutions of 1989 at the peak of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. A process of sociopolitical change that led to, among other openings, the opening of their borders to the Western world.
The inner German border was the frontier between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1990. De jure not including the similar but physically separate Berlin Wall, the border was 1,381 kilometres (858 mi) long and ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia.
East German jokes, jibes popular in the former German Democratic Republic, reflected the concerns of East German citizens and residents between 1949 and 1990. Jokes frequently targeted political figures, such as Socialist Party General Secretary Erich Honecker or State Security Minister Erich Mielke, who headed the Stasi secret police. Elements of daily life, such as economic scarcity, relations between the GDR and the Soviet Union, or Cold War rival, the United States, were also common. There were also ethnic jokes, highlighting differences of language or culture between Saxony and Central Germany.
Margot Honecker was an East German politician and influential member of the country's Communist government until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). She was married to Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state.
The Pan-European Picnic was a peace demonstration held on the Austrian-Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989. The opening of the border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic was an event in the chain reaction, at the end of which Germany reunified, the Iron Curtain fell apart, and the Eastern Bloc disintegrated. The communist governments and the Warsaw Pact subsequently dissolved, ending the Cold War.
The National Defense Council of the German Democratic Republic was created in 1960 as the supreme state body of the German Democratic Republic in charge of national defense matters, including mobilization planning. The NVR held the supreme command of the GDR's armed forces, and the NVR's chairman was considered the GDR's commander-in-chief.
During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain was a political metaphor used to describe the political and later physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, its allies and neutral states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members, or connected to or influenced by the United States; or nominally neutral. Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain. It later became a term for the 7,000-kilometre-long (4,300 mi) physical barrier of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that divided the "east" and "west". The Berlin Wall was also part of this physical barrier.
The inner German border was a complex system of interlocking fortifications and security zones 1,381 kilometres (858 mi) long and several kilometres deep, running from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia. The outer fences and walls were the most familiar and visible aspect of the system for Western visitors to the border zone, but they were merely the final obstacle for a would-be escapee from East Germany. The complexity of the border system increased steadily until it reached its full extent in the early 1980s. The following description and the accompanying diagram describe the border as it was around 1980.
There were numerous escape attempts and victims of the inner German border during its 45 years of existence from 1945 to 1990.
Fall of inner German border, also known as Opening of inner German border, rapidly and unexpectedly occurred in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event paved the way for the ultimate reunification of Germany just short of a year later.
Throughout their existence East Germany and the Soviet Union maintained close diplomatic relations. The Soviet Union was the chief economic and political sponsor of East Germany.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, marked the beginning of the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions were overwhelmed and discarded. Sections of the wall were breached, and planned deconstruction began the following June. It was one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterward. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit in early December, and German reunification took place in October the following year.
The visit of Erich Honecker to West Germany took place between 7–11 September 1987 in his official capacity as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic. It was the first and only visit of this kind undertaken during the partition of Germany. The five-day event was rated as an important step in the development of cross-German relations as well as Ostpolitik, which was implemented beginning with Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany from 1969 to 1974.
The Gera Demands were a set of demands made by the East German leader Erich Honecker on 13 October 1980. Directed at the West German government, they called for far-reaching foreign policy concessions.
