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8 - Centre of controversy again: Honecker's first period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2009

Peter Hutchinson
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

A change of leadership in the socialist countries rarely used to signify a sudden change in political direction. In order to be even considered a suitable candidate for the highest party office, it was necessary to have been a conforming member of the ruling elite for some considerable time and to have won promotion within it through clear devotion to the cause. Erich Honecker's rise to the position of First Secretary of the Central Committee was achieved through precisely this sort of career. He had been a ‘Young Pioneer’ in the Communist Party when he was ten, Secretary of the Communist Youth for the Saar as early as 1931, had spent ten years in jail under the Nazis (1935–45), and had been a full member of the Politbüro since 1958. Throughout his life he had been a firm supporter of Moscow. As the man entrusted with state security in 1961, he had carried responsibility for the building of the Berlin Wall. His most noteworthy act in cultural politics had been his condemnation of Heym and other writers at the Eleventh Session of the Central Committee in 1965.

The general sense of satisfaction among the GDR populace at the appointment of Honecker was more a sense of relief at the demise of the inflexible and aging Ulbricht, who had held control in the Soviet Zone/GDR for more than twenty-five years.

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Stefan Heym
The Perpetual Dissident
, pp. 163 - 187
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1992

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