Erich Honecker
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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 Gen
Official portrait, 1976
Honecker's childhood home in Wiebelskirchen
Honecker, founder of FDJ, 1946
Honecker, watched by his mentor Walter Ulbricht at the Party's 5th congress, 1958
Walter Ulbricht
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Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht was a German communist politician and revolutionary. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early devel
Erich Honecker
…inner German border. In 1970, Honecker initiated a political power struggle that led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, the country adopted a programme of "consumer socialism…
Ulbricht in 1960
Ulbricht, age 14, at the beginning of his joinery apprenticeship
Ulbricht's official Reichstag portrait, 1930
Ulbricht (standing in the background) speaking at a debate between himself and Joseph Goebbels in the Friedrichshain. Goebbels is visible on the left in the foreground. The debate ended in a massive brawl between Nazis and the KPD.