biography
pronunciation:
[honeker]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1912–94)
|
| biography:
| East German statesman and head of state (1976–89), born in Neunkirchen, W Germany. Active in the Communist youth movement from an early age, he was involved in underground resistance to Hitler, and was imprisoned for 10 years. Released by Soviet forces, he became the first chairman of the Free German Youth in the German Democratic Republic (1946–55). He first entered the Politburo in 1958, was elected Party chief in 1971, and became head of state from 1976 to 1989, when he was dismissed as a consequence of the anti-Communist revolution. Charges were brought against him in the new united Germany that he had ordered the killings along the Berlin Wall and GDR Border, but he was allowed to leave for Chile in 1993 on grounds of illness. |
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