Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Honecker’s Germany

1987; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1477-7053.1987.tb00041.x

1477-7053

David Childs,

European history and politics

AS HE SALUTED THE GRIM FORMATIONS OF 10,000 ‘FIGHTING groups of the working class’ and thousands of other soldiers and paramilitary police in Berlin's Karl-Marx-Allee on 13 August, Erich Honecker looked quite relaxed. He knew that his colleagues Egon Krenz (crown prince and security overlord) and Erich Mielke (Minister for State Security) had taken every precaution to ensure that there would be no counter-demonstrations to mar this celebration of 25 years of the ‘anti-fascist defensive (Berlin) wall’. In this, his fifteenth year as leader of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the 74-year-old Honecker could compliment himself on a successful party congress followed by successfully staged elections. He could also look back to a number of successful initiatives in the GDR's external relations.