Margot Honecker

Margot Honecker
Margot Honecker in 1986
Spouse of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
In office 29 October 1976 – 18 October 1989
President	Erich Honecker
Minister of People's Education
In office 1963 – 7 November 1989
President	Walter Ulbricht Willi Stoph Erich Honecker Egon Krenz
Prime Minister	Otto Grotewohl Horst Sindermann Willi Stoph
Succeeded by	Willi Stoph
Personal details
Born	Margot Feist 17 April 1927 Halle, Germany
Died	6 May 2016 (aged 89)[1][2] Santiago, Chile
Political party	Socialist Unity Party of Germany (1946–1989)
Other political affiliations	Communist Party of Germany (1945–1946) Communist Party of Germany (1990)
Spouse(s)	Erich Honecker (m. 1953; died 1994)
Children	Sonja Honecker (b. 1952)
Residence	Santiago, Chile

Margot Honecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician, who was an influential member of the East German communist party and the East German regime until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was "Minister of People's Education" (Ministerin für Volksbildung) of the GDR. She was married to Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany from 1971 until 1989.^[1][3][4][5]

Honecker was widely known as the "Purple Witch" for her tinted hair and hardline Stalinist views, and was "hated and feared" in East Germany.^[1][4][6][7] Former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse has described her as "the most hated person" in East Germany next to Stasi chief Erich Mielke.^[8][9] She was responsible for the enactment of the "Uniform Socialist Education System" in 1965 and mandatory military training in schools.^[3] Margot Honecker was also responsible for the regime's kidnapping and forced adoption of children of jailed dissidents or people who attempted to flee the communist nation, and she is considered to have "left a cruel legacy of separated families."^[3] She was one of the few spouses of ruling Communist leaders who held significant power in her own right, though her prominence in the regime predated her husband's ascension to the leadership of the SED.

Following the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, Honecker fled to the Soviet Union with her husband to avoid criminal charges from the Government of Germany.^[10] Fearing extradition to Germany, they took refuge in the Chilean embassy in Moscow in 1991, but in 1992 her husband was extradited to Germany by Yeltsin's Russian government to face criminal trial, and was detained in the Moabit prison.^[11][12] Margot Honecker then moved from Moscow to Chile to avoid a similar fate.^[13] At the time of her death, she lived in Chile with her daughter Sonja.

She had left the East German communist party in 1990, after her husband's expulsion from the party, and later became a member of the small fringe party Communist Party of Germany (1990),^[14] which is considered extremist by the German authorities:^[15] openly Stalinist, it condemns the de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union as "revisionist" and supports the North Korean regime.^[16] In a 2012 interview she branded Mikhail Gorbachev a "traitor" for his reforms and called the victims of the East German regime "criminals."^[5]

Early life

Honecker was born Margot Feist in Halle on 17 April 1927,^[17] the daughter of a shoemaker and a factory worker. After graduating from elementary school, she was a member of the Nazi Party's girls' organisation Bund Deutscher Mädel from 1938 to 1945.^[18] Her mother died in 1940 when Margot was 13 years old.

Honecker's brother, Manfred Feist, later became a department leader for foreign information within the central committee of the East German communist party.^[19]

Party

Honecker congratulates Wilhelm Pieck on his election as the first GDR President in 1949.

In 1945 Honecker joined the KPD. A year later, with the coerced merger of the SPD and KPD, she became a member of East Germany's new state party, the SED, working as a shorthand typist with the land board of directors FDGB in Saxony-Anhalt.^[19]

In 1946 Honecker became a member of the secretariat for the board of directors of the FDJ in Halle. She then began a meteoric rise through various departments. In 1947 she was the departmental leader of the FDJ's culture and education in the land board of directors and in 1948 secretary of the FDJ's central council as well as chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.

Attending the Volkskammer in 1951. During this period she was having an affair with Erich Honecker.

By 1949/1950 Honecker was a member of the GDR's temporary People's Parliament. In 1950 at the age of 22 she was elected as a representative in the newly founded People's Chamber (German: Volkskammer).^[20]

Honecker met her future husband, Erich Honecker, at FDJ meetings when he was the director of the Freie Deutsche Jugend. Honecker was 15 years older and married. When she became pregnant and gave birth to their daughter Sonja in 1952, Honecker divorced his wife Edith^[21] and married Margot in 1953.^[17]

Education minister

In 1963 Honecker, after a period as acting Education Minister (German: Volksbildungsministerin) became the Minister in her own right. On 25 February 1965 she enacted the law that made "the uniform socialist education system" standard in all schools, colleges and universities throughout East Germany.^[20]

In 1978 Honecker introduced, against the opposition of the Church and many parents, military lessons (German: Wehrkunde) for 9th and 10th grade high school students (this included training on weapons such as aerial guns and the KK-MPi).^[19] Her tenure lasted until the fall of the GDR in 1989.^[22]

Loss of power

Throughout the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 Honecker briefly remained in office after her husband's ouster as leader of the SED in October 1989, but resigned along with most of the cabinet in November. Prime Minister Willi Stoph briefly took over the education minister's office. In hopes of improving its image, the Party of Democratic Socialism, successor of the SED, expelled both her and her husband a month later.

In 1990, charges were made against Honecker as Minister of Education. These included accusations that she had arranged politically motivated arrests, had separated children against their will from their parents and made compulsory adoptions of children from persons deemed unreliable by the state.^[23]

Honecker then fled to Moscow with her husband to avoid possible criminal charges in 1991. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new non-Communist leadership in Russia forced her and her husband to leave.^[19][20]

Post-GDR exile

After 1992 Honecker lived in Santiago, Chile,^[24] with her daughter Sonja Yáñez Betancourt, her daughter's Chilean husband Leo Yáñez Betancourt and their son Roberto Yáñez.^[25] Erich Honecker lived with his wife after being released by German authorities on the grounds of ill health in January 1993. He died of liver cancer at the age of 81 years on 29 May 1994 in Santiago. His body was cremated. Margot Honecker is believed to have kept his ashes.

In 1999, Honecker failed in her legal attempt to sue the German government for €60,300 of property confiscated following reunification. In 2001, her appeal to ECtHR failed.^[26][27] She received a survivor's pension and the old-age pension of the German old age pension insurance federation of about 1,500 Euro, which she regarded as insolently sparse.^[28]

In 2000 Luis Corvalán, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, published the book The Other Germany – the GDR. Discussions with Margot Honecker, in which Honecker speaks about the history of the GDR from her perspective.

On 19 July 2008, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, Honecker received the order for cultural independence "Rubén Dario" from President Daniel Ortega. The award was in recognition of Honecker's untiring support of the national campaign against illiteracy in the 1980s.^[24] This honor was Honecker's first public appearance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Honecker was reported to have said she was grateful for the honor; but publicly no words were spoken. The left-wing heads of state of Paraguay and Venezuela, Fernando Lugo and Hugo Chávez, also took part in the celebrations in Managua.^[24]

Honecker continued to defend the GDR and identified herself as a Communist and Stalinist. In October 2009, Honecker celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the GDR with former Chilean exiles who had sought asylum in East Germany. She participated in singing a patriotic East German song and gave a short speech in which she stated that East Germans "had a good life in the GDR" and that many felt that capitalism has made their lives worse.^[29] In 2011, author Frank Schuhmann published a book entitled Letzte Aufzeichnungen -- Für Margot (Final Notes -- For Margot in English) based on the 400-page diary kept by Erich Honecker during his stay in Berlin's Moabit prison beginning in July 1992.^[30] The diary was given to the author by Margot Honecker.^[30]

On 2 April 2012, Honecker gave an interview where she defended the GDR, attacked those who helped to destroy it, and complained about her pension.^[31] She felt that there was no need for people to climb over the Berlin Wall and lose their lives. She suggested that the GDR was a perfect country and that the demonstrations were driven by the GDR's enemies. "The GDR also had its foes. That's why we had the Stasi," she said.^[32]

Gallery

An official portrait taken in July, 1967 when Honecker was 40 years old. Minister of Education, Margot Honecker listens as Assistant Secretary for Culture and Sport Roland Weissig addresses the 11th Council of State meeting in 1968. In 1976, the Honeckers attend the banquet-ball for the opening of the Palace of the Republic in Berlin. Erich Honecker and his wife take a walk with their daughter Sonja and grandson Roberto around the Waldsiedlung in 1977. Honecker meeting Mozambican military commander and revolutionary socialist leader Samora Machel in 1983 Honecker, as the GDR's "Minister of People's Education," speaking in Potsdam a year before the Revolutions of 1989. Honecker touring a technical-skills polytechnic (Polytechnisches Zentrum) at Rothenschirmbach with North Korea's Education Minister in 1988. Honecker hosts an educational congress at the headquarters of the Christian Democrats in April 1989. Seven months later the Berlin Wall would fall.

References

1. "Former East German dictator Honecker's widow dies in Chile". Daily Mail. 6 May 2016.
2. "Muere en Chile Margot Honecker, la mujer fuerte de la Alemania comunista". 24horas.cl. 6 May 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
3. Tony Paterson (10 November 2009). "Dictator's wife defiant over forced adoptions". The Independent.
4. "The Exile Factor: Wives of Deposed Dictators". The Independent. 22 January 2011.
5. "Margot Honecker, Widow Of East German Dictator, Defends Regime In Shocking Interview". The Huffington Post.
6. Honecker's widow belittles Berlin Wall victims, Reuters; Kate Connolly. "Margot Honecker defends East German dictatorship". The Guardian.;"Exile in Chile: Former East German Leader's Wife Is Homesick". Der Spiegel. 7 February 2012.;"Purple witch decries fall of the Wall". The Scotsman.; Sven Felix Kellerhoff (16 April 2007). "Margot Honecker: Die meistgehasste Frau der DDR". Die Welt.; "Margot Honecker, Widow of East German Ruler, Dies at 89". The New York Times. 7 May 2016.
7. "In Russia, Exile in Comfort for Leaders Like Assad". The New York Times. 29 December 2012.
8. "Kritik nach ARD-Doku: Margot Honeckers TV-Auftritt löst Entsetzen aus". Focus. 19 July 2013.
9. "Margot Honecker, widow of former East German leader, dies in Chile". Deutsche Welle.
10. "No apologies: Honecker′s widow breaks silence". Deutsche Welle.
11. "Honecker Flown to Berlin to Face Criminal Trial". The New York Times. 30 July 1992.
12. "Germans rip Honecker's wife for not standing by him". tribunedigital-baltimoresun.
13. "Margot Honecker flies from Moscow to Chile". UPI. 30 July 1992.
14. Die Rote Fahne. June 2012, p. 2
15. "Glossar: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD)". Verfassungsschutz.
16. Die Verdienste des Präsidenten Kim Il Sung um den Aufbau des Staates, KPD
17. "East Germany’s Former First Lady Turns 80". Deutsche Welle. 17 April 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
18. Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur. "Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur - Recherche - Biographische Datenbanken".
19. "Margot Honecker: Die meistgehasste Frau der DDR". Welt. 16 April 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
20. ""Hallo Margot, alte Hexe"". Stern. 18 April 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
21. "Biographische Datenbanken". Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur.
22. Stephanie Wilde (2003). Secondary Schools in Eastern Germany: A Study of Teachers' Perceptions in Brandenburg Gesamtschulen. Herbert Utz Verlag. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-8316-0199-8. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
23. "Politicians demand return of Mrs. Honecker from Chile". Spokane Chronicle. 31 July 1992.
24. "Widow of East German Leader Feted in Nicaragua". SPIEGEL-ONLINE. 21 July 2008. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
25. "Mi pensamiento sigue vigente". Qué Pasa. 24 October 2009. Retrieved 29 January 2010.
26. "HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights".
27. "Margot Honecker: Ihr Kampf geht weiter". svz. 6 May 2011.
28. "Margot-Honecker findet 1500 Euro Rente unverschämt". Die Welt. 2 April 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
29. Barkin, Noah (1 November 2009). "Purple witch decries fall of the Wall". Scotsman (Edinburgh).
30. "Former East German Leader's Wife Is Homesick". Der Spriegel. 2 July 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
31. Palash Ghosh (3 April 2012). "Widow Of Last East German Ruler Defends Communist Regime". International Business Times. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
32. "Margot Honecker Interview defending the GDR". The Guardian. 2 April 2012.

Further reading

• Honecker, Margot (1968). The social function of our schools: speech delivered by Margot Honecker, Minister of Education, at the 8th Educational Congress. Panorama DDR.
• Stuhler, Ed (2003). Margot Honecker. Ueberreuter. ISBN 978-3-8000-3871-8.
• LLC (2010). Education Ministers of Germany: Margot Honecker, Jrgen Mllemann, Jrgen Rttgers, Klaus Von Dohnanyi, Annette Schavan, Jrgen Schmude. General Books. ISBN 978-1-157-05224-1.
• De Nevers, Renée (2003). Comrades no more: the seeds of political change in Eastern Europe. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-54129-9.
• Pritchard, Rosalind M. O. (1999). Reconstructing education: East German schools and universities after unification. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-57181-954-3.