Erich Honecker

At the very beginning, one of the families I profile in the book said they were just adamant, "We gotta get the guys who were in charge of this country, the people who repressed us for all these years." They wanted the politburo members brought to trial.

They wanted Erich Honecker brought to trial.

Then they saw these young border guards coming in, and initially they said, "Well, let's just get any of them." But, well, as, as they watched this trial proceed, they became incredibly sympathetic to these poor young kids who were, in the classic phrase, following orders.

And they were chosen for this job of being a border guard specifically because they were most apt to follow orders.

Um, you know, a recognition of the territorial integrity of states as existed then, you know, with the, you know, the post-war boundaries that had been drawn, um, the peaceful settlement of disputes, non-intervention in hostile terms in, you know, the affairs of, uh, of the constituent states, either NATO or Warsaw Pact, and a basic, and, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and this was a big one, including freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

Okay, now, Brezhnev, uh, made a very big deal about this, okay? And this was before he was, you know, really compromised in terms of his mental faculties, and so did Erich Honecker, okay? Because B- Honecker especially, 'cause he's German, he'd always been struggling for legitimacy.

You know, they weren't even recognized as, as, as, as a state until the '70s by, you know, a majority of this planet.

But, uh, the Warsaw Pact, or, or the Iron Curtain rather, the states behind the Iron Curtain that constituted the Soviet sphere of influence, they were always gonna, they, they, they were always clawing for respectability, which, you know, in the Cold War context was essential because this really was, um, a, a battle of zeitgeist and which system and which superpower would become the world system.

But Brandt formally condemned the invasion, but he basically renegotiated the ruling coalition with the Free Democrats who backed a continued rapprochement with the Warsaw Pact.

And that was kind of his way of finessing what could have been a kreoning crisis into a way of staying alive.

But this reaches kind of zenith in 69 when he agreed to meet with Willy Stauff, who was East German premier, who was in this kind of Byzantine DDR system, technically the head of state contra the head of government, who was the general secretary of the SED, which by then was Honecker.

But he agreed to meet with Honecker too.

Like, it's remarkable.

But Allende knew this, OK? In East Berlin, Allende met with the party secretary general and de facto, you know, head of state, Walter Ubrecht, who preceded Honecker.

Um, from 49 to 71, Ulbricht was general secretary and then he was on a ceremoniously, um, sidelined in favor of Honecker from 1971 until the end.

But, uh, he, uh, Ulbricht, uh, put him in direct contact with Herman Axson, who was the, who was, uh, the central committee secretary for international relations.

He quoted the foreign minister.

Just like, you know, stuff like you'd see in some fucking like John wick or Jason Bourne movie or something, but the, you know, the, and, um, you know, not, not for nothing either.

Like, uh, or maybe, maybe, maybe people don't know this.

Um, like Honaker, uh, Eric Honaker was buried, he was buried in Chile, like, after he died, and they, they laid the DDR flag on his coffin and everything, you know, like, it's, this was, uh, like, this idea that, you know, the Allende regime, they were just these, like, kind of, like, social democrats, you know, who, you know, just wanted to, you know, kind of, like, give an alternative system a chance, and these fascists, you know, just, just, just destroyed that potentiality, you know, I mean, it was, it was real war, okay, I mean, there's no two ways about it, and, I'm sure very nasty things happened to people who were suspected of being communists or communist sympathizers.

And obviously the actors and writers and people that live in the theatre, but the Stasi are as theatrical in their movements and in their thinking about visually showing and visually keeping things within this liminal control space.

Every action is very performative and particularly in the quite compelling scene where Gerbert's takes apart the young candidate in the Stasi building when he tells a joke about Honecker, the last prime minister, I guess, of East Berlin, Eric.

And he plays it up as if he finds the joke funny, but then he says, and Gruber's last, but then says, name, you know what this means for your career? But then he plays it off as a joke again.

But then again, spoiler alert, but at the end of the film, you see this this guy in quite a low rung place.

He wants to express the content of the revolutionary ideas of Marxism figuratively, the indescribable power of the passionate nature of the revolutionary and scientist, The Karl Marx monument, designed by Prof. Lev Yefimovich Kerbel, will bear witness to the future of the unity of the struggle of the working class and the workers of the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union to continue to lead the world-changing resolution of Karl Marx to victory.

Under the stormy attack of 250,000 inhabitants and guests, comrade Erich Honecker said, The day will come when all the peoples of this world will shake off the yoke of exploitation and those men will set a monument that will unite you with the lottery of proletarians of all countries, the key to the liberation of mankind.

Karl Marx.

Yes, of course I know that from history lessons and that he wrote a lot about socialism.

...

but then they went seamlessly into Honecker-

Communism

... yeah.

You know, you play ball, you wind up dead.

But going back to the Pentagon and Honecker, I'll send you the PDF because she makes a very interesting statement about how the clock stopped in the Pentagon at like 921.

Okay.

You remember this? I've heard that story now, yes.