The former East German strong man is arrested after returning from Moscow
The winds of change blowing through Eastern Europe in 1989 made a detour around Erich Honecker’s East Germany, which remained a bastion of hard line communism. Seeking to save their own skins, the other members of the DDR Politburo forced Honecker to resign three weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The East German prosecutor opened proceedings for abuse of power, but Erich Honecker was released after it became clear that he was suffering from advanced-stage cancer. Flown to Moscow in March 1991 by the Soviets, he was sent home again on 29 July 1992, after the Soviet reformer Mikhail Gorbachev was ousted from power.
In Berlin, the former Chairman of the State Council was immediately arrested and sent to Berlin-Moabit prison. At the end of 1992, he was put on trial for manslaughter in connection with the order to shoot anyone trying to cross the inner German border. Despite the watertight case against him, the West German constitutional court ordered his release on grounds of severe ill health in 1993, and Honecker immediately flew to Chile to join his wife and daughter. He died in Santiago de Chile just a year later.
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