A German Communist Party leader, Erich Honecker (1912-1994) was instrumental in establishing a Communist government in East Germany after World War II (East Germany was reunited with West Germany in 1990). He became general secretary of the Communist...

Erich Honecker, politician: born Neuenkirchen, Saarland 25 August 1912; joined Communist Party of Germany (KPD) 1929, member, Central Committee 1946; member, Managing Committee, Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) 1946; chairman, Free German Youth (FDJ) 1946-55; member, Volkskammer of the GDR 1949-89; member, SED...

NO DOUBT Erich Honecker, the former head of the East German state, is genuinely ill. But there was more than purely humanitarian good will to the Soviet decision to remove him - illegally - from the Soviet military hospital in Germany where he was...

The four clocks behind the reception desk of Berlin's new budget hotel Ostel show the hour in Moscow, Berlin, Havana, and Beijing. Time, however, appears to have stopped here sometime before 1989, when communism was still entrenched in all four capitals.The Ostel offers a renewed...

When communist East Germany collapsed in 1989, Berliners were eager to tear down its most detested symbol _ the Berlin Wall that divided their city during the Cold War.Seventeen years later, city officials and artists are arguing about how to do the exact opposite _...