Erich Honecker was the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until the weeks preceding the fall of the wall in 1989. He was born on August 25, 1912 in Neunkirchen, Germany, and died on May 29 1994 in Santiago, Chile. During World War 2, he was a member of the German Communist party, and opposed the Nazis. After the Soviet Union occupied Germany and Berlin, he rose through the ranks of the communist politics in East Germany. He was the General Secretary until the weeks before the wall fell, and fled to Chile.
Ostalgie, is the German term that refers to a longing for the Communist East Germany. The people under the rule of the Communists were flooded with the ideals of capitalism and money, and did not know what to do when the wall fell. Those who enjoyed and thrived under the Communist regime, missed the world they once knew, and had to see their world crumble before them. The nostalgic feeling was a huge detour in the reunification in the east.
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