Erich Honecker was an East German Communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until 1989. After German re-unification, he first fled to the Soviet Union but was extradited by the new Russian government to Germany, where he was imprisoned and tried for high treason and crimes allegedly committed during the Cold War. However, as he was dying of cancer, he was released from prison. He died in exile in Chile about a year and a half later. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Erich Honecker. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker
Born in the Western German Saar region on August 25, 1912, Honecker was a communist his entire life. www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/honecker/
