Erich Honecker and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the regime's number-two man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck. The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the
Margot Honecker Margot's own son in law was just one among several thousand Chilean political dissidents from the Pinochet years who had reason to be grateful to the old East German political establishment that had welcomed them as political exiles during the 1970s and 1980s. Formally, the negotiations between Kohl and Aylwin were defined by tensions between the Chilean determination to uphold the Honeckers' right to political asylum and Germany's legal agreements on extradition: for some months the discussions were characterised by mutual intransigence. In the end, on 29 July 1992, Erich Honecker was sent on a special flight to face trial