History of Germany (1945–90) eventually hundreds of thousands of people in several cities—particularly in Leipzig—continued to grow. On 7 October, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Berlin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of East Germany and urged the East German leadership to pursue reform, without success. The movement of civil resistance against the East German regime—both the emigration and the demonstrations—continued unabated. On 18 October, Erich Honecker was forced to resign as head of the SED and as head of state and was replaced by Egon Krenz. But the exodus continued unabated, and pressure for political reform mounted. On 4 November,
Margot Honecker Margot Honecker Margot Honecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician who was an influential member of the East German communist party and the country's regime until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education ("Ministerin für Volksbildung") of the GDR. She was married to Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state. Margot Honecker was widely known as the "Purple Witch" for her tinted hair and hardline Stalinist views, and was