Erich Mielke demonstrations politically and giving "every DDR citizen the right to travel." On 17 October 1989, Mielke and the rest of the GDR's Politburo met to follow Gorbachev's demand, voiced in August, for Erich Honecker be removed as General Secretary of the SED and State Council chairman. Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Central Committee when they met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz, Mielke saw to it that Stasi agents were stationed near the meeting room. While deliberations were underway, Mielke told Honecker that "we simply cannot start shooting with
Ernst Wollweber intelligence infiltration of the GDR but this brought him into conflict with the mainstream in the SED party leadership, in particularly with its head Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker. In 1954, Wollweber became a delegate to the Volkskammer or People's Parliament and a member of the SED’s Central Committee. After 1956, his influence began to wane when he clashed with Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker on issues ranging from East Germany’s policies towards Poland to an estimate of the number of anti-Communist groups within GDR. Besides, a new opposition group led by Politburo member Karl Schirdewan had formed within the