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
Erich Honecker aimed at the then-State Council and their lack of looseness, also achieved great popularity in East Germany. In 1987 Honecker sent Lindenberg a shawm—an instrument he had played in his youth as a member of the "Roter Frontkämpferbund"—in response to the gift of a leather jacket from him. Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 mural on the Berlin Wall "My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love", depicting a socialist "fraternal kiss" between Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, became known around the world. Erich Honecker Erich Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German politician who, as the General