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 29 January he was re-arrested and held at the Berlin-Rummelsburg remand centre. However, on the evening of the following day, 30 January, Honecker was again released from custody: The district court had annulled the arrest warrant and, due to medical reports, certified him unfit for detention and interrogation. Lacking a home, Honecker instructed his lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to ask the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg for help. Pastor Uwe Holmer, leader of the Hoffnungstal Institute in Lobetal, Bernau bei Berlin, offered the couple a home in his vicarage. This drew immediate condemnation and later demonstrations against the church for assisting the