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,
Erich Honecker a new and just society. And we want to always remain loyal to these things". On 29 May 1994, he died of liver cancer at the age of 81 in a terraced house in the La Reina district of Santiago. His funeral, arranged by the Communist Party of Chile, was conducted the following day at central cemetery in Santiago. Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945 he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (née Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of