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 Grützner Chamber ("Volkskammer") as an SED member from 1958 till 1989. In 1967 he was called to be a member of the "Commission to develop a socialist constitution for the German Democratic Republic" under the leadership of Walter Ulbricht. As well as that, between 1958 and 1963, and again between 1976 and 1989, he was a member of the Budget and Finance Committee. Grützner came to be seen as a member of Ulbricht's inner circle, which meant that when, in 1971, national leadership passed from Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker, Erich Grützner's political career ground to a conclusion. From 1960 till