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,
Lindow (Mark) (Evangelische Akademie). However, communist East Germany, with its censorship and repression of free conventions, forbade the opening of the venue. In the 1980s a local initiative renovated the enclosure walls and headstones of the Jewish cemetery, which had weathered the Nazi period untouched. In 1989, the Town Church became a venue for people demanding change in East Germany. In March 1990 the dismissed East German head of state Erich Honecker retired for two nights in the manor house of Gühlen, used as guest house of the Council of Ministers of the GDR, however, leaving after protests by people from Lindow.