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 between Dirk and Leonardo, Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at three years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter. Honecker's daughter, (who divorced Leonardo in 1993) grandson and granddaughter still live in Santiago. Like his predecessor Walter Ulbricht, Honecker ruled with neither charisma nor oratory power. His speeches at party conferences and at diplomatic events showed his awkward and wooden style of delivery, which was parodied by satirists outside East Germany. In his time as General Secretary his stance was described as an “almost sinister, unstudied immovability”. The 1983 Udo Lindenberg song “Sonderzug nach Pankow”,