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,
Vilm of the GDR, they used it as a private retreat for high functionaries, including the GDR heads of state Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker. Two days before the end of the GDR, on 1 October 1990, the government designated the island and surrounding seas as a landscape protection area of central importance with the designation "southeast-southwest-Rügen biosphere reserve". This and other protected areas could not by law be transferred to the Federal Republic of Germany directly; instead the GDR had to sign them over to an individual who could then sign them over to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. This is how