Erich Mielke demonstrations politically and giving "every DDR citizen the right to travel." On 17 October 1989, Mielke and the rest of the GDR's Politburo met to follow Gorbachev's demand, voiced in August, for Erich Honecker be removed as General Secretary of the SED and State Council chairman. Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Central Committee when they met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz, Mielke saw to it that Stasi agents were stationed near the meeting room. While deliberations were underway, Mielke told Honecker that "we simply cannot start shooting with
Erich Mückenberger chairman of the German-Soviet Friendship Society. In 1980, he was elected as the head of the SED parliamentary group in the "Volkskammer" (the national parliament of the GDR). Mückenberger remained in the SED politburo until November 1989. Mückenberger was expelled from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany/Party of Democratic Socialism on November 21, 1990. Following the German reunification, Mückenberger was put on trial for shootings at the Berlin Wall, a process that Mückenberger himself dubbed as 'victors' justice'. Mückenberger was allowed to withdraw from the trial in 1996, due to ill health. Erich Mückenberger Erich Mückenberger (1910 in Chemnitz –