Erich Honecker
In the late 1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalize communism. Honecker and the East German government, however, refused to implement similar reforms in the DDR. As the reform movement spread across Central and Eastern Europe there were demonstrations against the East German government. The biggest were the 1989 Monday demonstrations in the city of Leipzig. The other leaders of the DDR decided to get rid of Honecker, and forced him to resign on 18 October 1989. Egon Krenz took over instead.