Erich Honecker's historic 1987 visit to West Germany

Meanwhile Erich Honecker's 1987 trip to West Germany offers a clear-eyed lesson on how seemingly stable authoritarian states can unravel. East German leader Erich Honecker, left, and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stand outside the Federal Chancellery in Bonn on Sept. 7, 1987, as the national anthems of the two German states are played following Honecker's welcoming ceremony. WIKIPEDIA Roh Jeong-tae The author is a writer and senior fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research. On Sept. 7, 1987, Cologne Bonn Airport in West Germany was bustling. Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party, had arrived. The visit marked a historic first. It came 38 years after separate governments were established in West and East Germany in 1949, formally dividing the country. For the first time since then, East Germany's paramount leader had come to West Germany. Summits between the two Germanys were not unprecedented. West German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited East Germany in March 1970. But the return visit that May was made by East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, and the meeting took place in Kassel, a border city, rather than Bonn. In December 1981, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visited East Germany and invited Honecker to West Germany. Soviet opposition blocked the trip. The Cold War order began shifting after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, however, eventually making Honecker's visit possible. Honecker had served as chairman of the Council of State since 1976 but had effectively ruled East Germany since 1971. Even by communist-bloc standards, his tenure was remarkably stable. East Germany had one of the stronger economies in the Eastern bloc and benefited from Soviet support, allowing its citizens a comparatively decent standard of living. That relative prosperity helped provide a foundation for Honecker's long and seemingly stable rule. The price was political repression. East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, maintained an extensive surveillance apparatus. Freedom of the press and expression did not exist, while religious freedom was also restricted. The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, became perhaps the clearest symbol of that repression and of Germany's division. As East Germans increasingly fled to West Berlin, a Western enclave surrounded by East German territory, the regime sealed it off with a wall. For all its historic symbolism, the summit itself produced little. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl called for German unity, while Honecker advocated peaceful coexistence between the two states and sought economic assistance. As the communist bloc entered crisis, Honecker was ousted on Oct. 18, 1989, barely three weeks before the Berlin Wall fell. The following year, East Germany held its first and only free parliamentary election. Its five reconstituted states then joined the Federal Republic of Germany, bringing the East German state to an end. German unification and East Germany's collapse were two sides of the same coin. That history is a reason to shed romantic or idealized views and assess North Korea calmly and clear-eyed. This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.