NID: EAST GERMANY: LEADERSHIP CONCERNS

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe: A 30-Year Legacy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06826767
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 26, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2019
• Publication Date: August 23, 1989

Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826767
6.2(d)
EAST GERMANY: Leadership Concerns
The growing exodus of East Germans to the West and the announcement
that East German leader Honecker has undergone major surgery
probably are increasin uncertainty in the leadership and may stiffen
opposition to reform.
he 77-year-old
Honecker is recovering from gallbladder surgery he had last week. A
gallstone attack at the Warsaw Pact summit in Bucharest last month
forced him to go back to East Germany, where he reoortedlv had been
vacationing since his return1
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 East Germans ostensibly vacationing in
Hungary fled across the border to Austria last weekend, most throu
a gate left open during a picnic celebrating European unity.
some 3,000 to
15,000 East Germans may have fled through Hungary this year:
another 4,000 reportedly have tried.
Comment: Honecker's illness probably has increased the drift in the
leadership at a time of growing public dissatisfaction and official
dismay over the liberalizing trends in Poland and Hungary.
He probably will try to ease the emigration crisis and show he is still
in control. He may press Hungary to repatriate promptly those East
Germans whose tourist visas expire as the summer vacation season
ends and to increase border patrols against illegal crossings. East
German restrictions on travel to Hungary are not likely before then
for fear of a popular backlash.
If Honecker fails to stem the flood of illegal emigrants, party
hardliners�who probably oppose even the modest easing of travel
and emigration regulations over the past year�will gain temporarily.
They may press for restrictions on travel and emigration and a
crackdown on dissent, encouraged by what they see as support from
hardliners in the Soviet leadership. Last week, the Soviet newspaper
Sovetskaya Rossiya reprinted East Germany's spirited defense of
the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and cited the importance of
strengthening the East German state while improving relations
with West Germany.
3
"TorrSeepet�
TCS 2896/89
23 August 1989
6.2(d)
3.3(b)(1)
3.3(b)(1)
6.2(d)
3.3(b)(1)
3.3(b)(1)
6.2(d)
3.3(b)(1)
6.2(d)
6.2(d)
6.2(d)
Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826767