Body of Honecker's widow cremated in Chile

(7 May 2016) Former East German first lady Margot Honecker's body was cremated in the Chilean capital Santiago on Saturday.
Honecker had defended East Germany, the now-vanished Communist country, to the end.
She died Friday in Chile at age 89.
A handful of family and friends gathered at a crematorium in Santiago. A floral arrangement with the communist symbol, the hammer and sickle, was displayed prominently at the entrance.
Honecker had lived since 1992 in Chile, three years after the toppling of the Berlin Wall signalled the impending collapse of the socialist government. Her husband, Erich Honecker, died in 1994 after joining her in Chile.
Honecker, who remained unrepentant about the country's record of repression, had been education minister and dictated what children in rigidly orthodox East Germany learned for 26 years.
She said youngsters must defend socialism "if necessary with a weapon in the hand," and one of her pet projects was field trips by kindergarten children to military bases.
Born Margot Feist in the eastern city of Halle on 17 April, 1927, Honecker grew up in a poor family. She trained as a saleswoman before taking a job as a telephone operator.
She became a member of the Communist Party in 1945, and then rose through the ranks of the communist youth organization, the Free German Youth.
In 1950, at age 22, she became the youngest lawmaker in the fledgling East German parliament. She married Erich Honecker in 1953.
She started work at the Education Ministry in 1955 and rose to become minister in 1963 under then-leader Walter Ulbricht. Erich Honecker, who supervised the 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall, succeeded Ulbricht in 1971.
Margot Honecker resigned shortly before the Wall fell in November 1989, with the communist system in crisis and her husband already ousted as East German leader.
Two months after Germany reunified in October 1990, Berlin authorities charged Erich Honecker with manslaughter for ordering shootings along the heavily fortified east-west border.
The couple took refuge in a Soviet military hospital outside Berlin, and on March 13, 1991, they were spirited to Moscow - an embarrassment to the German government.
In a joint television interview two months later, Margot Honecker complained of a "witch hunt" against the couple and said their names had been "dragged through the mud."
The Soviet Union's collapse sent the couple fleeing again, to the Chilean Embassy in Moscow. The couple had friends in the South American country who had found refuge in East Germany during Chile's right-wing dictatorship.
Erich Honecker left the embassy in July 1992 and returned to Berlin for trial.
Margot Honecker traveled to Chile, where their daughter, Sonja, lived. In early 1993 a court halted the proceedings against Erich Honecker because of his spreading liver cancer.
Some Germans demanded that charges be filed against Margot Honecker for allegedly ordering forced adoptions of children from families considered enemies of the state in her time as education minister. But no such charges were filed.
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[@derklebob8161]

Ding dong the witch is dead

[@user-tw3ik6lb2u]

Your mom is surely dead bro, don’t speak this illicit way about her tho.😊

[@crunch1757]

Bastard.

[@crare227]

@@crunch1757Yes but please do not refer to Honecker with that word, Dictator or Asshole are precise descriptions

[@p38punk-punk-filosovietico]

honor and coerence! respect for comrade margot!

[@morgothfromangband6082]

Female Morgoth.

[@joeywelander1833]

She was a corrupt golddigger

[@marcelosedy4703]

RIP.

[@pasindukanishka7504]

rest in peace