[lordroel]

Three – The Purple Witch

The East German national identity post-1989 was something studied from afar for how the regime in East Berlin tried to make it real. The country had been a satellite state of the Soviet Union when created and throughout much of its existence. There had been some moves ahead of the fall of the wider Eastern Bloc to change that narrative but that went into overdrive once the Failed Uprising of ‘89 occurred. A whole mythology, a whole load of new lies were told about the German Democratic Republic. Most people nodded along while trying to get along with their lives. Margot Honecker, still increasing her public profile, remained education minister and set about indoctrinating a new tranche of children in the lies. East German youth were already subject to extensive propaganda – catch ‘em young seemed to be the motto of the leader’s wife – and that went further during the special period where the country was near isolated on the world stage. The DDR ‘needed’ enemies. That was part of the ethos of the country as something exceptional where it was the lone warrior standing steadfast against international wrongdoers… rather than being that exact thing itself. Israel was a long-standing target of state-directed angst. So too were the Americans as well in the bastion of capitalism that was the United States. Further opponents, those who it would be claimed threatened the DDR and led to the harsh conditions that the people were suffering under, were sought out. Czechoslovakia had split into two new countries during ‘93 with the new Czech Republic neighbouring East Germany to the southeast. Additionally, there was Poland on the eastern border too. The governments in each were no friends to Honecker’s regime though in Prague & Warsaw the argument would be that it was East Berlin that was hostile towards them. Alleged conspiracies were uncovered where those two countries were working with treasonous citizens within the DDR to do the country harm for nefarious purposes. Spy rings were uncovered and terrorist incidents stopped. Denials came from abroad that these were real. An especially damaging West German television broadcast, seen by millions of East Germans, investigated some of the more outrageous claims and pulled them apart for the bad fiction that they were. Of note was the supposedly plot by Polish ultra-nationalists to seize territory and as part of that conduct a terror attack in East Berlin where the iconic Fernsehturm tower would be toppled to weaken the morale of the people. It was all very ridiculous! That damaging exposé resulted in the propaganda campaign being brought to a suspension.

More than her husband, Margot Honecker was the face of the DDR come 1994. He didn’t make any public appearances nor was there much video footage of him recorded in controlled environments. The Stasi had appropriated Western medical equipment and medicines, as well as paying for some of the best foreign doctors to come in from aboard to treat him, but Erich Honecker’s last days approached. He couldn’t be saved. Successors were making moves to replace him but his wife was determined that it was to be her instead. Both domestically and internationally, there was widespread opinion that no woman was capable of leading a nation such as East Germany. Women in the Twentieth Century had led such countries as Britain, India & Israel but none of them were authoritarian one-party oppressive states. It wasn’t conceivable that she would replace her husband no matter how much she sought to position herself to succeed him. Public appearances, regular broadcasts to the East German people, speeches made before the UN in New York… none of that mattered to those who said that Margot Honecker would never become the next leader of East Germany. Those same people were the ones who kept on saying that the country was on verge of collapse and would any day fall though and they’d been saying that since ‘89.

East German athletes had gone to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Medals had been won aplenty where the national team competed in the sporting events in that Spanish city: they took home over a hundred of them. That total was more than twice what the West Germans did. Such achievements were widely celebrated by the state. A small country such as the DDR took pride in doing so well on the world stage. Allegations swirled in the background of state-sponsored doping but nothing could be proved on that. It was all rather suspicious that their athletes could achieve all that they did. East Germany had also played at the football World Cup in Italy in ‘90. There had been a dismal performance there which had come on the back of the ‘miracle in Vienna’ during November ‘89 where qualification had come for that tournament. In the summer of ‘94, the World Cup was staged in the United States. The two Germany’s qualified with East Germany managing to get there by knocking out England (on home turf at Wembley too!) from the qualifying round the late year before. The embarrassment in England was quite profound while the DDR held up that outcome as an example of the prowess of the state. When across the Atlantic, first a non-playing member of the travelling squad and then a central defender too both defected. They deserted their team and their country to cause a media storm by both making notable public statements, in good English as well, denouncing their nation and imploring the West to save their fellow citizens. East Germany went out of the tournament at the first hurdle, failing in the group stages, and (theoretically) denying fans the chance to see an East vs. West contest in the third stage where the two Germany’s could have met in the quarter finals. When the team came home, there was talk at the highest levels of putting in ‘preventative measures’ to ensure that when the ‘96 Olympics took place in Atlanta two years in the future, such high-profile defections wouldn’t happen again.

Britain gained a new leader that same summer. Prime Minister Major was engulfed in a personal scandal going back to the Eighties of an extra-martial affair with a former fellow junior minister. The revelations came at the height of the ‘sleaze’ issue besetting his party and government. Major was unable to hold on, not when the tabloids went all out against him followed by a crisis of confidence among his senior ministers in his ability to keep on leading them towards the next general election. A leadership challenge came from outside of his Cabinet and it was one he barely won: the circumstances were almost the same as what had occurred with his predecessor four years beforehand. A second round of voting was needed and Major dropped out of that at the last minute (again, mirroring ‘90 and Thatcher) when it was clear that he had lost so much support. Michael Heseltine emerged as the final victor there and would become the new PM before the end of July. Dealing with East Germany wasn’t a priority at the outset of the Heseltine Ministry but, unlike Major, the UK’s new leader was willing to see more done than had previously been government policy when faced with such an unpleasant, hostile regime subjugating its people and acting illegally on the world stage too.


August 1st saw the death of the DDR’s leader. Honecker finally succumbed to liver failure in the face of every effort to keep him alive. The death wasn’t immediately announced and was a state secret initially. His demise came at a time when Mielke was overseas on a trip to Iraq. The Minister of Security was considered to be the likely replacement no matter how much Margot Honecker had positioned herself as heir-apparent. He at once set about returning home, flying on a military aircraft which had taken him to Iraq a few days beforehand. Joining the head of the Stasi aboard the Soviet-built Tupolev-154 converted airliner outfitted for VIP tasks was Saddam’s eldest son. Uday Hussein was a regular visitor to East Germany and invited himself along for the flight. Propriety should have seen that not done yet Mielke was cultivating a deeper DDR–Iraq alliance for the future where he believed that Saddam wouldn’t be around forever. Uday wanted to pay his respects and so flew on the same aircraft. That Tu-154 went through Syrian airspace and then out over the Med. A refuelling stop was planned to occur in Libya ahead of a final inbound flight to East Berlin. However, the aircraft never made it to Tripoli when it disappeared from radar screens over the Gulf of Sirte. Somewhat of a Cold War aerial battleground between the Libyans and the US Navy, that stretch of the Med. was away from the regular airline routes. There were no direct witnesses to the fate of the aircraft carrying East Germany’s security chief and the son of Saddam. Gaddafi was a loss as to what had happened too. Allegations were made internationally that Mielke and Uday had been assassinated though as to whom was behind that, there were multiple parties supposedly responsible: the Americans, the Israelis, the West Germans etc. It was even said that Iraq or East Germany were behind it due to those onboard and those promoting such a theory having outlandish ideas on the reasoning behind those claims.

The truth of the matter would for the foreseeable future remain unclear though.

When Mielke didn’t return to East Germany, Margot Honecker’s position as the successor to her husband was unchallengeable. No one else, all those second-rate male potential leaders, was in-position to make a real claim on the top job. The Politburo voted her into power. After that, the death of her husband was then announced to the public. It took the East German people – just as it did Western intelligence services – by complete surprise despite the long-term inevitability of that. Honecker had seemingly been dying forever with reports throughout the years that he was close to death never followed up by a final report of him passing away. Finally he did though. Margot announced it herself, taking full prominence in the state’s response to it all. What she expected as a reaction from the people of the DDR was a respectful period of national mourning followed them giving her the respect as their new leader which she believed she deserved. That wasn’t what happened at all.

It was the summer and young people weren’t at their places of education. With warm weather adding to the situation, such background factors as those helped create the atmosphere for a mass of people to come out and demonstrate. Organisers worked fast and impromptu to fill the streets of East German cities with people, especially the young, to demand that the country be given democracy and freedom. Honecker was dead and his wife wasn’t wanted as his replacement. Pre-warned during that period of it happening and his death being made public, the Stasi was ready to meet an attempt at mass subversion by known troublemakers. There were low-visibility arrests made and even a lot of disinformation put out there too. Nonetheless, the unorganised opposition in East Germany managed to put on quite the display. They did fill the streets with people. Where they failed in their efforts to bring about profound, wholescale change was coordination. There was a rush to get things going and not enough working together ahead of time. Infiltration by the Stasi was extensive and debilitating to the disunited movement to overthrow the regime. The result was a second failed uprising, five years after the first. Margot didn’t have to order police and troops to fire en masse on protesters. Demonstrations were dealt with using non-lethal force combined with that internal weakening of the movement. Public order was eventually restored as once more. The people of the DDR hadn’t been able to do what else had been done across Eastern Europe and get rid of the dictatorship that causing them so much suffering.

An unfortunate sobriquet for Margot was the name ‘the purple witch’. It was her tinted hair and her reputation as an authoritarian, a cruel one at that. Germans both sides of the divide between their country despised her. One of the UK tabloids deemed her ‘Cruella’ and that was picked up in America too as a description. Regardless, the purple witch was her name to the public in the two Germany’s. She took a firm grip on power once she had it and showed no intention of giving it up. Margot secured her position by putting in an ally of hers to replace Mielke too. Wolfgang Schwanitz took over the Stasi with Margot raising him up to the Politburo as well. Foreign observers noted other promotions, demotions and changes within the regime as well where they concerned what East Germany’s new leader did after she stopped that ill-prepared domestic opposition movement seeking to see change made. Reputed figures from either the Stasi, the influential Border Troops organisation and the East German Armed Forces’ own political service – the PHV – gained powerful positions. It was said that the new look regime was becoming one run by securocrats. The old school communists were out and it was people with a security & intelligence background who Margot surrounded herself with to maintain her position. Doing that was, as far as commentators were concerned, was never a long-term viable strategy for her own continued rule yet there was agreement that it gave her breathing room to guard against an internal effort to topple her not from protesters but political figures pushed aside. In addition, it also was something that was remarked upon as sure to expand what East Germany was involved in internationally in the shadows.

Bulgaria had a change of government late in the year while there had too been during 1994 a new leader installed within Belarus too. Mielke had opened ties with Belarus but Margot expanded them just as she made contact too with Bulgaria’s supposedly reformed communists down in Sofia. Those were personal connections as well. It was the same with Chernomyrdin in Moscow. He came to the funeral of her husband and stayed for several days at a guest house within the Waldsiedlung residential complex outside of East Berlin. That was where the leadership all had their homes, where they were guarded extensively and lived in luxury too. Chernomyrdin made it clear that he had no intention of seeing a return to previous Soviet-DDR relations but Margot was equally clear that she wasn’t asking for that. Instead, what she wanted was friendship and cooperation between the two nations. Schwanitz attended a meeting with the Russian president as well. What had gone on before with sanction busting would carry on. Personal enrichment would also continue for those involved though everyone politely didn’t mention that. Chernomyrdin had a rising group of influential securocrats at home and when he returned to Moscow, his instructions for them were to work with the East Germans more than before. There was mutual interest in the DDR remaining afloat. Unlike Yeltsin, the West was absolutely distrusted by Chernomyrdin. The notion of East Germany being a lighting rod for their unfriendly attentions, rather than on Russia, appealed to him. Russia was back at war with the rebellious Chechens and the distraction that the DDR was to the West was welcomed. Nonetheless, what Chernomyrdin couldn’t foresee was that how far his new ally would press things the following year when it came to the growing confrontation with the West.

Margot aka the purple witch aka Cruella was just going to go too far with the hostile behaviour directed towards fellow countries far closer to home than Russia was. That would be something Chernomyrdin wouldn’t like nor desire at all.