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Honecker Ousted in E. Germany, Ending 18 Years of Iron Rule

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East German leader Erich Honecker was stripped of power today, ending 18 years of iron-fisted rule as the government grapples with growing public demands for a freer society.

State news media said the Communist Party hierarchy replaced its 77-year-old leader with Egon Krenz, a Honecker protege and the youngest member of the ruling Politburo.

Honecker, who directed the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, will also be relieved of his largely ceremonial post as head of state and as chief of the military, the government-run news agency ADN said.

ADN said Krenz, 52, in charge of security issues and government-run youth groups, had already taken over as the party chief and will be recommended for the posts as military chief and head of state.

The latter two require the approval of the nation’s Parliament, and that is guaranteed by the strong central control of the government.

Krenz, like Honecker, is considered a Communist hard-liner. However, he signaled a softer stance when he reportedly urged police to stop their harsh crackdown on the thousands of people who have been staging protests in recent weeks.

Two other key members of the ruling Politburo lost their positions.

Politburo member Joachim Herrmann, 60, who was in charge of the nation’s media, and Guenter Mittag, 63, the architect of East Germany’s economic policy, “were relieved of their functions,” ADN reported.

ADN said both men had also lost their posts on the Communist Party’s 163-member Central Committee and 21-member Politburo, and Mittag will be relieved of his duties as deputy head of state.

The move apparently was an attempt to placate growing public demands for a freer press and economic reforms.

The change in leadership comes as East Germany is still reeling from the exodus in recent months of tens of thousands of its citizens seeking better wages and more freedom in the West. The flight has been followed by public dissent unprecedented in this Communist country.

In Washington, President Bush said Krenz’s rise to power was unlikely to signal fundamental change.

“Whether that reflects a change in East-West relations, I don’t think so,” he said. “Mr. Krenz has been very much in accord with the policies of Honecker. So it’s too early to say.”

In Bonn, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl welcomed the leadership change and said he hoped Krenz will “make the way free” for a better life for East Germans.

“We hope that in the interest of our countrymen that the reform process that has been so sympathetically received in Poland and Hungary and also in the Soviet Union will finally get its chance in East Germany as well,” Kohl told reporters.

ADN said Honecker asked to be relieved of his official duties for “health reasons.” Honecker has reportedly been in ill health following a gallbladder operation in August.

But Honecker had been under pressure to resign after a wave of protests swept the country.

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20 years later: the fall of the berlin wall and the legacy of erich honecker.

In his upcoming book The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989 , co-written with eminent specialists on the question, Mr. Engel states:

“Personalities matter in History, even when considering events widely understood to have been the result of mass action rather than individual agency. The story of 1989 is largely a story of crowds. But masses of people only formed because of reformers such as Gorbachev and Deng. Russia and China chose different paths in 1989 largely because of the individual personalities and proclivities of these two men.”

With that in mind, what of Erich Honecker, leader of the Communist Party in East Germany ( Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR)? What was his historic role in all of this and was he truly an important part of the process as Mr. Engel’s thesis may suggest? We asked Mr. Engel to elaborate on the concept to effectively contextualize Erich Honecker’s role in the 1980s’ progressive democratizing movements, regarding Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform movement, during the immediate events preceding the fated date of November 9th 2009 and finally concerning Mr. Honecker’s historic and historiographic legacy as we consider it twenty years later. Furthermore, to provide a multicultural assessment and contrast to Mr. Engel’s answers, the same queries were asked on the other side of the Atlantic, to Mrs. Gabriele Camphausen, historian, board member at the Berlin Wall Memorial Centre and department director at the former DDR State Intelligence Documentation Centre in Berlin.

Beginning with Poland’s Solidarity movement, the 1980s saw a slow yet steady trend towards democracy throughout Eastern Europe. What do you believe Erich Honecker’s role was in this grand scheme of things and more specifically as policy director for East Germany? What was his direct influence concerning this matter that may have led to the later events of 1989?

Jeffrey A. Engel – I consider Honecker one of modern history’s great recalcitrants.  He famously vowed of his fellow communist apparatchiks that “we took power in order to keep it forever.”  He had little use for reformers, and little interest in substantive calls for reform of an East Germany political, social, and economic system he believed in heart and soul.  Indeed he drew a rhetorical line in the sand at the very start of 1989, just as protests such as those unleashed by Gorbachev, and embodied in home-grown calls for reform such as Poland’s Solidarity, that there would be no similar dramatic shift in East Germany policy.  The Berlin Wall, the very symbol of his state, “would be standing in fifty or one hundred years,” he pledged.  This was the type of rhetoric one might expect of a conservative leader of a reactionary state when pressed by reformist impulses throughout the region.  Most important of all, however, he fully believed his own words.

From America to Germany however, the imagery and assessment of Honecker changes drastically. Mrs. Camphausen was no fan of the brutal East-German director but denies he had an important political and historical role to play in the event that led to 1989. In the early 1980s, as communism’s foundations slowly began to weaken, Mrs. Camphausen calls Honecker a mere obstruction in the whole democratization process. That being said, she concurs with Mr. Engel that Honecker was not a man of the times; “progressive” and “reform” were never part of his vocabulary.

With Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika program allowing for more economic freedoms and national reform, the Communist hold on Eastern Europe continuously weakened. What were Erich Honecker’s views and actions concerning Perestroika and the Soviet Leader? Was this the first step encouraging popular protest of his administration in East Germany?

Jeffrey A. Engel – Honecker was no fan of Gorbachev.  The centrifugal forces the latter unleashed throughout the region—designed, we must not forget, to strengthen the Soviet system not to cause its ultimate collapse—seemed to Honecker too progressive by 1989, and too responsive to public sentiment.  One of the most stirring images of the entire period, not coincidentally, occurred with the two men on the same reviewing platform, witnesses to a celebration of the GDR’s [German Democratic Republic] 40th anniversary.  From the ranks of supposedly loyal party members, chosen to proudly parade the state’s prowess, came calls for change.  “Save us, Gorby,” they shouted.  Save us, that is, from our own leaders, Honecker in particular.  This was the same state visit in which Gorbachev famously told East Germany’s leadership that “life punishes those who come too late.”  Honecker thought otherwise, believing the kinds of change Gorbachev demanded, and had unleashed, not only unnecessary but unhealthy for the long-term viability of the state.  Ironically, history proved both men correct.

Still protesting the very importance of Honecker, Mrs. Camphausen could not deny that the “representative of the old communist faithfuls,” his regime and his staunch opposition to Soviet-initiated reform may have provoked organised protest and resistance in East Germany. These “rebels” would be the downfall of Honecker and his German Communism. 

Finally in 1989, communist governments were toppling left and right as East German protests took to the streets. Meanwhile, Honecker tried to take drastic action to preserve what little power he had. What do you think was Erich Honecker’s motivation, objective and role in the events that directly led to the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago?

Jeffrey A. Engel – Honecker’s decision to fire on crowds of protestors in mid-October led directly to his ousting, not so much by reformers, but rather by a cadre of leaders who recognized, as he could not, that deployment of such violent means to retain power invalidated the regime.  He would have used force.  Others would not.  He was of course out of power by the time the Wall finally came down on November 9.  But it would not have come down without violence had he indeed still retained the means to halt its fall. 

As such, Honecker was promptly forced into retirement following his stubborn rejection of change and the resort to violence. As Checkpoint Charlie finally opened for all, a free flow toward democracy began on the evening of November 9th, 1989. The East German people were confident that they had cast off the chains of communist oppression along with Erich Honecker, the “last obstructing element in the democratization of the former German Democratic Republic” as Mrs. Camphausen puts it.

In the aftermath, Erich Honecker was found guilty of treason and died shortly after in exile. What do you think is his historic and historiographic legacy of Erich Honecker as leader of East Germany in the decade preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall? Was he a simple character in the historic democratization of Eastern Europe or was his role an instrumental and pivotal one.

Jeffrey A. Engel – I go back to my initial response, that I consider Honecker one of history’s great recalcitrants.  He abhorred reform and change.  If revolutionaries require a stationary target to aim their frustrations against, Honecker willingly provided just such a statue of reactionary opposition to change.

As has been established above, Mrs. Camphausen disagrees that Honecker was a crucial actor of Cold War History when it comes to the Berlin Wall. That being said, she could not deny his importance in facing and provoking East German opposition.

These eminent specialists seem to concur that Erich Honecker was both the last obstacle in the democratization of East Germany and also, more importantly, the stubborn symbol of recalcitrance in an Eastern Europe of progressive change. Honecker cannot be dissociated from the Wall; as the secretary responsible for security matters in 1961, he was the architect of its foundations. He oversaw its construction, openly criticized Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik in favor of an East-West German rapprochement and eventually refused German reunification, stating, “The German Federal Republic is a foreign country.” Erich Honecker did everything he could to stop the events of 1989. In the end, he lost out to the popular propensity for freedom. Today, superseding the symbol of staunch communism he was, he has become a symbol of dictatorial intransigence and oppression in the face of unstoppable human ambition.

Related Links AHA Blog: Survey of sites on the fall of the Berlin Wall

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Erich Honecker

After the collapse of Communism in East Germany, Honecker was expelled from the PDS (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, the party which succeeded the ruling SED – Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands). He spent time under house arrest, in hospital – he had undergone surgery already during the summer of 1989 and continued to suffer ill health, in a Berlin vicarage after being forced to leave his home and in a Soviet military hospital before leaving for Moscow in March 1991. He and his wife stayed in the Chilean embassy in Moscow from December 1991 until July 1992 – his daughter was married to a Chilean man and East Germany had offered homes to several thousand Chilean people after the 1973 military coup.

During this time various charges were brought against Honecker but could not be pursued because of his ill health or because he had the protection of Soviet authorities. Finally in July 1992, he was flown back to Berlin, arrested and held in Moabit prison. The main charge against him related to him giving orders for border guards to shoot East Germans attempting to leave the country. The trial began in late 1992 but was abandoned in January 1993 because of Honecker’s ill health. He was then allowed to fly to Chile to join the rest of his family.

There was a plethora of publications after unification, some academic and critical, others quite apologetic and hagiographic e.g. “Erich, wir brauchen Dich!” : Briefe nach Moabit ( 571:78.d.95.167 ). Honecker himself produced his thoughts on why the GDR had failed while in custody: Moabiter Notizen ( 9002.d.5217 ). After his death, in 2012, the year in which he would have been 100, Letzte Aufzeichnungen ( 571:78.c.201.23 ) was published with a foreword by his widow, Margot Honecker, who had been Minister of Education in East Germany. The contents of this book were also written during his time in Moabit prison but were of a more personal nature.

After the unification of Germany, many libraries in the former East Germany got rid of large numbers of the more political publications which they had been obliged to hold. The University Library made considerable efforts to obtain such material, established contacts with various academic and party libraries which were discarding stock and benefited from a number of donations. We regard these texts as important historical sources which help us to maintain strong collections of East German material and which also complement our Stefan Heym collection.

Katharine Dicks

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The Honecker Era (1971–1989)

• Two Germanies (1961-1989)
• New Coalitions in the West, Decline in the East
• Source (1/36)

This short documentary describes the political career of Erich Honecker, who succeeded Walter Ulbricht as First Secretary of the SED on May 3, 1971, and later also became head of state of the German Democratic Republic. Honecker’s ascent to power was supported by CPSU General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, who had become concerned about Ulbricht’s increasing political independence. Honecker continued to cooperate with West Germany in the context of  Ost-  and  Deutschlandpolitik and used it strategically to achieve greater international recognition of the GDR. The two German states recognized each other as sovereign states for the first time since 1949 in the 1972 Basic Treaty.  However, the West German government still insisted that both German states were part of one German nation. Membership in the United Nations for both states followed in 1973. Under Honecker’s leadership the GDR also signed the 1975 Helsinki Accords which aimed at securing peace and cooperation in Europe. Despite Honecker’s efforts to reform the country’s economic policy under the slogan “unity of social and economic policy,” supply shortages and the collapse of state finances became prominent in the mid-1980s. The party leadership retained its repressive policies against any opposition and dissent until Honecker resigned in October 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Honecker Era: Translation of transcrption

Slowly, the SED party leadership grew tired of the now 77-year-old Walter Ulbricht. He wanted to withdraw somewhat from Soviet paternalism and independently shape the incipient policy of détente between East and West – too independently for the Soviet leadership.

The crown prince and potential successor Erich Honecker was already shuffling his feet. On May 3, 1971, the time had come. With the support of Soviet CP leader Leonid Brezhnev, Walter Ulbricht was ousted and replaced by Erich Honecker as first secretary of the SED and thus the most powerful man in the GDR.

Foreign policy developments in the Honecker era: Ulbricht was already struggling with the problem that the GDR had only been recognized as a state by 29 governments in 1971. The Federal Republic’s claim to sole representation for all of Germany had prevented others from doing so. The path to recognition therefore led to negotiations with the FRG. For this reason, talks between the two German governments had already taken place under Ulbricht in Erfurt in 1970, initially without any concrete results.

In the Transit Agreement of 1971, traffic between West Germany and West Berlin was made easier. West Germans could now travel to and from West Berlin on three clearly defined routes through the GDR without the border searches that had been customary until then, but they were not allowed to leave these routes under any circumstances.

The breakthrough came in 1972. In the so-called Basic Treaty, the FRG and the GDR recognized each other as states with equal rights. The SPD politician Egon Bahr had developed a political plan for détente between East and West described by the slogan “change through rapprochement”.

The CDU criticized this as a “betrayal of German unity.” In 1973, both the FRG and the GDR were admitted to the UN. 135 states established diplomatic relations with the GDR. Meanwhile the FRG’s goal of making the Wall more permeable remained unfulfilled for the time being. The GDR participated in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE for short), which also stipulated respect for human rights, without any effect on GDR citizens at the time, however.

Here Honecker and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt are shown at the signing of the Final Act in Helsinki in 1975. A highlight of GDR foreign policy was a state visit by Honecker to Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Bonn in 1987. It had only become possible after Soviet Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev had granted the states of the Eastern Bloc more domestic and foreign policy freedoms as part of his reform policy.

Economic and social policy in the Honecker era: There was a certain economic prosperity in the 1970s, but it soon became unsustainable. Rising raw material and energy costs and the inefficiency of the GDR economy soon led to massive problems. In order to keep GDR citizens calm and avoid provoking a second popular uprising like the one in 1953, generous social programs were launched, especially in housing construction.

Erich Honecker (speech): “With all people, we want to make socialist society ever more perfect for all people. Nothing is done for its own sake. Everything we do is for the benefit of our working people.”

Newly built housing blocks in prefabricated slab construction spread out while the old buildings fell into disrepair and in some cases were left to collapse. If you took a glance at the back streets of GDR cities, you could just see how much resources were lacking, plus there were always supply shortages. Subsidizing rents and food prices while the GDR economy was poorly productive eventually became unsustainable.

In the 1980s, the GDR was close to national bankruptcy. The GDR government was forced to borrow even from the class enemy FRG, with the mediation of the Bavarian prime minister and political arch-enemy Franz Josef Strauß. The quid pro quo was the dismantling of spring guns at the GDR border.

In domestic policy, the GDR leadership remained restrictive; any opposition was suppressed by the Stasi. The expatriation of the singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, which brought about a great wave of protest among GDR citizens, represented a dramatic climax. Resignation and a lack of perspective spread. Many applied to leave the country for the West, while others forced their way out by occupying West German embassies in Eastern Europe starting in the late 1980s.

In the 1980s, a peace and environmental movement arose within the GDR in the shelter of the church, demanding political reforms in the GDR and becoming the nucleus of the peaceful revolution of 1989.

What remains of Honecker? Walter Ulbricht still believed in the utopia of the superiority of socialism. Walter Ulbricht (speech): “The Five-Year Plan envisages an increase in peaceful industrial production twofold over the level of 1936. It will prove possible, on the basis of our new democratic order, to achieve a rate of industrial development per year unattainable by any capitalist country.”

Erich Honecker, however, rigidly pursued the established course even shortly before his fall in 1989. He was only concerned with maintaining the SED’s grip on power. The Wall, Honecker said, “will remain in place in 50 years and even in 100 years if the reasons for it have not yet been eliminated. Neither ox nor donkey will stop socialism in its village.”

Source: History Vision ( history-vision.de ), Clip-ID: DieAeraHonecker_HVHigh.

history-vision.de

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Erich Honecker – Rise and Fall of the GDR Head of State

On October 29th in 1976, exactly 39 years ago, Erich Honecker was elected Chairman of the Privy Council by the People's Chamber. At that moment he had been holding all of the important positions in the GDR such as „General Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED“, „Chairman of the National Defense Council “ as well as „ Chairman of the State Council in the GDR “ in personal union since 1976. Domestically, Honecker was at the peak of his power. But how did the little „Saarlander“ get into those influential positions? To answer this question, a look into history is necessary at first.

Erich Honecker was born in the district town of Neunkirchen in the federal state Saarland on August 25th, 1912. Growing up along modest circumstances in a working class family, Honecker became member of the local communist youth group already at the age of ten. Further steps of his career in the Weimar Republic were the membership with the „Young Communist League of Germany (German: KJVD)“ at the age of fourteen as well as the entrance into the Communist Party of Germany (German: KPD) at the age of seventeen. When he faced problems finding an apprenticeship position after school, he began an apprenticeship as a roofer at his uncle's business. However, because of his delegation to studies at the „ International Lenin School “ in Moscow by the KJVD, he quit his apprenticeship and concentrated on his political career from then on. After he finished his training at the university in Moscow, Honecker returned to Saarland and became district manager of the KJVD of the region. After the takeover of the National Socialists in 1933 the political activity of the communists was only possible out of the underground. Honecker had therefore been arrested numerous times by the Gestapo because of his political attitude and commitment and was sentenced to ten years penitentiary in 1937. The young Honecker spent his prison term at the correctional institution of Brandenburg-Görden. As opposed to many other communists, Honecker survived the years of imprisonment under the National Socialist regime because of good behavior and went to Berlin after the liberation of the prison by the Red Army at the end of April 1945. There, Honecker came into contact with the „ Ulbricht group “ merely by coincidence.

In the following year, Honecker was one of the founding members of the „ Free German Youth “ (German: FDJ) and took over the presidency of the youth organization. In the same year he joined the „ Socialist Unity Party of Germany “ (German: SED), after the parties KPD and SPD were joined forcefully in April 1946. After the founding of the GDR in 1949 Honecker proved himself by organizing the „Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend“ and was admitted to the polit office as a candidate for the Central Committee of the SED in 1950. After the national uprising in 1953 Honecker openly took sides with the chairman of the Privy Council Walter Ulbricht and like that strengthened his position of power within the SED. After three years of political training in Moscow, Honecker became a full member of the polit office and took over the position of „Secretary for Military and Security Affairs“ in the Central Committee. Within this function, Honecker was mainly responsible for the organization of the construction of the Wall in August 1961.

After a political alternation of generations in the USSR, Leonid Breschnew spearheaded the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , a man who derived from the same generation as Honecker. The previous ruler Nikita Chruschtschow was born at the end of the 19th century, just like the head of the GDR Walter Ulbricht. A generational conflict initiated and Honecker recognized his chance to push his former political mentor aside and replace his as head of state since Ulbricht's “solo attempts” concerning politico-economic issues had been causing more and more resentments.

After Honecker was supported by Breschnew in Moscow, the aging Ulbricht was forced to resign on May 3rd, 1971 and Erich Honecker became first secretary of the Central Committee and chairman of the National Defense Council.

The political concept of “ Unity of Economic and Social Politics ”, which was initiated by Honecker and meant to rise the life standards and the labor productivity of the population, resulted in a mild improvement in the beginning of the seventies. Especially the house building, which was subsidized by the state, was pushed forward, numerous buildings made with precast concrete slabs arose and are characteristic for the appearance of East-German cities and communities until this day. The net income of the working population of the GDR rose by 97% until 1987 as compared to the year 1970. These generous “Social Services” surmounted the economic capability of the GDR. Rising oil prices in the seventies additionally influenced the situation in a negative way. In 1973, the GDR, just like the Federal Republic of Germany, was admitted as a full member to the UNO. The Basic Treaty between the two German states came into operation in the same year, as well. This was Honecker's greatest success with regards to foreign affairs in this era.

In the eighties, the deficits of the failed “Unity of Economic and Social Politics” were visible for everyone mainly due to the deterioration of the existing infrastructure. Environmental as well as other oppositional groups began to form. Also, the aging Honecker was not really able to identify with the political concepts of “Glasnost” and “Perestroika” initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the middle of the eighties. In September of 1987, however, Honecker was the first East-German head of state to visit the Federal Republic of Germany and was greeted by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl with the according state glory.

Honecker was literally taken by surprise by the opening of the Iron Curtain by Hungary in the summer of 1989. He had simply ignored the signs of the times and had become incapable of action due to aging failure. Nearly two months later, on October 17th in 1989, the head of state was displaced by his former political supporters Günther Mittag, Willi Stoph and Erich Mielke during a conference of the polit office. His positions were taken over by the younger Egon Krenz.

On December 5th, 1989 preliminary proceedings were initiated against him. Honecker was “suspected to have misused his position as chairman of the Privy Council and the National Defense Council of the GDR as well as his political and economic power as general secretary of the Central Committee of the SED” and “to have misused his power of disposition as general secretary of the Central Committee of the SED on his own behalf and on the behalf of others”. After further stays in hospitals as well as short periods of imprisonment, among others in Berlin-Rummelsburg, the expulsed Honecker found refuge with pastor Uwe Holmer, head of the “ Hoffnungsthaler Anstalten ”, an evangelical institution near Berlin. Only few days before the German Unification of the two German states the by then critically ill Honecker escaped into exile to Moscow.

In December 1991 Honecker was requested to leave the country by the new Russian leader Boris Jelzin. He thereupon escaped into the Chilean embassy in Moscow and hoped for asylum. After almost 6 months, the Chilean government channged its attitude towards Honecker and delivered him to Germany. On July, 29th, 1992 Honecker was flown out to Berlin where he was instantly arrested and taken to the prison in Berlin-Moabit. Just like other leading politicians of the former SED – Nomenclature , Honecker was accused for the many wall victims. In court he claimed political responsibility, but however did not consider himself morally or legally guilty. In January 1993, the arrest warrant was canceled due to his severe sickness and complaints by his defense attorneys. Honecker was immediately flown to his family in Chile. He then died there in political isolation and surrounded by his family on May 29th, 1994. His urn was buried in the capital Santiago de Chile.

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Driving A Volvo 264 TE Limousine Made Me Feel Like Erich Honecker

The Volvo 264 TE: big in East Germany.

Wheezing through the streets of Gothenburg , Sweden, surrounded by a literal sea of cerulean velour, vinyl and polyester, blasting Abba on FM , I felt like the disco era superstar I’d always longed to be. Pedestrians pointed and mouthed OMGs, construction workers ushered me past with grandiose waves and pensioners scratched their balding heads, their muddled brains further addled by a distinct case of does-not-compute.

It wasn’t me, obviously, it was the car: a black sapphire 1979 Volvo 264 TE that may as well have had East German parade flags on its front fenders.

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, if you were a high-level East German functionary, and you needed a vehicle befitting your status, you had limited options. The Cold War was roiling , western imports to the Eastern Bloc were forbidden and reviled as decadent, and Russian cars were, well, Soviet. “You couldn’t buy a Cadillac, or a Mercedes-Benz, and you wouldn’t want a Zil,” says Hans Hedberg, a veteran Swedish journalist who now runs Volvo’s heritage activities.

Perpetuating its decades-long performance as an ostensibly neutral country, Sweden maintained economic relations with some countries behind the Iron Curtain, and the GDR was one of them . So when head of state Erich Honecker and his core apparatchik minions needed a vehicle that expressed their exalted status, they came Sverige-ward, to the country’s largest carmaker.

This or a stretched Mercedes, you decide!

As a template for its executive adaptation, Volvo decided to use the recently-introduced, upscale version of its rectilinear 240 sedan , the 2.7-liter V6-powered 264. Working closely with famed Italian Carrozzeria Bertone, it developed what may have been the least Volvo-esque body style ever: a limousine. Stretched 27” in the rear, reinforced so it wouldn’t twist like a challah when cavalcading around corners, and outfitted with a pair of jump seats that pulled from the front seatbacks, it allegedly became such a popular vehicle with local bureaucrats that the exclusive East Berlin neighborhood in which they lived was known colloquially as Volvograd.

“We only made around 400 total,” Hedberg says. “For 1977 to 1979, they were made by Bertone. Then, after that, from 1980 to 1983, they were built in Sweden, by our sub-supplier, Nilsson.” This company also built stretched versions of the 240 wagon , the 245 T, with an additional row of front-facing seats, but Hedberg doesn’t have one of those in the company’s 270-car collection. “Not yet,” he says.

The 264 TE is, just as you would imagine from sensible and rational Volvo, sensible and rational. Factory-stretched Cadillacs of the same era were ostentatious land yachts, equipped with mammoth seven-liter engines, padded vinyl roofs, opera lamps, wire wheel covers, power-operated doors, leather chauffeur seats, glass dividers between front and rear sections, and multi-speaker eight-track tape players. Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullmans had much of this along with privacy curtains, intercoms, sunroofs, parade horns and rear air conditioners, as well as hydraulically operated windows and trunks that could close with enough force to crush a hand or remove a finger.

In contrast, the 264 TE’s only nod to luxury is a quartet of power window switches, and a span of polished birch on each door panel. The doors lock and unlock manually, the seats adjust in a similar fashion, there is a meek AM/FM cassette radio up front and there is a tachometer, so at least you can watch the overtaxed 140 hp V6 PRV breathe (a joint venture with Peugeot, Renault and Volvo that didn’t really satisfy any of them.)

Quick! Jump

What I thought was an old-school intercom connecting the front left to rear right seats was actually a pair of map lights on chrome goosenecks, likely to facilitate reading top secret documents before burning them. With this in mind, there is a multitude of ashtrays , of course, and the only vanity mirror I could find was one that folded out from the inside of the glovebox door. Perhaps this was a sidelong nod to philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who said: “Rather, let us be more simple and less vain.”

I wondered if a timer dial next to the driver’s seat might control some kind of additional rear seat heater for political posteriors during the daunting East German winters, but I should have known better as this was utilitarian as well. “That’s an engine block heater — electric,” Hedberg says.

Even when fully unfolded, the jump seats could not hold an adult human. I crammed myself into one, my knees pressed to my chest and the driver’s seatback, my feet dangling above the blue polyester carpeting. Hedberg giggled as he took a photo, and I wormed my way out. He folded the seatback atop the tiny cushion. The back was padded in matching loomed fur.

“It works better as a footrest,” he says and points to the shiny blue vinyl headliner , which spans the car’s long interior like an inverted David Hockney pool. “It’s subtle. Swedish. Not flashy.”

The happiest chauffeur in East Germany.

For those few who necessitated even more luxury, Volvo made just two very special versions. Stretched an additional 20 inches over the limousine — making them about four feet longer than a standard 264 — and equipped with a half-convertible top over a pair of facing leather rear benches. The so-called 264 TE Landaulet was built just for Honecker.

I tease Hedberg that every other good dictator of the era — Idi Amin, The Shah of Iran, Anastasio Somoza, Papa Doc Duvalier, Nicolae Cesusescu — had to make do with a run-of-the-mill 600 Laundaulet . Mercedes made nearly 60 of those, so Volvo’s offering is arguably more rare. I ask Hedberg if he has a 264 TE Landaulet in his collection. He shakes his head, “Nej. Nej.”

He has Kofi Annan’s bulletproof one-off 960 executive, and some bulletproof stretch limos made for Sweden’s monarchy, but he lacks one of Honecker’s half-cab. I offer to try to buy him one on eBay, but I haven’t had much luck. Let me know in the comments if anyone has a lead.

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