Chairman of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation
In office December 1949 – August 1955
Preceded by
Kurt Morgenstern
Succeeded by
Heinz Plöger
Member of the Volkskammer for Halle/Saale, Halle-Neustadt[1]
In office 15 October 1950 – 16 November 1989
Preceded by
Constituency established
Succeeded by
Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born
Margot Feist
(1927-04-17)17 April 1927 Halle (Saale), Province of Saxony, Free State of Prussia, Weimar Republic (now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany)
Died
6 May 2016(2016-05-06) (aged 89) Santiago, Chile
Resting place
Parque del Recuerdo, Santiago
Political party
Communist Party of Germany (1990) (1990–2016)
Other political affiliations
Party of Democratic Socialism (1989–1990) Socialist Unity Party (1946–1989) Communist Party of Germany (1945–1946)
Spouse
Erich Honecker
(m. 1953; died 1994)
Children
Sonja Honecker (b. 1952)
Residence(s)
Santiago, Chile
Occupation
Politician
Civil Servant
Commercial Clerk
Telephone Operator
Awards
Patriotic Order of Merit
Hero of Labour
Order of Karl Marx
Central institution membership
1963–1989: Full member, Central Committee
1950–1963: Candidate member, Central Committee
Other offices held
1948–1949: Member, German People's Congress
Margot Honecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician and influential member of the country's Communist government until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education (Ministerin für Volksbildung) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). She was married to Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state.
Margot Honecker was widely referred to as the "Purple Witch" ("Lila Hexe" in German) for her tinted hair and hardline Stalinist views,[2] and was described as "the most hated person" in East Germany next to Stasi chief Erich Mielke by former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse.[3] She was responsible for the enactment of the "Uniform Socialist Education System" in 1965 and mandatory military training in schools to prepare pupils for a future war with the west.[4] She was alleged to have been responsible for the regime's forced adoption of children of jailed dissidents or people who attempted to flee the GDR,[5] and is considered to have "left a cruel legacy of separated families."[4] Honecker also established prison-like institutions for children, including a camp at Torgau known as "Margot's concentration camp."[6] She was one of the few spouses of a ruling Communist Party leader who held significant power in her own right, as her prominence in the regime predated her husband's ascension to the leadership of the SED.
Following the downfall of the communist regime in 1990, Honecker fled to the Soviet Union with her husband to avoid criminal charges from the government of reunified Germany.[7] Their asylum pleas were never acted upon in light of similar problems befalling the Soviet government. Fearing extradition to Germany, they took refuge in the Chilean embassy in Moscow in 1991, but the following year her husband was extradited to Germany by Yeltsin's Russian government to face criminal trial, and detained in the Moabit prison.[8][9] Margot Honecker then fled[10] from Moscow to Chile to avoid a similar fate.[11] At the time of her death, she lived in Chile with her daughter Sonja.
Honecker left the party in 1990, after her husband's expulsion, and both later became members of the small fringe Communist Party of Germany,[12] considered extremist by German authorities.[13] Formed in East Berlin in January 1990, the party claims to be the direct successor of the historical party formed in 1918 and is known for its support for North Korea's government; however, it operates only in the territory of the former East Germany.
^Schmidt, Arthur. "Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1986-1990, Seite 33" (PDF). gvoon.de. Retrieved 7 September 2023.
^Honecker's widow belittles Berlin Wall victims, Reuters; Kate Connolly (2 April 2012). "Margot Honecker defends East German dictatorship". The Guardian.;"Exile in Chile: Former East German Leader's Wife Is Homesick". Der Spiegel. 7 February 2012.;"Purple witch decries fall of the Wall". The Scotsman.; Sven Felix Kellerhoff (16 April 2007). "Margot Honecker: Die meistgehasste Frau der DDR". Die Welt.; "Margot Honecker, Widow of East German Ruler, Dies at 89". The New York Times. 7 May 2016.
^"Margot Honecker, widow of former East German leader, dies in Chile". Deutsche Welle.
^ abTony Paterson (10 November 2009). "Dictator's wife defiant over forced adoptions". The Independent.
^"Margot Honecker, communist – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. London. 9 May 2016.
^Reuters Editorial (7 May 2016). "East Germany's 'Purple Witch' Margot Honecker dies in Chile aged 89". Reuters UK. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
^"No apologies: Honecker′s widow breaks silence". Deutsche Welle. 4 April 2012.
^"Honecker Flown to Berlin to Face Criminal Trial". The New York Times. 30 July 1992.
^"Germans rip Honecker's wife for not standing by him". tribunedigital-baltimoresun.
^"Margot Honecker, the 'Purple Witch' of East Germany, dies aged 89". The Daily Telegraph. London. 7 May 2016.
^"Margot Honecker flies from Moscow to Chile". UPI. 30 July 1992.
^Die Rote Fahne. June 2012, p. 2
^"Glossar: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD)". Verfassungsschutz.
MargotHonecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician and influential member of the country's Communist government until...
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (German: [ˈeːʁɪç ˈhɔnɛkɐ]; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic...
actress MargotHonecker (1927–2016), German politician, former wife of Erich HoneckerMargot Käßmann (born 1958), German theologist and writer Margot Kidder...
in the former East German dictator Erich Honecker and his wife Margot after the legislature seized Honecker's property. Holmer was born on 9 February 1929...
until January 1955 that Edith Honecker-Baumann agreed to give her husband a divorce. Soon after this Honecker married Margot Feist. Three years later the...
blue rinse in the 1940s, as well as East German leading politician MargotHonecker in the 1970s and 1980s, who was considered a fashionable feminist trendsetter...
enhanced by the marriage, in 1953, of his elder sister Margot to a political high-flyer called Erich Honecker. As a result of this, between 1971 and 1989 Manfred...
previously met Otto Straub Steffi Kühnert as MargotHonecker, the wife of East German leader Erich Honecker and a high-ranking communist party official...
Friedel Apelt, Hilde Benjamin, Klaus Gysi, Kurt Hager, Erich Honecker, MargotHonecker, Erich Mielke, Josip Broz Tito 1978: Valery Bykovsky, Fritz Eikemeier...
Soviet and other communist politicians, including Erich Honecker together with his wife MargotHonecker, Dimitri Ustinov, Wojciech Jaruzelski, Viktor Kulikov...
Department, but directly under the General Secretary, as Minister MargotHonecker was the General Secretary's wife. Secretaries were usually assigned...
2013) was an East German politician. Along with Margarete Müller and MargotHonecker she was one of a small number of women to reach the higher ranks in...
psychologist Leo Feist (1869–1930), publisher of popular American music MargotHonecker (née Feist; 1927–2016), East German politician Mathias Feist (born...
ground at his side. The Panorama was inaugurated by Kurt Hager and MargotHonecker, as deputy for her husband Erich, on 14 September 1989, eight weeks...
National Education and Spouse of the Chairman of the State Council MargotHonecker First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party in Bezirk Magdeburg Werner...
tennis player Erich Honecker, former president of East Germany, who spent the last years of his life (1993–1994) in La Reina MargotHonecker, former Education...
Gerry McNeil, Canadian ice hockey player and manager (d. 2004) 1927 – MargotHonecker, East German politician and First Lady (d. 2016) 1928 – Victor Lownes...
Chairman of the State Council Willy Stoph MargotHonecker wife of Chairman of the State Council Erich Honecker Erika Krenz wife of Chairman of the State...
1994 he was a member of the dada-communist singing group "Liedertafel MargotHonecker". In 1998, the same year in which he founded his own record label Gagarin...