Activities and affiliations

Political and party leadership East Germany 1876–1960 ○ Natural causes

From the Spartacus League to GDR head of state, the sole founding member who lived the full arc of German communism

On the night of 15 January 1919, Pieck was arrested alongside Luxemburg and Liebknecht and taken to the Eden Hotel. He became the sole survivor — the last to witness his comrades alive.

A coachman's son turned carpenter, he joined the SPD in 1895 and was radicalized under Rosa Luxemburg's influence. Court-martialed for anti-war agitation, he co-founded the Spartacus League and the KPD. Arrested with Luxemburg and Liebknecht in January 1919, he alone survived. He served on the ECCI (1921) and its Presidium (1931), then led the KPD in Moscow exile as Comintern secretary. Returning after the war, he drove the SPD-KPD merger that created the SED and became the first President of the GDR in 1949, holding that office until his death.

Political and party leadership East Germany 1893–1973 ○ Natural causes (stroke)

German communist leader who built the GDR and erected the Berlin Wall

At a press conference on 15 June 1961 he declared, 'Nobody intends to build a wall'; two months later, on 13 August, his orders launched the Berlin Wall.

Born in Leipzig in 1893 to a tailor's family and trained as a joiner, he joined the SPD in 1912, passed through the USPD (1917) and the Spartacus League (1919) into the KPD (1920), and sat on the KPD Central Committee from 1923 and in the Reichstag from 1928 to 1933. After the Nazi takeover he fled via Paris and Prague to the Soviet Union to work for the Comintern, and returned on 30 April 1945 leading the 'Ulbricht Group'. He was pivotal in the forced 1946 merger of the KPD and SPD into the SED and became its First Secretary in 1950, the effective leader of East Germany. He backed the suppression of the June 1953 uprising, ordered the Berlin Wall in 1961, and launched the New Economic System in 1963. Forced out on 3 May 1971 'for health reasons' in favour of Erich Honecker, he died of a stroke on 1 August 1973.

Political and party leadership East Germany 1894–1979 ○ Natural causes

A social democrat who moved from municipal politics into state power amid Germany's division

On 30 November 1948, he was elected Lord Mayor of the “provisional democratic magistrate” in Berlin's Soviet sector.

Friedrich Ebert Jr. was a German politician who moved from the Social Democratic Party to the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party, carrying both the symbolism of being the first president's son and the consequences of his own choices. The Nazis detained him in concentration camps for illegal political activity; after the war, he became a central figure in the Soviet zone as social democracy was forcibly fused with communism and the SED consolidated power. On 30 November 1948 he led the extraordinary assembly in the Soviet sector that deposed Berlin's elected magistrate and installed a rival East Berlin magistrate, then combined municipal reconstruction with senior work in East German state institutions.

Political and party leadership East Germany 1912–1994 ○ Died

The long-serving East German leader of the walled republic

His removal in October 1989 showed that the GDR's collapse could no longer be contained even within its leadership.

A German communist trained at Moscow's International Lenin School, he rose through East Germany's youth organization and party leadership. He led the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 as the GDR's long-serving ruler.

Political and party leadership East Germany 1937–

The last communist leader of East Germany, who succeeded Honecker, opened the Wall, and fell in 50 days

On 9 November 1989, Krenz read the travel regulation draft to the Central Committee, handed the note to Schabowski saying "Here, explain this to the journalists," and hours later the Berlin Wall was open.

Designated as Erich Honecker's successor, Egon Krenz was the last communist leader of East Germany, becoming SED General Secretary after Honecker was ousted in October 1989. Just three weeks into his tenure, he approved the draft travel regulations, read them to the Central Committee on 9 November, and handed the note to Günter Schabowski for announcement at a press conference; that night the Berlin Wall was opened. He promised reforms but never gained public trust, and resigned all his posts by early December. After reunification, he was convicted of manslaughter for the border deaths and served nearly four years of a six-and-a-half-year sentence.