Uwe Holmer, East German dissident

Uwe Holmer and his wife in their younger years

This post is a belated continuation of comments on Florian Huber's book Meine DDR (2008) that I began in Life in East Germany, aka, the German Democratic Republic 12/14/08.

Uwe Holmer's story is one of those in in the book that particularly caught my attention.

Holmer was a veteran of the Second World War. After his wartime experiences, he resolved to always follow his conscience in the future. He began studying theology in Jena in 1948. Religion was not formally welcomed in Communist East Germany (the DDR). But it was grudgingly tolerated, though church members had some serious personal restrictions placed upon them, at some periods of the DDR's history more burdensome than others.

Holmer soon became an active promoter of the Protestant Junge Gemeinde, the church youth organization which the ruled SED (Communist Party) saw as a competitor to the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) youth organization.

Because Holmer was an early internal opponent of the SED regime, he gained attention at the highest levels.

Erich Honecker

Erich Honecker became the top leader of the DDR - First Secretary of the SED - in 1971, General Secretary in 1976, when he also became formally the head of state (Chairman of the State Council, or State Soviet if you prefer). He was also in charge of planning and building the Berlin Wall. But in 1946-55, he was head of the FDJ. So Holmer came to his attention early.

Margot Feist (born 1927) became Erich's second wife. She became a senior official in the im Ministerium für Volksbildung (Ministry of Education) in 1955, two years after her marriage to Erich. (Their daughter Sonja was born in 1952, when Erich was still married to his first wife Edith.) Margot became deputy minister for Education in 1958, and Minister of Education in 1963, in which role she served until a week before the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the DDR was coming completely undone. (The Wall was opened on Nov. 9, 1989.) She herself did not have a college education. (For more on the First Lady of the DDR, see Margot Honecker: Die meistgehasste Frau der DDR Die Welt 16.04.2007.

Margot Honecker

According to Huber, Margot Honecker personally made sure that none of the Holmers' ten children were allowed to attend university or enter an Abitur program, the latter being the college-track high school education in American terms (more-or-less).

Holmer also attracted the unfavorable attention of the authorities by his solidarity with farmers who were unwillingly being forced into collectivized farms.

Honecker found himself forced to resign his leadership position in the DDR in October 1988, when the opposition movement was in full swing and the DDR was seeing its possibilities of survival rapidly decreasing. In January 1990, Honecker at age 77 was arrested on charges of corruption and abuse of office, but held only one day because of his poor health.

But his fellow Party members didn't want him and Margot to keep living in their home in a neighborhood where many other SED members lived. The Evangelical [Protestant] church agreed to give him a place to live.

And the place he would up living was in Lobetal, near Berlin - with Uwe Holmer and his family. They lived there for just over two months, from January 31 to April 3, when Erich went back to the hospital. During their time with the Holmers, they attracted occasional protests, and there were a couple of times they all had to evacuate the house due to bomb threats. But otherwise, their stay was uneventful. Their daughter Sonja came by to visit them regularly bringing groceries and a newspaper.

Huber writes:

Mit den Worten der Bibel hatte Holmer es stets genau genommen. Vergebung war ein zentraler Wert seines christlichen Glaubens, und davon war kein Mensch auszunehmen. Auch nicht die Honeckers, die ihm beide viele Jahre lang das Leben schwergemacht hatten. "Hier braucht ein Mensch Hilfe, dem können wir uns nicht versagen. Jesus hätte ihn auch nicht abgewiesen." Doch es war auch die Freude über die politische Wende, die Uwe Holmer für diese Geste stark gunug machte. Der Pfarrer und seine Familie zögerten nicht, das berühmteste Ehepaar der DDR bei sich aufzunehmen.

[Holmer had always taken the words of the Bible literally. Forgiveness was a central value of his Christian faith, and no person was excluded from that. Not even the Honeckers, who had made life hard for both of them for many years. "Here a person needed help, we couldn't fail him. Jesus would also have not have turned him down." But it was also the joy over the political change that made Uwe Holmer strong enough for these guests. The minister and his family did not hesitate to accept the the most famous married couple of the DDR.]

I picture it as like being asked to have Dick Cheney and his wife Liz stay in your guest room while they are waiting for Saudi Arabia or Paraguay or somewhere to approve their request for asylum. I just don't think I'm that good of a Christian. It would take a road-to-Damasacus type vision to get me to that point, I'm afraid.

Holmer talks about the Honeckers' stay in this interview, Frau Honecker schickt noch Briefe by Marijke Engel Berliner Zeitung 28.01.2000.

Uwe Holmer in more recent years

The Honeckers were later flown to Moscow, where they became no longer welcome guests after the fall of the Soviet Union. In 1992, they were returned to then-unified Germany, where Honecker was again arrested on charges of ordering border guards to shoot to kill when people tried to escape the DDR borders. But again he was released on grounds of poor health. He joined Margot and Sonja in Chile, where he died in May 1994 of liver cancer.

Margot is still alive. She still lives in Chile. She was invited to Nicaragua in 2008, which she was honored with the Reuben Dario Prize for the "independence of culture". It was her first appearance in a public function since she arrived in Chile in 1993.

According to Huber, the Holmer still receives letters from her occasionally. In the 2000 Berliner Zeitung article linked above, he says Margot writes at least every Christmas.

All three posts on Meine DDR:

Life in East Germany, aka, the German Democratic Republic 12/14/08
Vera Lengsfeld, East German dissident 01/21/09 (this post)
Uwe Holmer, East German dissident 01/22/09

Tags: ddr, east germany, erich honecker, florian huber, margot honecker, uwe holmer