Editing Erich Honecker (section)

==Childhood and youth==
Honecker was born into a deeply [[Protestant]] family in [[Neunkirchen, Saarland|Neunkirchen]],<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yLfSEAAAQBAJ&q=Erich+Honecker+biography | isbn=978-1-3990-8885-5 | title=The Man Who Built the Berlin Wall: The Rise and Fall of Erich Honecker | date=30 September 2023 | publisher=Pen and Sword History }}</ref> in what is now [[Saarland]], to Wilhelm Honecker (1881–1969), a coal miner and political activist,<ref name= "Wilsford">{{cite book|last=Wilsford|first=David|title=Political Leaders of Contemporary Western Europe|url=https://archive.org/details/politicalleaders00wils|url-access= registration| page=[https://archive.org/details/politicalleaders00wils/page/n220 195]| year= 1995| publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group| isbn =9780313286230}}</ref> and his wife Caroline Catharine Weidenhof (1883–1963). The couple, married in 1905, had six children. Erich, their fourth child, was born on 25 August 1912 during the period in which the family resided on Max-Braun-Straße, before later moving to Kuchenbergstraße 88 in the present-day Neunkirchen city district of [[Wiebelskirchen]].
[[File:Wiebelskirchen Honecker Haus.JPG|thumb|left|Honecker's childhood home in Wiebelskirchen]]
After [[World War I]], the [[Saar (League of Nations)|Territory of the Saar Basin]] was occupied by France. This change from the strict rule of [[Ferdinand Eduard von Stumm]] to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism.<ref name= "Wilsford"/> After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the [[Spartacus League]]'s children's group in Wiebelskirchen.<ref name="Wilsford"/> Aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the [[Young Communist League of Germany]], for whom he later served the organisation's leader of Saarland from 1931.<ref>{{cite book| last=Epstein|first=Catherine|title=The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and their century |url=https://archive.org/details/lastrevolutionar00epst| url-access=limited|page=[https://archive.org/details/lastrevolutionar00epst/page/n54 40]| year= 2003| publisher=Harvard University Press| isbn=9780674010451}}</ref>

Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, but instead worked for a farmer in [[Pomerania]] for almost two years.<ref name="Rheinische">{{Cite web|title=Erich Honecker (1912–1994), DDR-Staatsratsvorsitzender|publisher=|website=rheinische-geschichte.de|url=http://www.rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de/persoenlichkeiten/H/Seiten/ErichHonecker.aspx|language=de|access-date=27 August 2013|archive-date=19 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219210609/http://www.rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de/persoenlichkeiten/H/Seiten/ErichHonecker.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1928 he returned to Wiebelskirchen and began a traineeship as a roofer with his uncle, but quit to attend the [[International Lenin School]] in Moscow and [[Magnitogorsk]] after the KJVD handpicked him for a course of study there.<ref>{{cite book| last= Epstein|first=Catherine|title=The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and their century|url=https://archive.org/details/lastrevolutionar00epst|url-access=limited|page=[https://archive.org/details/lastrevolutionar00epst/page/n253 239]| year= 2003| publisher=Harvard University Press| isbn=9780674010451}}</ref> There, sharing a room with [[Anton Ackermann]],<ref>{{cite book |last = Morina| first= Christina| title= Legacies of Stalingrad: Remembering the Eastern Front in Germany since 1945| page= 178| year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> he studied under the cover name "Fritz Malter".<ref>{{cite news| title=Honecker's Geheimakte lagerte in Mielke's Tresor| newspaper=Die Welt|url=https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article108772921/Honeckers-Geheimakte-lagerte-in-Mielkes-Tresor.html|date=25 August 2012| language= de}}</ref>