Erich Honecker, the East German leader who ordered the building of the Berlin Wall, boasted it would stand for 100 years, but the discovery of a secret escape tunnel suggests that his comrades were less than confident in his prediction.
The hidden passage clad in reinforced concrete ran from deep inside the showpiece Palace of the Republic, seat of the East German Parliament in Berlin, and under a main road to outbuildings giving access to the Spree river.
Although the asbestos-riddled building was demolished following after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 45-metre tunnel survived and has come to light during preparations to re-construct the Stadtschloss, an 18th Century Royal palace flattened by the Communists to make way for their sham parliament.
“It was an escape tunnel specifically for Honecker and his highest aides in the event of a calamity overcoming the German Democratic Republic,” said Christof Fröschl, caretaker of the remaining former royal outbuildings where the passage emerged.
The tunnel is to be incorporated into the rebuilt Stadtschloss and extended to connect with the nearby Berlin Library as a link passage for deliveries, he said. It is unlikely to be opened to the general public.
Honecker, who oversaw the building of the Berlin Wall, was too sick to use the tunnel to flee the fast-moving events of 1989 when he was forced to quit by the ruling politburo in a last-ditch attempt to shore up Communist rule.
The hated Wall was breached just 22 days later and Honecker and his wife were given refuge by a Lutheran pastor until he was sent to a Soviet military hospital.
Honecker eventually made his way to Moscow as his German Democratic Republic the GDR voted itself out of existence in the Palace of the People in August 1990 to reunite with West Germany.
He was extradited back to Germany in 1992 to stand trial for the deaths of 192 East Germans killed trying to cross into the West Germany but was eventually deemed too ill for trial. He was allowed to go into exile in Chile with his wife where he died of liver cancer in 1994.
The Palace of the Republic, completed in 1976, was an iconic building clad in bronze-mirrored glass with hundreds of lights hanging in its grand atrium, giving it its nickname, Erich’s Lampshop. Many Berliners are still angry that it was demolished after being found to be riddled with asbestos, rather than restored. Few are enthusiastic about the plan to recreate the Baroque facades of the Royal Palace even if they will cover a post-modern interior containing a cultural centre, shops, restaurants and a hotel.
A new 40 million euro fund was announced yesterday to compensate thousands of survivors of abusive communist East German children’s homes. Almost half a million children went through the GDR’s care system where intimidation and corporal punishment were everyday experiences, a government report said.
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