WI: Honecker accepted the asylum offer from North Korea?

chankljp

Donor
In OTL, during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent German reunification in 1991, Erich Honecker, the General Secretary of East Germany, sought refuge in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, trying to apply for political asylum in the USSR, but he ended up being expelled from the country when the USSR fell a little over a week later, and was sent back by Yeltsin to the now unified Germany for criminal trial, until he was eventually allowed to enter into exile in Chile until his death in 1994.

Apparently, while Honecker was hold up in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, North Korea under Kim Il Sung actually offered the former East German politician asylum in Pyongyang for 'medical treatment', an offer that Honecker turned down, since he wanted to go to Chile instead, as his daughter was married to a Chilean, and that the DDR had provided asylum for many Chileans exiles during Pinochet's rule.

So, what would have happened if Honecker did took North Korea's offer instead in order to avoid his arrest? Now, obviously, considering that he will die shortly after the fall of the Wall 3 years later in OTL, Honecker would not have been able to do anything too significant (Though perhaps without the stress of being arrested by the West Germans affecting his health, perhaps he could have lived a few years longer).

However, I wonder if Honecker would have been able to take things with him that would have been of interest to the North Korean regime (Particularly to 'Room 39' which was established in the 1970s' specifically for managing foreign currency earnings on behalf of the Party elites) such as international bearer bonds, keys to secure deposit boxes in the Swiss Banks belonging to the SED leadership, or even classified documents and engineering blueprints for weapon programs, etc, that could have had an impact on the development of North Korea? Or perhaps could Honecker seeking asylum in North Korea result in other former DDR officials in danger of facing prosecution such as members of the Stasi to also seek refuge in the DPRK (With them having skills that the North Koreans would obviously be very interested in)?

And considering that in OTL, the FRG and DPRK did not establish formal diplomatic relations until the early 2000's, could this end up having an impact on the relationship between the two countries such as an even strong embargo being put in place or the North Koreans' business ventures in Germany (Including a tourist hostel that they operate near their embassy in Berlin) being closed down?
 

overninethousands

Banned
He would be embalmed with the two others - the whacko that died in 1994 and the nut that died in 2012. Well, the three would went along pretty well. Plus the STASI experience blended with NK juche... (I need to vomit)
 

Xbadger

In a last desperate attempt to scare the german population, the DDR was emphasizing the ties between the DDR and China after gorbachev washed his hands of them..... soet of a you guys know what happened in china right.

If i had to guess he would spend the rest of his days writing apologetics and saying that east germany wasnt that bad. He would be generally ignored except for the occasional propaganda apperance to say how great the kim family is

As a sidenote. I saw egon krenz mowing his lawn once.
 

overoceans

overninethousands said:
He would be embalmed with the two others - the whacko that died in 1994 and the nut that died in 2012. Well, the three would went along pretty well. Plus the STASI experience blended with NK juche... (I need to vomit)
Click to expand...

Apparently, during their respective times in power, Honecker had a meeting with Kim Il-sung, in which Kim hinted at his succession plans by saying he thought it was unfortunate that Marxism did not allow for hereditary rule.

Which is a little like saying it's unfortunate that pacifism doesn't allow you to join the navy. I do wonder what was going through Honecker's head when he heard that.
 

Loki-L

It was not like NK and Germany had no diplomatic relations at all after reunification.

They sort of inherited the embassies of NK and the GDR to each other. And Sweden and China acted as protecting power for these non-embassies while their future was negotiated.

The even had limited trade before the embassies were fully recognized as embassies again. During the mid-90s NK bought a lot of old trains from the Berlin transportation company (both those used in the east and west) to run the Pyongyang Metro.

If Honecker fled to NK the relationship between a united Germany and North-Korea would have been obviously negatively affected.

Any financial treasure that Honecker might have taken with him into exile would not have been felt too much in Germany as the whole unification was already so massively expensive that a few millions more or less hardly would have made much of a difference.

Taken intelligence would have been much more dangerous. With the right files he could have torpedoed the careers of a lot of people who would have like to keep their cooperation with the Stasi in the past and as long as he had some truthful documents he or rather his Korean handlers could have easily forged documents to release to hurt people who weren't actually all that guilty.

That 'girl' that the German Chancellor seems to mentor as some sort of protege, just leak some forged documents about her having worked for the Stasi in a major capacity to end her political ambitions.

Of course the above would be limited by the fact that back in those days the volume of data you could easily transport was limited by the amount of papers or microfilm you could carry around with you. With modern technology you could fit the entire stasi-archive into a single storage device that fits neatly in your pocket, but back than digital was not yet a thing.

So the best NK could do with such an intelligence coup would be get their hands on a few select files and be reduced to threats and bluffs for anything else.

One unintended side-effect might be that the comparison between a recently reunited Germany and a still disunited Korea would have been made much more often by many more people.

More attention to NK and the plight of North Koreans might lead to more sympathy from Germany and to a lesser degree other former communist countries. This might not be the sort of attention that NK might want.

It might also have affected the youth of one Kim Jong-un, who in OTL spend much of the 90s in German speaking and Germany neighboring Switzerland. If relations between NK and Germany were much worse, his father may have thought that this was too close and to send him to a different place instead.
 

Raferty

I think its more likely he gets refuge in Milosevic's Serbia down the road. Milosevic's wife was a pretty hardline Marxist who professed admiration for Honecker and Castro during the 90s.

Or maybe Zimbabwe or South Africa post 1994. The ANC in its policy documents openly spoke of "building East Germany in South Africa" prior to taking power and most of its leadership who were exiles actively tried to replicate Stasi methods and party discipline in their Angolan camps. I believe Thabo Mbeki in particular had admiration for the East German system.
 
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Tjakari

Tjakari

Loki-L said:
During the mid-90s NK bought a lot of old trains from the Berlin transportation company (both those used in the east and west) to run the Pyongyang Metro.
Click to expand...

How do you know this? I'd like to retrace your steps so I can know it too.
 
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