Word: neunkirchen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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People around Neunkirchen, the Saarland coal-mining town where Erich Honecker was born 75 years ago, remember him as a serious-minded boy who passed out political newspapers after school at age ten and shunned religion class as a matter of working-class principle. "He didn't play with us in recess or go swimming in the summer," recalls Kurt Humbs, 76, a classmate in nearby Wiebelskirchen, where Honecker grew up. "Sometimes," he adds, "you had the impression you were looking into a mirror with no glass...
Humbs and his neighbors will have another chance to look into the mirror next week. Fifty-two years after he left Neunkirchen, now part of West Germany, and twelve years after he became the bland but politically nimble leader of Communist East Germany, Honecker is scheduled to make a five-day visit to his homeland. His host will be West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and a lot more than nostalgia will be in the air. Postponed earlier as a result of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the trip will mark the first time an East German party...