Honecker's Ashes Might Return to Germany

For the past 10 years, Honecker's widow, Margot, has kept her husband's ashes in an urn in her apartment in Santiago de Chile, according to news reports.

That didn't seem like a fitting resting place for a pastor from a Berlin suburb who had given shelter to the Honeckers before the couple fled to Moscow in 1991. "There should be a dignified, secure final resting place for him in Saarland," 75-year-old Uwe Holmer told German tabloid Bild, referring to the German state where Honecker was born on Aug. 25, 1912.

While Honecker's family has so far failed to express their feelings about the Communist leader's return to Germany, officials in his hometown have said they'd be willing to help.

"If the family wants it and requests that Honecker gets buried here, we will comply," a spokesman for the city of Neunkirchen told dpa news agency.

Honecker led East Germany from 1971 until Oct. 18, 1989, just a few weeks before the fall of the Berlin wall. He fled prosecution by West German authorities by escaping to Moscow, but returned to Germany in 1992. His trial for involvement in killings of civilians along the Berlin wall was cancelled because of his cancer and Honecker went into exile in Chile in 1993.

Should Honecker be laid to rest in western Germany, he would be the first East German leader not buried in Berlin's Friedrichfelde cemetery.