First Chancellor of East Germany, Walter Ulbricht was the strongest of all strongmen in East Europe in the 60s. However, over the next few years, however, he increasingly forfeited this power as a result of an ambitious program of economic reforms and a policy toward the Soviet Union that was controversial. After his forced resignation from the post of First Secretary of the SED Central Committee in 1971 and his death in 1973, Ulbricht was systematically pushed from the public consciousness by his successor, Erich Honecker. In the above photo taken in 1971, Ulbricht and Honecker shared beguilingly convivial talk.
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