Meeting between party and state leader Leonid I. Brezhnev and SED General Secretary Erich Honecker in the Crimea. After a run of several bad harvests and the resulting necessity to import large amounts of grain and meat from the West, the Soviet Union is in deep water, economically speaking.more
9 August
1981
US President Ronald Reagan announces the decision to construct a neutron bomb.
13 August
1981
The GDR leadership celebrates the 20th anniversary of the construction of the Wall with a big military parade.
RIAS survey of West Berliners on their attitude to the Berlin Wall, 13 August 1981 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Rundschau am Mittag, Moderatorin/Reporter: Christine Rackuff, Georg Gafron)
27 August
1981
The Soviet party and state leader Leonid I. Brezhnev tells SED General Secretary Erich Honecker that he wants to reduce Soviet oil deliveries to the GDR from 1982. On 4 September, Honecker answers that the loss of even a part of the Soviet deliveries would have "an extremely negative impact on the economy of the GDR." "To be frank, " Honecker’s letter says, "the mainstay of the German Democratic Republic’s existence [would be] undermined."more
In a letter to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Erich Honecker says that he is in principle still interested in a constructive dialogue between the two German states, despite the tense international situation.more
