Why Gorbachev?
Why "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" and not "Me. Honecker, tear down this wall", as he was the leader if the DDR in which it was situated
shareBecause almost everything the DDR did had to be approved by Moscow first. But the speech was also part of a bigger strategy regarding relations between the US/the West and the SU, with both sides looking for rapprochement.
shareI am trying to figure out how much power the soviets had in those countries and how much was the country.
shareMost countries in the Eastern Bloc were satellite states of the USSR. Former Yugoslavia was pretty much the only socialist country in Europe that acted independently.
Honecker was a hardliner who closely followed the Soviet model, which actually led to a clash with the more moderate Gorbachev. Honecker was not the right man to approach regarding the wall. In fact, when the wall did eventually fall, it was because other party members had gone behind his back to lift travel restrictions.