[3] Edith Baumann was born into a working-class family in Prenzlauer Berg, at that time a recently developed district on the southern edge of Berlin.

[2] The Nazi take-over in January 1933 ushered in a rapid series of social and political changes, as the new government lost little time in creating a one-party dictatorship.

During this time, between April and August 1933, she was supporting herself by working as a typist with the "National Agency for Milk Products, Oils and fats" ("Reichsstelle für Milcherzeugnisse, Öle u. Fett") based in Berlin.

She faced trial in December 1934 and was sentenced by the special "people's court" to three years in prison for preparing to commit high treason ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat").

[2] The Second World War ended in Europe in May 1945 with a large area surrounding Berlin administered as the Soviet occupation zone.

In September 1945 Edith Baumann was recruited to work with Erich Honecker to establish the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend / FDJ) organisation.

Although the organisation had roots in the 1930s, this was in most respects a new beginning for an important social and political pillar of the new Germany that the zone's sponsors would create over the next few years.

In the early years Baumann sat in the parliament as a member representing the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend / FDJ).

[8] Understandably, however, a lot of normally mainstream and uncontentious information on the Honecker-Baumann marriage emerged only after 1989,[6] and even now sources differ over quite basic aspects of it.

The later insights offered by Politburo comrade Gerhard Schürer (1921–2010), are also less than generous, though perhaps his directness is a little more striking to an English-language reader than to readers in other mainstream European languages: "I was always a bit baffled ... politically they were of course very well attuned to one another, but in such human terms ... Honecker was a fine looking young man with a good figure, warm eyes and beautiful hair: she came across as a much older, frumpy comrade.

[6] However Klaus Herde, a close colleague of the young woman who later became Erich Honcker's third wife, has suggested that Honecker married Edith out of a sense not of love but of duty, when he realised she was pregnant.

[6][9] Assuming that the marriage took place in December 1949, it was just a couple of weeks later that Erich Honecker led a delegation of the East German party to Moscow in order to attend celebrations of the seventieth birthday of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin.

Unaware at this stage that news of his affair with Feist had reached Ulbricht, Honecker was summoned to visit the General Secretary at his weekend retreat north of Berlin.

Baumann had written persuasively that Ulbricht should cut off her husband's lover from her important youth work ("aus der Jugendarbeit ausscheiden") and send her away from Berlin.

[4] Feist's biographer, Ed Stuhler [de], believes that the extra-marital romance constituted a huge threat to the political careers of both lovers.

Despite his declining health and diminishing involvement in day-to-day affairs, Pieck never lost the full confidence of Joseph Stalin.

[11] In the judgement of Politburo member Gerhard Schürer it was largely down to Pieck that the ending of Erich and Edith Honecker's marriage ran its jagged course without erupting into scandal.

According to her biographer, Ed Stuhler, Margot Honecker officially was always deeply embarrassed over the duration of the couple's premarital cohabitation.

[14] In 1989 the East German postal service featured Edith Baumann on a postage stampStamps of Germany (DDR) 1989, MiNr 3222.jpg.