East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic, was a country that existed from 1949 to 1990 in present-day eastern Germany as part of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. Commonly described as a communist state, it described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state". Its territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the end of World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder-Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR.
The National-Democratic Party of Germany was an East German political party that served as a satellite party to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) from 1948 to 1989, representing former members of the Nazi Party, the Wehrmacht and middle classes. It should not be confused with the National Democratic Party of Germany, which was a party in West Germany and continues as a minor non-governmental party in the modern united Germany.
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany was an East German political party founded in 1945. It was part of the National Front with the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and a bloc party until 1989.
The Liberal Democratic Party of Germany was a political party in East Germany. Like the other allied bloc parties of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the National Front, it had 52 representatives in the People's Chamber.
The National Front of the German Democratic Republic was an alliance of political parties (Blockpartei) and mass organizations in the German Democratic Republic, controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which stood in elections to the East German parliament, the Volkskammer.
The Association of Free Democrats was a liberal coalition, later party, formed in East Germany on 12 February 1990. It originally consisted of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party (GDR) and the German Forum Party. In the Volkskammer election of the 18 March 1990 the Association of Free Democrats, heavily supported by the West German Free Democratic Party, polled 5.28% of the votes and gained 21 seats, all parties running on the same lists. Most of the seats went to Liberal Democratic Party members, whose leader Rainer Ortleb became their parliamentary leader. It then participated in the last GDR government led by Lothar de Maizière.
The Green Party in East Germany was founded in February 1990. At the first free Volkskammer elections it stood with the Independent Women's Association and received 2.0% of the vote. They received 8 seats but could not resolve how to allocate them. The Women's Association pulled out and the Green Party formed a joint parliamentary group with Bündnis 90.
The German Democratic Republic was created as a socialist republic on 7 October 1949 and began to institute a government based on the government of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era. The equivalent of the Communist Party in East Germany was the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, which along with other parties, was part of the National Front of Democratic Germany. It was created in 1946 through the merger of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany. Following German reunification, the SED was renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which eventually merged with the West German Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice to form the modern Left Party.
The Free Democratic Party (GDR) was an opposition political party in East Germany. The appeal for its formation was made on 25 November 1989 in Berlin by those East German liberals who doubted the ability of the former block party Liberal Democratic Party of Germany to reform itself. It was formally founded 4 February 1990, and 12 February 1990 it joined the Association of Free Democrats for the Volkskammer elections.
The Communist Party of Germany is an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist communist party in Germany. It is one of several parties which claim the KPD name and/or legacy. It was founded in Berlin in 1990.
The Council of Ministers was the cabinet and head of government of the German Democratic Republic from November 1950 until the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Originally formed as a body of 18 members, by 1989 the council consisted of 44 members.
The Monday demonstrations were a series of peaceful political protests against the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that took place in towns and cities around the country on various days of the week from 1989 to 1991. The Leipzig demonstrations, which are the most well known, took place on Mondays. The protests are conventionally separated into five cycles.
Leonhard Helmschrott (born 5 June 1921 ; died 28 October 2011 was a German journalist and politician. He was a founding member of the National Committee for a Free Germany . Between 1948 and 1989 he was the chief editor of the Bauernecho .
Jürgen Schmieder is a politician, originally from East Germany, who came to prominence during the months immediately preceding German reunification.
Ehrhart Neubert is a retired German Evangelical minister and theologian.
Marlies Deneke is a German politician.
Hans Rietz was an East German politician who became a top official in the country's Democratic Farmers' Party , which was one of five so-called bloc parties controlled by the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany . For many years Rietz served as a member of the National parliament ("Volkskammer") and he was also a long-standing deputy chairman of the State Council.
Arnold Gohr was a German clerical worker who became a trades unionist and activist. After 1945 he entered mainstream politics in East Berlin. As the Soviet occupation zone evolved into a Soviet sponsored one-party dictatorship, he never joined the ruling party, remaining instead a leading "collaborationist" member of the eastern version of the Christian Democratic Union. He became a party chairman and served between 1948 and 1958 as "deputy lord mayor" of Berlin, a period during which the increasingly divided city's constitutional status and future were contentious and ambiguous on a number of different levels.
Wolfgang Rauls is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). He was the last leader of the National Democratic Party during the Wende, before its eventual merger into the Free Democratic Party. After German reunification, he entered state politics in Saxony-Anhalt, serving as Minister for the Environment and, eventually, Deputy Minister-President in the CDU cabinets from 1990 to 1994.
