The Democratic Bloc of Parties and Mass Organisations was a national popular front of political parties and organizations in Soviet-occupied East Germany and the first years of the German Democratic Republic.
The East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) merged to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) on 21 April 1946 in the territory of the Soviet occupation zone. It is considered a forced merger. In the course of the merger, about 5,000 Social Democrats who opposed it were detained and sent to labour camps and jails.
Friedrich Wehmer was a regional politician in Germany during the Weimar period and a national politician in the German Democratic Republic after the war.
Bernard Johann Heinrich Koenen was a German politician.
Hartmut Sieckmann is a German Engineer and regional politician (FDP).
Otto Körting was a German politician.
Olga Körner was a German political activist and a co-founder of the proletarian women's movement in Dresden. Between 1930 and 1933 she sat as a member of the national parliament ("Reichstag").
Marie Martha Schlag was a German politician. During the Weimar period she sat as a member of the Saxony regional parliament . Later, in April 1946, she was a delegate at the party conference which enacted the contentious merger that gave rise to the Socialist Unity Party (SED), after 1949 the ruling party in a new kind of one-party dictatorship, the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic.
Herta Geffke was a German activist and politician who resisted Nazism. After 1945 she became a member of the Central Party Control Commission of the SED in the Soviet occupation zone, identified as a "true Stalinist" and feared on account of her interrogation methods.
Margarete Nischwitz was a German political activist and politician (KPD). She sat as a member of the Saxony regional parliament (Landtag) in Dresden between 1929 and 1933.
The State of Saxony-Anhalt was a subdivision of the Soviet occupation zone and state of East Germany which broadly corresponds with the present-day German state Saxony-Anhalt. After the retreat of the US troops from the Western parts - following the agreements of the Yalta Conference - it was formed as administrative division called Province of Saxony by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in July 1945. The province was a re-establishment of the Province of Saxony which existed in Prussia from 1816 to 1944. On 1 July 1944, the Province of Saxony was divided along the lines of its three government districts of Halle-Merseburg, Magdeburg and Erfurt. The two provinces became part of the new state including small parts of Thuringia (Allstedt) and Soviet-occupied parts of Anhalt (Dessau) and Brunswick. Following the first election for the Landtag in October 1946, the state was renamed to Province of Saxony-Anhalt on the same day. With the abolition of Prussia in February 1947, it was named State of Saxony-Anhalt. Compared to the administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, it comprised the Gaue Magdeburg-Anhalt, Halle-Merseburg and small parts of Southern Hanover-Brunswick and Thuringia.
The State of Brandenburg was a subdivision of the Soviet occupation zone and state of East Germany which corresponds widely to the present-day German state Brandenburg. The state was originally formed as administrative division Province of March Brandenburg by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in July 1945, a re-establishment of the Prussian Province of Brandenburg, excluding the Eastern parts behind the Oder–Neisse line to Poland. With the abolition of Prussia in February 1947, it was named State of March Brandenburg but in June 1947 the SMAD forced to change the name to State of Brandenburg. In August 1945, a transfer of territory was ruled out between Allied-occupied Berlin. Compared to the administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, it comprised the Western part of the Gau March Brandenburg and small parts of Berlin.
Friedrich Wilhelm "Fritz" Selbmann was a German Communist politician and writer who served as a member of the national parliament (Reichstag) during 1932/33.
Elli Paula Schmidt was a German communist political activist with links to Moscow, where as a young woman she spent most of the war years. She returned in 1945 to what later became the German Democratic Republic where she pursued a successful political career till her fall from grace: that came as part of a wider clear out of peoples critical of the national leadership in the aftermath of the 1953 uprising. She was formally rehabilitated on 29 July 1956, but never returned to mainstream politics.
Paula Hertwig was a German biologist and politician. Her research focused on radiation health effects. Hertwig was the first woman to habilitate at the then Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in the field of zoology. She was also the first biologist at a German university. Hertwig is one of the founders of radiation genetics alongside Emmy Stein. Hertwig-Weyers syndrome, which describes oligodactyly in humans as a result of radiation exposure, is named after her and her colleague, Helmut Weyers.
State elections were held in East Germany on 15 October 1950. They were the last state elections in the country, as the states were dissolved in 1952.
Neulehrer was the name given to educational personnel graduating from a course not integrated in a degree, introduced by the Allies in the four occupation zones of Germany from 1945 to 1949. The Allies' goal was to substitute all teachers influenced by Nazi ideology in German schools and guarantee that German youth would receive a pro-democracy education.
Erich Raddatz was a Berlin city politician and parliamentarian. He was a founder member of the Communist Party, but was among those excluded from it in 1931 after openly opposing the leadership's adoption of Stalin's "social fascism" doctrine. After the war he returned to the Social Democratic Party with which he had broken over its support for the war back in 1917. He remained active in city politics well into his 70s, by which time he had become known to Berliners as "Papa Raddatz".
Hermann Matern was a German communist politician (KPD) and high ranking functionary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the German Democratic Republic.
Katharina "Käthe" Kern became a German anti-government activist during the Hitler years. After 1945 she quickly emerged as a senior politician and party loyalist in the Soviet occupation zone. She served between 1946 and 1985 as a member of what became the powerful Party Central Committee. A long-standing leading figure in the Ministry for the Health Service), she also served, between 1949 and 1970, as head of the national "Mother and Child department".
