The Party of Democratic Socialism was a democratic socialist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled the German Democratic Republic as a state party until 1990. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East". While it achieved minimal support in western Germany, it regularly won 15% to 25% of the vote in the eastern new states of Germany, entering coalition governments in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany, informally known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic from the country's foundation in October 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxist–Leninist communist party, established in April 1946 as a merger between the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz is a German former politician who was the last Communist leader of the German Democratic Republic during the Revolutions of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) but was forced to resign only weeks later when the Berlin Wall fell.
The Volkskammer was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic.
The Constitution of East Germany refers to the constitution of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany. Its original constitution was promulgated on 7 October 1949. It was heavily based on the "Weimarer Reichsverfassung", and nominally established the GDR as a liberal democratic republic. In 1968 the East German government adopted a new, fully Communist constitution that was based on Marxism-Leninism, political unitarism, and collective leadership. There were further amendments to the 1968 constitution in 1974. With the political events of 1989, there were attempts to draft a new constitution for East Germany, but these efforts never materialized due to the dissolution of East Germany and the accession of its Länder into the neighboring Federal Republic.
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 far-right 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.
These are lists of political office-holders in East Germany. The political leadership of East Germany was distributed between several offices. However, until the Volkskammer removed a section in the GDR's constitution guaranteeing their monopoly on political power on 1 December 1989, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) held ultimate power and authority over state and government. Thus, the head of the SED's Politburo of the Central Committee was the de facto leader of the country.
The president of the German Democratic Republic was the head of state of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany, from 1949 until 1960. The office was created by the Constitution of 1949. The president of the Republic was elected by the People's Chamber (Volkskammer) and the Chamber of States (Länderkammer), the two chambers of parliament. The office was mostly ceremonial in nature. If necessary, the President of the Volkskammer acted as the president of the Republic.
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 German Democratic Republic (GDR), German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), often known in English as East Germany, existed from 1949 to 1990. It covered the area of the present-day German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Thüringen. This area was occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II excluding the former eastern lands annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union, with the remaining German territory to the west occupied by the British, American, and French armies. Following the economic and political unification of the three western occupation zones under a single administration and the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in May 1949, the German Democratic Republic was founded on 7 October 1949 as a sovereign nation.
General elections were held in East Germany on 18 March 1990, and were the first and only free elections held in the state before German reunification. The Alliance for Germany, led by the new East German branch of the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), won 192 seats and emerged as the largest bloc in the 400-seat Volkskammer, having run on a platform of speedy reunification with West Germany. The East German branch of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had been dissolved in 1946 and refounded only six months before the elections, finished second with 88 seats. The former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), running in a free election for the first time, finished third with 66 seats.
Albert Norden was a German communist politician.
General elections were held in East Germany on 15 October 1950. They were the first held since the founding of the country on 7 October 1949. There were 466 deputies in the Volkskammer, including 66 from East Berlin who were not directly elected.
Elections for the Third German People's Congress were held in East Germany on 15 and 16 May 1949. Voters were presented with a "Unity List" from the "Bloc of the Anti-Fascist Democratic Parties," which was dominated by the Communist-leaning Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The ballot was worded "I am for the unity of Germany and a just peace treaty. I therefore vote for the following list of candidates for the Third German People's Congress," with voters having the options of voting "yes" and "no". In much of the country, the vote was not secret.
Bertram Wieczorek is a German physician and former politician (CDU).
Werner Jarowinsky was an East German economist who became a party official. Between 1963 and 1989 he was a member of the powerful Party Central Committee which, under the Leninist constitutional structure that the country had adopted after 1949, was the focus of political power and decision making. Within the Central Committee, from 1984 till 1989, he served as a member of Politburo which controlled and coordinated the work of the Central Committee on behalf of the leadership.
Käte Niederkirchner was a German politician and pediatrician. In 1967 she became the youngest member of the East German parliament ("Volkskammer"). Her life was impacted by having been born with a famous aunt, the Communist resistance activist Käthe Niederkirchner who was killed by Nazi paramilitaries at Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944, and who was posthumously much celebrated by East Germany's political leadership.
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