The Volkskammer was the supreme power organ of East Germany. It was the only branch of government in the state, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs were subservient to it.
The original Constitution of East Germany was promulgated on 7 October 1949. It was heavily based on the Weimar Constitution 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 states into the neighboring Federal Republic.
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 National Front of the German Democratic Republic was officially an alliance of parties and mass organisations (1950–1990). In fact, only one party held power in the GDR, namely the communist SED. The National Front was an instrument to exercise control over the other parties and organisations. The precursor of the National Front was the Democratic Bloc.
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.
General elections were held in East Germany on 18 March 1990. They were the first free elections in that part of Germany since 1932, and were the first and only free elections held in the state as the parliament worked towards German reunification with success.
General elections were held in East Germany on 8 June 1986. 500 deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, with all of them being candidates of the single-list National Front. 703 Front candidates were put forward, with 500 being elected and 203 becoming substitute deputies. At its first session on 16 June, the Volkskammer re-elected Willi Stoph as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, while Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party, was also re-elected Chairman of the State Council.
General elections were held in East Germany on 14 June 1981. 500 deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, with all of them being candidates of the single-list National Front. 679 Front candidates were put forward, with 500 being elected and 179 becoming substitute deputies. At its first session on 25 June, the Volkskammer re-elected Willi Stoph as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, while Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party, was also re-elected Chairman of the Council of State.
General elections were held in East Germany on 14 November 1971. 434 deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, with all of them being candidates of the single-list National Front. 584 Front candidates were put forward, with 434 being elected. The allocation of seats between member parties of the Front remained unchanged from previous elections.
General elections were held in East Germany on 2 July 1967. 434 deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, with all of them being candidates of the single-list National Front, dominated by the communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). 583 Front candidates were put forward, with 434 being elected. The allocation of seats remained unchanged from the 1963 election.
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.
Jürgen Schmieder is a politician, originally from East Germany, who came to prominence during the months immediately preceding German reunification.
Rüdiger Fikentscher is a German politician and academic.
Ursula Fischer is a German former national politician (PDS).
Christa Schmidt is a retired German politician (CDU). She served as a minister in the last government of East Germany. She had built an earlier career as a teacher and educationalist.
Bertram Wieczorek is a German physician and former politician (CDU).
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".
Hansjoachim Walther was a German politician and mathematician.
Dieter Helm was a German farmer and politician who served in the Landtag of Brandenburg from 1990 to 2009 and in the parliament of East Germany, the Volkskammer, in 1990. Helm represented the area around Potsdam first as a member of the Democratic Farmers' Party and later the Christian Democratic Union.
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