Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German communist politician who served as the chairman of the Socialist Unity Party from 1946 to 1950 and as president of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1960.
Lothar Bisky was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007 he became co-chairman of The Left party, formed by a merger of the PDS and the much smaller Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. From 2007 until 2010 he was the President of the Party of the European Left. Also, he was the Publisher of the socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland.
Margot Honecker was an East German politician and influential member of the country's Communist government until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). She was married to Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state.
Oskar Brüsewitz was an East German Lutheran pastor who committed public self-immolation on August 18, 1976, to protest the repression of religion in the Communist state of East Germany. He died four days later.
Hubertus Knabe is a German historian and was the scientific director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, a museum and memorial in a notorious former Stasi torture prison in Berlin. Knabe is noted for several works on oppression in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe, particularly in East Germany. He became involved with green politics, and was active in the Alliance '90/The Greens.
Wolfgang Schwanitz was a German intelligence official, who was the last head of the Stasi, the East German secret police. It was officially renamed the "Office for National Security" on 17 November 1989. Unlike his predecessor, Erich Mielke, he did not hold the title "Minister of State Security", but held the title of "Leader of the Office for National Security". Following the German reunification, he was active as an author of works that sought to portray the Stasi in a positive light.
Hermann Weber was a German historian and political scientist. He has been described as "the man who knew everything about the German Democratic Republic".
Ehrhart Neubert is a retired German Evangelical minister and theologian.
Two years after German reunification, the Commission of Inquiry for the Assessment of History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany, which was a truth commission that lasted from 1992 to 1994, was established by the German government with the objective of looking at the history and the consequences of the former East German communist government. It released its report in 1994, but some felt that more could be investigated. This resulted in the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity lasting from 1994to 1998, which had the same objective, but investigated more thoroughly.
Marlies Deneke is a German politician.
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.
Stefan Wolle is a German historian. A focus of his socio-historical research is on the German Democratic Republic which is where, before reunification, he lived and worked.
Peter Maser is a German protestant church historian.
Dagmar Enkelmann is a German politician of Die Linke party.
Frederick Wendel was a German political activist, journalist, author and co ran the Book Circle book club with Karl Schröder.
Rudolf (Rudi) Schwarz was a German Communist Party activist who after 1933 became an anti-government activist. He was arrested, detained and then, a few weeks short of his thirtieth birthday, handed over to the Gestapo who shot him at the beginning of February 1934.
Hero of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was an honorific title awarded by the former East German state, accompanied by a certificate and medal. The title was instituted by the politburo of the Socialist Unity Party on 29 October 1975 as the most prestigious award of the GDR and first awarded on 28 November 1975. In total, it was awarded on 17 occasions to 11 recipients.
The Central Party Control Commission (ZPKK) was a supreme disciplinary body created by the SED on 16 September 1948, in the Soviet Occupation Zone. It operated under the SED Central Committee and had corresponding bodies at all levels of the party in the form of Bezirk (BPKK) and district Party Control Commissions (KPKK). These entities existed until the renaming of the SED in 1989.
Eberhard Aurich is a former German politician and high-ranking functionary of the Free German Youth (FDJ).
