East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic, was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The economy of the country was centrally planned and state-owned. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc.
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker was viewed as a dictator. During his leadership, the country had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxist–Leninist communist party, established in 1946 as a merger of the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Neue Ostpolitik, or Ostpolitik for short, was the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic beginning in 1969. Influenced by Egon Bahr, who proposed "change through rapprochement" in a 1963 speech at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, the policies were implemented beginning with Willy Brandt, fourth Chancellor of the FRG from 1969 to 1974, and winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts to place this policy at the acme of the FRG.
BRD is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. It was occasionally used in the Federal Republic itself during the early Cold War; it was commonly used between 1968 and 1990 by the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic, resulting in a strong deprecation of its use in West Germany. The East German regime had previously used the term "German Federal Republic", which it abbreviated as "DBR", to refer to West Germany. The most widely used abbreviation for West Germany in the country itself was its ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code "DE", which has remained the country code of reunified Germany.
Articles related to East Germany include:
Wilhelm Stoph was a German politician. He served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic from 1964 to 1973, and again from 1976 until 1989. He also served as chairman of the State Council from 1973 to 1976.
The Peaceful Revolution – also, in German called Die Wende – was one of the peaceful revolutions of 1989 at the peak of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. A process of sociopolitical change that led to, among other openings, the opening of their borders to the Western world.
East German jokes, jibes popular in the former German Democratic Republic, reflected the concerns of East German citizens and residents between 1949 and 1990. Jokes frequently targeted political figures, such as Socialist Party General Secretary Erich Honecker or State Security Minister Erich Mielke, who headed the Stasi secret police. Elements of daily life, such as economic scarcity, relations between the GDR and the Soviet Union, or Cold War rival, the United States, were also common. There were also ethnic jokes, highlighting differences of language or culture between Saxony and Central Germany.
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.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn or DR(German Reich Railways) was the operating name of state owned railways in the East Germany, and after German reunification until 1 January 1994.
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.
Heinz Keßler was a German communist politician and military officer in East Germany.
Throughout their existence East Germany and the Soviet Union maintained close diplomatic relations. The Soviet Union was the chief economic and political sponsor of East Germany.
Zersetzung was a psychological warfare technique used by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) to repress political opponents in East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. Zersetzung served to combat alleged and actual dissidents through covert means, using secret methods of abusive control and psychological manipulation to prevent anti-government activities. People were commonly targeted on a pre-emptive and preventive basis, to limit or stop activities of dissent that they may have gone on to perform, and not on the basis of crimes they had actually committed. Zersetzung methods were designed to break down, undermine, and paralyze people behind "a facade of social normality" in a form of "silent repression".
The East German coffee crisis was a shortage of coffee in the late 1970s in East Germany caused by a poor harvest and unstable commodity prices, severely limiting the government's ability to buy coffee on the world markets. As a consequence, the East German government increased its engagement in Africa and Asia, exporting weapons and equipment to coffee-producing nations.
The visit of Erich Honecker to West Germany took place between 7–11 September 1987 in his official capacity as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic. It was the first and only visit of this kind undertaken during the partition of Germany. The five-day event was rated as an important step in the development of cross-German relations as well as Ostpolitik, which was implemented beginning with Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany from 1969 to 1974.
The Foreign policy of East Germany was characterized by the close ties of East Germany to the Eastern Bloc. During its existence, the most important partner was the Soviet Union (USSR), which acted as a protecting power and most important trade and economic partner, which is why the GDR was often called a satellite state. The GDR remained closely linked to the other socialist states through organizations such as the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. While the GDR was relatively isolated outside the communist world in the first two decades of its existence due to the Hallstein Doctrine of West Germany, a change took place in the 1970s with the rapprochement with West Germany under Chancellor Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik. As a result, the GDR was able to gain international status and establish diplomatic relations with almost 130 countries. While the Marxist-Leninist state ideology played a major role in the foreign policy of the East German government, it was however also influenced by their own economic and political interests. From the 1970s onwards, the GDR increasingly emancipated itself from the Soviet Union and pursued an independent policy towards West Germany, as loans from the West had become vital for the GDR's survival. In the 1980s, Erich Honecker refused to implement liberalizing reforms, which alienated the GDR from the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev. After the revolutions of 1989, the Eastern Bloc collapsed and Germany was reunified, ending the period of an independent East German foreign policy.
Germany–Palestine are relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Palestine. Germany does not recognize Palestine diplomatically. However, Germany has a Representation Office in Ramallah, while there is also a Palestinian Mission in Berlin. There are numerous contacts between both societies, and Germany provides economic support to the Palestinian Territories through development partnerships. Germany is diplomatically committed to a two-state solution and has acted as a mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict in the past.
Gunter Rettner was a German politician and functionary of the Free German Youth (FDJ) and the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
