The Scotland-GDR Society was an association based in Scotland, dedicated to promoting relations with the German Democratic Republic. The organisation was founded on 6 September 1986, as the six Scottish local branches of the Britain-GDR Society broke away and formed their own organisation. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The foundation of the Scotland-GDR Society had been preceded by tensions within the Britain-GDR Society in the 1980s. [1] Whilst the Britain-GDR Society had failed to make any major inroads in British politics, its Scottish branches had managed to build a significant network among the Scottish left-wing movement. [2] Led by Marlene Smith and Peter Smith, the Scottish branches of the society had a degree of autonomy. [1] [2] It had mainly been active in Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. [3] And the East Germans had become increasingly frustrated with the Eurocommunist leadership in the Britain-GDR Society, leading to splits in the organisation. [2]
The Scotland-GDR Society held its first national congress on 20 March 1988. [4] As of 1988, the organisation had 550 members. [4] As of 1990, Peter Smith served as the secretary of the Scotland-GDR Society. [5]
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.
West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany from its formation on 23 May 1949 until its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic after its capital city of Bonn. During the Cold War, the western portion of Germany and the associated territory of West Berlin were parts of the Western Bloc. West Germany was formed as a political entity during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II, established from 12 states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
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.
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 Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany was an East German political party. The DBD was founded in 1948. It had 52 representatives in the Volkskammer, as part of the National Front. The DBD participated in all GDR cabinets. The founding of the DBD was an attempt by the SED to weaken the influence of CDU/LDPD in the rural community by establishing a party loyal to the SED. The leadership cadre came mainly from the ranks of the SED. In the late 1980s, the party had 117,000 members.
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.
Helmut Flieg was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym. He lived in the United States and trained at Camp Ritchie, making him one of the Ritchie Boys of World War II. In 1952, he returned to his home to the part of his native Germany which was, from 1949 to 1990, the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. He published works in English and German at home and abroad, and despite longstanding criticism of the GDR remained a committed socialist. He was awarded the 1953 Heinrich Mann Prize, the 1959 National Prize of East Germany, and the 1993 Jerusalem Prize.
The Duden is a dictionary of the Standard High German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880, and later by Bibliographisches Institut GmbH, which was merged into Cornelsen Verlag in 2022 and thus ceased to exist.
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 Academy of Sciences at Berlin, German: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (DAW), in 1972 renamed the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, was the most eminent research institution of East Germany.
John Scott Peet was a British journalist who defected to East Germany in 1950.
Stefan Berger is the Director of the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and Chairman of the committee of the Library of the Ruhr Foundation. He is Professor of Social History at the Ruhr University. He specializes in nationalism and national identity studies, historiography and historical theory, comparative labour studies, and the history of industrial heritage.
The New Commonwealth was an international organisation created in London in 1932 with branches in France and Germany. It advocated pacifism, disarmament and multilateral resolution of conflicts through political lobbying and different publications.
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".
Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk is a German historian and author. His work is focused on the German Democratic Republic and its Ministry for State Security.
Hermann Weber was a German historian and political scientist. He has been described as "the man who knew everything about the German Democratic Republic".
Permanent Missions of Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) were permanent representative missions established in a 1972 treaty and effective from 1973 to 1989 "in the seats of their respective governments" according to Article 8 of the Basic Treaty. They served as de facto embassies for each other.
Inner German relations, also known as the FRG-GDR relations, East Germany-West Germanyrelations or German-German relations, were the political, diplomatic, economic, cultural and personal contacts between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, at the period of the West-East division in German history from the founding of East Germany on 7 October 1949 to Germany's reunification on 3 October 1990.
Germany and Mozambique, have maintained diplomatic relations since Mozambique's independence in 1975. Since then, numerous visits by German politicians and business, commissions to Mozambique have followed, and a number of Mozambican politicians have visited the Federal Republic of Germany.