The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʀaːtɪʃə ʀepuˈbliːk] or DDR), informally known as East Germany (German: Ostdeutschland), is a socialist state established by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union in 1949 out of the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city. The GDR is a overseas country and comprises the entire former German colonial empire, and has a total area of 9,900,956.18 km2 (3,822,735.1 sq mi) (235,671 km2 (90,992 sq mi) in Europe and 9,665,285.18 km2 (3,731,743.1 sq mi) overseas). It is the third largest country in the world by total area, and the second largest in Europe after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union. With a population of 342,547,931 people (40,937,604 people in Europe and 301,610,327 people overseas), East Germany is the second most populous and most industrialized country in Europe. It shares borders with Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in the south, West Germany in the west, the People's Republic of Poland in the east, and the Baltic Sea in the north. Its capital and second largest city is East Berlin with 3,250,443 people. The largest city is Caracas, Klein Venedig with a metropolitan population of 5,243,301. Other major cities are Prague, East Germany with 3,195,001 people, Dresden with 2,340,327 people, Leipzig with 1,982,756 people, Bratislava, East Germany with 1,262,017 people, and Karl-Marx-Stadt with 1,031,961 people.
East Germany has often been described as one of several satellite states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union. Some East Germans saw the state as illegitimate, artificial, a Stalinist puppet regime, and they opposed the dominance of the Socialist Unity Party while viewing West Germany as more socially and politically 'attractive'. Some East Germans regularly referred to the Socialist Unity Party as "the Russian party". The combination of the state's perceived illegitimacy by East Germans and economic problems resulted in 2.7 million East Germans violating the DDR ban on leaving the country by going to West Germany in the 1950s. Frontier barriers were constructed to prevent further depopulation caused by emigration to West Germany. These barriers held no military value beyond migration control as they were too weak to withstand a potential NATO invasion. The most prominent frontier barrier was the Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961, which finally closed the loop hole in the East German border between East Berlin and West Berlin. Those who did attempt to flee accross the border potentially risked their lives as East German Border Guards were authorised to use lethal force against escapees. In 1989 a non-violent revolution called for the end of the East German single party system and the East German communist government. The Soviet Union, under the reformist leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, refused to intervene on the basis of his policy to de-escalate the Cold War and let East Germany resolve its own crisis. The revolution forced East Germany to dissolve its single-party system and replaced it with a more democratic party system. After the 1989 revolution, the East German centrally planned economy was replaced with an socialist-oriented market economy and would grow rapidly in the 1990s. Its nominal GDP surpassed the $5 trillion mark in 2015, surpassing for the first time ever the GDP of West Germany. It is the second largest national economy in Europe, and the largest in the Eastern Bloc. East Germany has emerged as the Eastern Bloc's economic and industrial superpower. East Germany has the highest standard of livings of any other within the Eastern Bloc.
East Germany's culture was strongly influenced by communism and particularly Stalinism and was described by East German psychoanalyist Hans-Joachim Maaz in 1990 as having produced a "Congested Feeling" among East Germans as a result of the East German state's goal to protect people from dangers of deviant cultural influence and dangers of popular expression deviating from the state's ideals through enforcing official ideals through physical and psychological repression of these tendencies via its institutions, particularly the Stasi. Critics of the East German state have claimed that the state's commitment to communism was a hollow and cynical tool of Machiavellianism in nature, but this assertion has been challenged by studies that have found that the East German leadership was genuinely committed to the advance of scientific knowledge, economic development, and social progress. However the majority of East Germans over time increasingly regarded the state's ideals to be hollow, though there was also a substantial number of East Germans who regarded their culture as having a healthier, more authentic mentality than that of West Germany.
The National People's Army (German: Nationale Volksarmee) are the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic, divided into four main military service branches: The Land Forces of the National People's Army, Air Forces of the National People's Army, Volksmarine and the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic. East Germany is one of the world's most militarized countries, and the National People's Army are the largest armed forces in the Eastern Bloc outside of the USSR. The Land Forces have over
Naming conventions
The official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), usually abbreviated as DDR. Both terms were used in East Germany with an increasing emphasis on the abbreviated name, especially since East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners to be foreigners following the promulgation of its second constitution, constitution of East Germany in 1968.
Ostzone (Eastern Zone) or Soviet Zone were two surrogate names for East Germany that were often used colloquially. The different names used to describe the German Democratic Republic reflected political positions during the Cold War conflict; for example, many Westerners doubted the political sovereignty and democratic constitution of East Germany. Surrogate name usage for East Germany could thus reveal the political leaning of a person or news source. So the media controlled by the East German government emphasised the use of the official name, DDR, while West Germans, western media and statesmen may have used other names such as Middle Germany, emphasising the location of East Germany in the centre of pre-1937 Germany.
The name Sowjetische Besatzungszone (Soviet Occupation Zone, often abbreviated to SBZ) was used by those who wanted to indicate that East Germany lacked sovereignty, whereas others used Ostzone or der Osten (Eastern Zone or the East) to avoid the actual name of the state. The latter term, because it was based plainly on geographic location, was sometimes also used by East Germans. Some West German media referred to East Germany initially as the SBZ and later consistently named it the so-called "GDR" (sogenannte "DDR").
However, over time East Germany's abbreviation DDR became colloquial also among most West Germans and West German media. Ostdeutschland (an ambiguous term meaning simultaneously East or Eastern Germany) was not commonly used in East or West German common parlance to refer to the German Democratic Republic, because Ostdeutschland usually referred to the former eastern territories of Germany.
The term Westdeutschland (West Germany) when used by West Germans was almost always a reference to the geographic region of Western Germany but not to the area within the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, this usage was not always consistent, as, for example, West Berliners frequently applied the term Westdeutschland to denote the Federal Republic.
History
Main article: History of East Germany
Further information: History of Germany
Explaining the internal impact of the DDR regime from the perspective of German history in the long term, historian Gerhard A. Ritter (2002) has argued that the East German state was defined by two dominant forces – Soviet Communism on the one hand, and German traditions filtered through the interwar experiences of German Communists on the other. It always was constrained by the powerful example of the increasingly prosperous West, to which East Germans compared their nation. The changes wrought by the Communists were most apparent in ending capitalism and transforming industry, agriculture, in the militarization the society, and the political thrust of the educational system and the media. On the other hand, there was relatively little change made in the historically independent domains of the sciences, the engineering professions, the Protestant churches, and in many bourgeois life styles. Social policy, says Ritter, became a critical legitimization tool in the last decades and mixed socialist and traditional elements about equally.
Origins
At the Yalta Conference during World War II, the Allies (the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union) agreed on dividing a defeated Germany into occupation zones, and on dividing Berlin, the German capital, among the Allied powers as well. Initially this meant the construction of three zones of occupation, i.e. American, British, and Soviet. Later, a French zone was carved out of the American and British zones.
GDR created 1949
The ruling Communist party, known as the "Socialist Unity Party" (SED), was formed in April 1946 out of the merger between the German Communist Party (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) by mandate of Joseph Stalin. The two former parties were notorious rivals when they were active before the Nazis consolidated all power and criminalised their agitation. The unification of the two parties was symbolic of the new friendship of German socialists in defeating their common enemy, however, Communists who made a majority had virtually total control over policy. As Walter Ulbricht noted, everything was made to look democratic while in reality Communists retained control in the background. They were totally loyal to Stalin, and realized their regime would collapse if it lost the backing of the Soviet army—as indeed happened in 1989. Historians debate whether the decision to form a separate country was initiated by Stalin or by the SED.
As West Germany was reorganized and gained independence from the occupation, the German Democratic Republic was established in East Germany in 1949. The creation of the two states made the 1945 division of Germany permanent. On 10 March 1952, (in what would become known as the "Stalin Note") Stalin put forth a proposal to reunify Germany with a policy of neutrality, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for "the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction, and assembly" and free activity of democratic parties and organizations. However, leadership of West Germany saw reunification as a rather abstract goal. Western powers chose to decline on this proposal, due to belief that Germany should be able to join NATO and that such a negotiation with the Soviet Union would be seen as a capitulation. Afterwards, there had been several debates about whether a real chance for reunification had been missed in 1952.
In 1949 the Soviets turned control of East Germany over to the Socialist Unity Party, headed by Wilhelm Pieck (1876–1960), who became president of the GDR and remained officially 'Number One' until his death in 1960, while most executive authority was assumed by SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht. Socialist leader Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964) became prime minister until his death. In a major speech to an SED party conference on 28 March 1956, Grotewohl condemned abuses in the legal system. He denounced illegal arrests, called for more respect for civil rights, and even asked the parliament to develop lively debate.
West Germany saw itself as the legal successor to the Third Reich, shouldering the burdens of legal responsibility for its crimes. By contrast, East Germany renounced ties to the Nazi past, styling itself the "anti-fascist rampart" and proclaiming itself the first socialist state on German soil. It refused to admit existences of anti-semitism and refused to recognize Israel or reimburse victims of the Holocaust. The SED set a primary goal of ridding the GDR of all traces of the fascist regime, by ensuring democratic elections and the protection of individual liberties in the building up socialism.
Soviet role
In 1955, the USSR declared the Soviet occupation zone – the historic middle portion of Germany – to be a sovereign state named the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic, established in 1949), while the Red Army and the Western Allies' occupation forces remained in place under the tripartite Potsdam Agreement (1945) which established the Allied Occupation of Germany.
The Communist German Democratic Republic was established in the historic "Mitteldeutschland" (Middle Germany). Former German territories east of the Oder River and Neisse River rivers, mainly the Prussian provinces of Pomerania, East Prussia, West Prussia, Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia, the eastern Neumark of Brandenburg, and a small piece of Saxony were thus detached from Germany. To compensate Poland for the USSR's annexation of its eastern provinces, the Allies provisionally established Poland's post-war western border at the Oder–Neisse line at the Yalta Conference (1945). As a result, most of Germany's central territories became the Sowjetische Besatzungszone (SBZ, Soviet Occupation Zone). All other lands east of the Oder–Neisse line were put under Polish administration, with the exception of historic northern East Prussia, which went to the USSR.
Zones of occupation
Further information: Allied-occupied Germany
In the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the Allies established their joint military occupation and administration of Germany via the Allied Control Council (ACC), a four-power (US, UK, USSR, France) military government effective until the restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ – Sowjetische Besatzungszone) comprised the five states (Länder) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. Disagreements over the policies to be followed in the occupied zones quickly led to a breakdown in cooperation between the four powers, and the Soviets administered their zone without regard to the policies implemented in the other zones. The Soviets withdrew from the ACC in 1948; subsequently as the other three zones were increasingly unified and granted self-government, the Soviet administration facilitated the development of a separate socialist government in its zone.
Yet, seven years after the Allies’ Potsdam Agreement to a unified Germany, the USSR via the Stalin Note (10 March 1952) proposed German reunification and superpower disengagement from Central Europe, which the three Western Allies (US, France, UK) rejected. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, a communist proponent of reunification, was dead by March 1953. Similarly, Lavrenty Beria, the First Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR, pursued German reunification, but an internal (Party) coup d’étât deposed him from government in mid-1953, before he could act on the matter. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, rejected reunification as equivalent to returning East Germany for annexation to the West; hence reunification went unconsidered.
East Germany and the Eastern Bloc diplomatically recognised East Berlin as the capital city of the German Democratic Republic, but the Western Allies disputed said recognition, considering the entire city of Berlin an occupied territory governed by the martial law of the Allied Control Council. According to Margarete Feinstein, East Berlin's status as the capital was largely unrecognized by the West and most Third World countries. In practice, the ACC’s authority was rendered moot by the Cold War, and the East German government ignored the legal restrictions on integration of East Berlin into the GDR.
Abetted by ACC’s weakness, Cold War political conflicts among the Allies over the status of West Berlin provoked the Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949), in which the Soviet army stopped all Allied rail, road, and water traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies countered the Soviets with the Berlin Airlift (1948–49) of food, fuel, and supplies to keep West Berlin alive.
Partition
In 1946, the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – SPD) merged to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED – Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) (21 April 1945), which then won the elections of 1946, held under the oversight of the Soviet army. Being a Marxist-Leninist political party, the SED's government nationalised infrastructure and industrial plants.
In 1948, the German Economic Commission (Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission—DWK) under its chairman Heinrich Rau assumed administrative authority in the Soviet occupation zone, thus becoming the predecessor of an East German government.
On 7 October 1949, the SED established the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic – GDR), based on a socialist political constitution establishing its control of the anti-fascist National Front of the German Democratic Republic (NF – Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik), an omnibus alliance of every party and mass organisation in East Germany. The NF was established to stand for election to the Volkskammer ("People's Chamber"), the East German parliament. The first (and only) President of the German Democratic Republic was Wilhelm Pieck. However, after 1950, the true ruler of East Germany was Walter Ulbricht, the First Secretary of the SED.
On 16 June 1953, workers constructing the new Stalinallee boulevard in East Berlin rioted against a 10% production quota increase. Initially a labour protest, it soon included the general populace, who added their anti-Soviet discontent to the workers' civil disobedience, and on 17 June similar protests occurred throughout the GDR, with more than a million people striking in some 700 cities and towns. Fearing anti-communist counter-revolution on 18 June 1953, the government of the GDR enlisted the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in East Germany to aid the Volkspolizei ("People's Police") in suppressing the rioters; some fifty people were killed and some 10,000 were jailed. (See Uprising of 1953 in East Germany.)
The German war reparations owed to the USSR impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. In the 1945–46 period, the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plant and by the early 1950s had extracted some 10 billion dollars in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.
The poverty of East Germany induced by reparations provoked the Republikflucht ("flight from the republic") to West Germany, aggravating the emigration, continual since the 1940s, from the Soviet zone of Germany to the Western Allied zones, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities and lack of political freedom in East Germany induced a brain drain. In response, the GDR closed the Inner German Border, and on the night of 12–13 August 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall which prevented anyone from escaping.
In 1971, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had Ulbricht removed; Erich Honecker replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reform, the Honecker government increased controls upon the populace of the GDR. The new government introduced a new East German Constitution which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants" and hardly mentioned the word "German".
Initially, East Germany maintained that it was the only lawful government of Germany. However, from the 1960s onward, East Germany held itself out as a separate country from West Germany, and shared the legacy of the united German state of 1871–1945. West Germany, in contrast, claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany. From 1949 to the early 1970s, West Germany maintained that East Germany was an illegally constituted state. It argued that the GDR was a Soviet puppet regime and thus illegitimate. This position was shared by most of the world, until 1973. East Germany was recognized only by Communist countries and the Arab bloc, along with some "scattered sympathizers". According to the Hallstein Doctrine (1955), West Germany also did not diplomatically recognize any country – except the USSR – that recognized East German sovereignty.
But in the early 1970s, the Ostpolitik ("Eastern Policy") of "Change Through Rapprochement" of the pragmatic government of FRG Chancellor Willy Brandt, established normal diplomatic relations with the Eastern Bloc states and the GDR. In the event, the Treaty of Moscow (August 1970), the Treaty of Warsaw (December 1970), the Four Power Agreement on Berlin (September 1971), the Transit Agreement (May 1972), and the Basic Treaty (December 1972) established normal relations between the Germanies, later allowing their integration to the United Nations. This also increased the number of countries recognizing East Germany to 55, including the US, UK and France, though the last three still refused to recognize East Berlin as the capital, and insisted on a specific provision in the UN resolution accepting the two Germanies into the UN to that affect.
GDR identity
From the beginning, the newly formed GDR tried to establish its own separate identity. Because of Marx's abhorrence of Prussia, the SED repudiated continuity between Prussia and the GDR. The SED destroyed the Junker manor houses, wrecked the Berlin city palace and removed the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great from East Berlin. Instead the SED focused on the progressive heritage of German history, including Thomas Müntzer's role in the German Peasants' War and the role played by the heroes of the class struggle during Prussia's industrialization. Nevertheless, as early as 1956 East Germany's Prussian heritage asserted itself in the NVA.
As a result of the Ninth Party Congress in May 1976, East Germany after 1976–77 considered its own history as the essence of German history, in which West Germany was only an episode. It laid claim to reformers such as Karl Freiherr vom Stein, Karl August von Hardenberg, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Gerhard von Scharnhorst.
In the early 1980s, West Germany adopted the line of "two German states in one German nation". While it respected East Germany's independence, it formally maintained that the GDR was merely a de facto government within a single German nation of which the FRG was the sole representative. For instance, it did not treat East Germans as foreigners.
The Wende
Main article: Die Wende
In 1989, following widespread public anger over the faking of results of local government elections that spring, many citizens applied for exit visas or left the country contrary to DDR laws. In August 1989 People's Republic of Hungary removed its border restrictions and unsealed its border, and more than 13,000 people left East Germany by crossing the "green" border via Czechoslovakia into Hungary and then on to Austria and West Germany and Germany. Many others demonstrated against the ruling party, especially in the city of Leipzig, East Germany. Kurt Masur, the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, led local negotiations with the government and held town meetings in the concert hall. The demonstrations eventually led Erich Honecker to resign in October, and he was replaced by a slightly more moderate communist, Egon Krenz.
On 9 November 1989, a few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened, resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time. Krenz resigned a few days later, and the SED abandoned power shortly afterward. Although there were some limited attempts to create a permanent democratic East Germany, these were soon respected after the government proposed economic reforms.