View source for German Democratic Republic

{{Infobox Former Country
|conventional_long_name = German Democratic Republic
|common_name  = East Germany
|continent    = Europe
|region       = Germany
|country      = Germany
|era          = Cold War
|event_start  = [[History of Germany since 1945|Established]]
|year_start   = 1949
|date_start   = 7 October
|event_end    = German reunification
|year_end     = 1990
|date_end     = 3 October
|life_span    = 1949–1990
|event1       = [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany|Final settlement]]
|date_event1  = 25 September 1990
|
|p1           = Allied-occupied Germany
|flag_p1      = Flag of Germany (1946-1949).svg
|p2           = German Economic Commission
|flag_p2      =      
|s1           = Germany
|flag_s1      = Flag of Germany.svg
|
|image_flag   = Flag of East Germany.svg
|image_coat   = Coat of arms of East Germany.svg
|image_map    = DDR-Europe.png
|
|national_anthem  = "[[Auferstanden aus Ruinen]]"<br />("Risen from Ruins")
|national_motto   = "[[Workers of the world, unite!|Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!]]" <br /> ("Workers of all nations, unite !")
|capital          = East Berlin
|common_languages  = [[Official language|Official]]: [[German language|German]] <br />Unofficial minority languages: [[Sorbian languages|Sorbian]]
|latd=52 |latm=31 |latNS=N |longd=13 |longm=24 |longEW=E
|
|government_type  = [[Socialist republic]]<br/>[[Communist state]]
|legislature  = Volkskammer
|title_leader = [[Leaders of East Germany|Chairman of the Council of State]]
|leader1      = [[Wilhelm Pieck]] (''[[President]]'')
|year_leader1 = 1949–60
|leader2      = Walter Ulbricht
|year_leader2 = 1960–73
|leader3      = Willi Stoph
|year_leader3 = 1973–76
|leader4      = Erich Honecker
|year_leader4 = 1976–89
|leader5      = Egon Krenz
|year_leader5 = 1989
|leader6      = Manfred Gerlach
|year_leader6 = 1989–90
|leader7      = Sabine Bergmann-Pohl
|year_leader7 = 1990
|
|title_deputy = [[Leaders of East Germany|Chairman of the Council of Ministers]]
|deputy1      = Otto Grotewohl
|year_deputy1 = 1949–64
|deputy2      = Willi Stoph
|year_deputy2 = 1964–73
|deputy3      = Horst Sindermann
|year_deputy3 = 1973–76
|deputy4      = Willi Stoph
|year_deputy4 = 1976–89
|deputy5      = Hans Modrow
|year_deputy5 = 1989–90
|deputy6      = Lothar de Maizière
|year_deputy6 = 1990
|stat_area1   = 108333
|stat_pop1    = 16111000
|stat_year1   = 1990
|
|currency     = [[Mark der DDR]] (M)<small> until 30 June 1990, named:<br />1948–64 Deutsche Mark (DM)<br />1964–67 Mark der Deutschen Notenbank (MDN)</small><br />[[Deutsche Mark]] (DM)<small> as of 1 July 1990</small>
|today        = {{flag|Germany}}
}}

The '''[[German]] Democratic [[Republic]]''', abbreviated as '''GDR''' (in German: ''Deutsche Demokratische Republik'' or '''DDR'''), mistakenly known in [[English]] as '''East Germany''', was a [[communism|Communist state]] created by the [[Soviet Union]] in the western part of the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied [[Berlin]]. The GDR existed from 1949 until 1990, when its constituent states [[German reunification|acceded to]] the adjacent [[Federal Republic of Germany]] ([[West Germany]]), thus producing the current form of the state of [[Germany]].

==History==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1986-0417-414, Berlin, XI. SED-Parteitag, Eröffnung.png|thumb|285px|In the Palace of the Republic (''Palast der Republik''), the 11th Party Congress opened. The report of the Central Committee was delivered by [[Erich Honecker]], the General Secretary of the [[Socialist]] Unity Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic.]]
===The name===
The [[name]] '''[[East Germany]]''' was created after [[World War II]] by the occupiers of this part of Germany, the [[Soviet Union]]. The name is a forgery, since this area is historically the middle of Germany and not [[Eastern Germany]] (i.e: [[Pomerania]], [[East Prussia]], [[Silesia]], [[West Prussia]], [[Danzig]], etc.). Patriotic [[Germans]] call this area  [https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutschland ''Mitteldeutschland''] or  '''Middle Germany'''.

===Districts, not states===

After the Second World War, five provisional [[German states]] were set up as administrative units in the Soviet occupation zone by order of the Soviet military administration in Germany. Until the dissolution of Prussia in 1947, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg were also referred to as provinces. Sachsen-Anhalt, for example, was created on 21 July 1947 through the unification of the Free State of Anhalt with the Prussian provinces of Magdeburg and Halle-Merseburg, which the Free State of Prussia had created on 1 July 1944 by dividing its province of Saxony. The abolition of Prussia took place on 25 February 1947 through a decree of the Allied Control Council.

From 1949 onwards, the states of Mecklenburg (as of 25 February 1947 on order of the Soviets), Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thuringia (''Land Thüringen'') and Saxony formed the larger administrative units of the GDR. When the GDR was reorganized into districts (''Bezirke'') in 1952, the states lost their function. The districts formed the middle level of state administration between 1952 and 1990. The districts were comparable to the federal German [[government]] districts in terms of population, area and status. The districts had no [[political]] (sub-state) autonomy like a state of the Federal Republic of Germany and no [[self]]-government [[rights]] like a local authority. They had one purpose: To exercise central [[communist]] power from [[Berlin]] (in 1948 split into [[West Berlin]] and [[East Berlin]]) under the watchful eye of the Soviets. East Berlin was not officially a district, but had been given the function of a district since 1961. From north to south there were the following 14  districts:

#Rostock
#Schwerin
#Neubrandenburg 	
#	Potsdam 	
#	Frankfurt (Oder) 	
#	Magdeburg
#	Cottbus 	
#	Halle 
#	Leipzig 	
#	Erfurt 	
#	Dresden 	
#	[[Karl]]-Marx-Stadt<ref>At its beginning and end, the Karl-Marx-Stadt district was called the Chemnitz district for a short [[time]], based on the name of the city of Chemnitz, which was called Karl-Marx-Stadt from 10 May 1953 to 30 May  1990.</ref>
#	Gera 	
#	Suhl

On 22 July 1990, the freely elected [[People]]'s Chamber (''Volkskammer'') of the GDR decided to form the new or re-established five states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (''Meckelnburg-Vorpommern''), [[Brandenburg]], Saxony-Anhalt (''Saxon-Anhalt''), Thuringia (''Thüringen'') and Saxony (''Sachsen''). East Berlin was to become part of the federal state (''Bundesland'') of Berlin (actually a [[city-state]] or ''Stadtstaat''). With the formation of the new states, the GDR abolished a centralized state and transformed into a federal state. The structure therefore corresponds to the order of the Basic Law (''Grundgesetz''). On 3 October 1990, these "new states" (''neue Bundesländer'') [German partial unification were unified (through accession)] with the Federal Republic of Germany with its 10 (or eleven, when including West-Berlin) "old federal states" (''alte Bundesländer''), the country was now comprised of 16 German federal states or ''[[Bundesländer]]''.

===Politics===
In 1955, the wholly communist German Democratic Republic was declared by the [[Soviet Union]] to be "fully [[sovereignty|sovereign]]"; however, [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] troops remained. As [[NATO]] troops remained in [[West Berlin]] and West Germany, the DDR and [[Berlin]] in particular became focal points of [[Cold War]] tensions. Middle Germany (DDR) was a member of the [[Warsaw Pact]] and a puppet state of the [[Soviet Union]].

The "Freie Deutsche Jugend" (FDJ, Free German Youth) was the youth movement of the GDR. It was founded on 13 December 1948 and dissolved in 1989. Many considered the FDJ as a "communist [[Hitler Youth]]".

===STASI===
One of the more notorious operations in the DDR was the Ministry for State Security's secret police force (STASI), which was a secret [[intelligence]] service and organ for criminal investigations'. These latter investigations were, however, primarily political. The MfS had its own detention centres (jails) and its own armed forces, mirroring the [[Soviet Union]]'s [[NKVD]] and [[KGB]]. From 1957 until 1989 its head was [[Erich Mielke]] ([https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Mielke,_Erich de]), responsible for the erection of the Berlin Wall and countless executions, etc.<ref>''The Lives of [[Others]]'' a film trailer about the Stasi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsShZNHmpGE</ref>

===Military===
The army of the GDR was created in 1956 with the name of [[Nationale Volksarmee]] (NVA). After 1990, it was merged into the [[Bundeswehr]] (BW), although many officers were retired from [[German military]] service due to their strong communist and sovietophile background.

===Railways===
During the lifetime of the DDR its railways continued to use the pre-1945 name of the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn''.

===Fall of the Wall (''Mauerfall'')===
Following the October demonstrations and the initial opening of small sections of the [[Berlin Wall]] on 9 November 1989, new elections were held on 18 March, '''1990''', and the governing party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, lost its majority in the ''Volkskammer'' (the parliament of the DDR). On May 18, the two German states signed a treaty agreeing on monetary, economic, and [[social]] union. It came into force on July 1st, with the West German ''Deutsche Mark'' replacing the East German mark as the official currency.

===Reunification===
: See also: [[German partial unification]].
On 23 August '''1990''' the ''Volkskammer'' passed a resolution declaring the union, or accession (''Beitritt''), of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany, and the extension of the field of application of the Federal Republic's Basic Law to the territory of East Germany as allowed by article 23 of the West German Basic Law, effective 3 October 1990. This Declaration of Accession (''Beitrittserklärung'') was formally presented by the President of the Volkskammer to the President of the West German Bundestag by means of a letter dated '''25 August 1990'''. Thus, formally, the procedure of reunification by means of the union of so-called East Germany to West Germany, and of the former's acceptance of the Basic Law already in force in West Germany, was initiated as the unilateral, sovereign decision of the German Democratic Republic, as allowed by the provisions of article 23 of the West German Basic Law as it then existed. As a result of the [[German partial unification|part-unification]] on that date, the German Democratic Republic officially ceased to exist.

==Population==
[[File:Germany No to the Oder Niesse line.png|350px|thumb|right|Poster protesting against the illegal Oder border and the [[dismemberment of Germany]]]]
[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0116-013, Berlin, Stürmung Stasi-Zentrale.png|thumb|350px|East Germans invading the [[Stasi]] headquarters in the Normannenstraße (Lichtenberg) on 16 January 1990. The placard says that the [[Stasi]] and the [[Communist]] Socialist Unity Party of Germany are "Nazistic dictators".]]
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: right;"
|-
!
! width="70pt"|Average population (thousand)<ref>{{cite web |title=Population by area in 1,000 |url=https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/Population/CurrentPopulation/Tables_/lrbev03.html |website=DESTATIS – Statistisches Bundesamt |access-date=11 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811063442/https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/Population/CurrentPopulation/Tables_/lrbev03.html |archive-date=11 August 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>
! width="70pt"|Live births
! width="70pt"|Deaths
! width="70pt"|[[Natural]] change
! width="70pt"|Crude birth rate (per 1,000)
! width="70pt"|Crude death rate (per 1,000)
! width="70pt"|Natural change (per 1,000)
! width="70pt"|[[Total fertility rate]]
|-
| 1946
|
|188,679||413,240||style="color: red"|−224,561
|10.2||22.4||style="color: red"|−12.1||
|-
| 1947
|
|247,275||358,035||style="color: red"|−110,760
|13.1||19.0||style="color: red"|−5.9||1.75
|-
| 1948
|
|243,311||289,747||style="color: red"|−46,436
|12.7||15.2||style="color: red"|−2.4||1.76
|-
| 1949
|
|274,022||253,658||20,364
|14.5||13.4||style="color: red"|1.1||2.03
|-
| 1950
|18,388
|303,866||219,582||84,284
|16.5||11.9||4.6||style="color: blue"|2.35
|-
| 1951
|18,350
|310,772||208,800||101,972
|16.9||11.4||5.6||style="color: blue"|2.46
|-
| 1952
|18,300
|306,004||221,676||84,328
|16.6||12.1||4.6||style="color: blue"|2.42
|-
| 1953
|18,112
|298,933||212,627||86,306
|16.4||11.7||4.7||style="color: blue"|2.40
|-
| 1954
|18,002
|293,715||219,832||73,883
|16.3||12.2||4.1||style="color: blue"|2.38
|-
| 1955
|17,832
|293,280||214,066||79,215
|16.3||11.9||4.4||style="color: blue"|2.38
|-
| 1956
|17,604
|281,282||212,698||68,584
|15.8||12.0||3.9||style="color: blue"|2.30
|-
| 1957
|17,411
|273,327||225,179||48,148
|15.6||12.9||2.7||style="color: blue"|2.24
|-
| 1958
|17,312
|271,405||221,113||50,292
|15.6||12.7||2.9||style="color: blue"|2.22
|-
| 1959
|17,286
|291,980||229,898||62,082
|16.9||13.3||3.6||style="color: blue"|2.37
|-
| 1960
|17,188
|292,985||233,759||59,226
|16.9||13.5||3.4||style="color: blue"|2.35
|-
| 1961
|17,079
|300,818||222,739||78,079
|17.6||13.0||4.6||style="color: blue"|2.42
|-
| 1962
|17,136
|297,982||233,995||63,987
|17.4||13.7||3.7||style="color: blue"|2.42
|-
| 1963
|17,181
|301,472||222,001||79,471
|17.6||12.9||4.6||style="color: blue"|2.47
|-
| 1964
|17,004
|291,867||226,191||65,676
|17.1||13.3||3.9||style="color: blue"|2.48
|-
| 1965
|17,040
|281,058||230,254||50,804
|16.5||13.5||3.0||style="color: blue"|2.48
|-
| 1966
|17,071
|267,958||225,663||42,295
|15.7||13.2||2.5||style="color: blue"|2.43
|-
| 1967
|17,090
|252,817||227,068||25,749
|14.8||13.3||1.5||style="color: blue"|2.34
|-
| 1968
|17,087
|245,143||242,473||2,670
|14.3||14.2||0.1||style="color: blue"|2.30
|-
| 1969
|17,075
|238,910||243,732||style="color: red"|−4,822
|14.0||14.3||style="color: red"|−0.3||style="color: blue"|2.24
|-
| 1970
|17,068
|236,929||240,821||style="color: red"|−3,892
|13.9||14.1||style="color: red"|−0.2||style="color: blue"|2.19
|-
| 1971
|17,054
|234,870||234,953||style="color: red"|−83
|13.8||13.8||style="color: red"|−0.0||style="color: blue"|2.13
|-
| 1972
|17,011
|200,443||234,425||style="color: red"|−33,982
|11.7||13.7||style="color: red"|−2.0||1.79
|-
| 1973
|16,951
|180,336||231,960||style="color: red"|−51,624
|10.6||13.7||style="color: red"|−3.0||1.58
|-
| 1974
|16,891
|179,127||229,062||style="color: red"|−49,935
|10.6||13.5||style="color: red"|−3.0||1.54
|-
| 1975
|16,820
|181,798||240,389||style="color: red"|−58,591
|10.8||14.3||style="color: red"|−3.5||1.54
|-
| 1976
|16,767
|195,483||233,733||style="color: red"|−38,250
|11.6||13.9||style="color: red"|−2.3||1.64
|-
| 1977
|16,758
|223,152||226,233||style="color: red"|−3,081
|13.3||13.5||style="color: red"|−0.2||1.85
|-
| 1978
|16,751
|232,151||232,332||style="color: red"|−181
|13.9||13.9||style="color: red"|−0.0||1.90
|-
| 1979
|16,740
|235,233||232,742||2,491
|14.0||13.9||0.1||1.90
|-
| 1980
|16,740
|245,132||238,254||6,878
|14.6||14.2||0.4||1.94
|-
| 1981
|16,706
|237,543||232,244||5,299
|14.2||13.9||0.3||1.85
|-
| 1982
|16,702
|240,102||227,975||12,127
|14.4||13.7||0.7||1.86
|-
| 1983
|16,701
|233,756||222,695||11,061
|14.0||13.3||0.7||1.79
|-
| 1984
|16,660
|228,135||221,181||6,954
|13.6||13.2||0.4||1.74
|-
| 1985
|16,640
|227,648||225,353||2,295
|13.7||13.5||0.2||1.73
|-
| 1986
|16,640
|222,269||223,536||style="color: red"|−1,267
|13.4||13.5||style="color: red"|−0.1||1.70
|-
| 1987
|16,661
|225,959||213,872||12,087
|13.6||12.8||0.8||1.74
|-
| 1988
|16,675
|215,734||213,111||2,623
|12.9||12.8||0.1||1.67
|-
| 1989
|16,434
|198,992||205,711||style="color: red"|−6,789
|12.0||12.4||style="color: red"|−0.4||1.56
|-
| 1990
|16,028
|178,476||208,110||style="color: red"|−29,634
|11.1||12.9||style="color: red"|−1.8||style="color: red"|1.51
|-
| colspan="9" style="text-align: center;" | '''Source:'''<ref>{{cite web |title=Zusammenfassende Übersichten – Eheschließungen, Geborene und Gestorbene 1946 bis 2015 |url=https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelkerung/Bevoelkerungsbewegung/ZusammenEheschliessungenGeboreneGestorbene.html |publisher=DESTATIS – Statistisches Bundesamt |access-date=11 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811064452/https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelkerung/Bevoelkerungsbewegung/ZusammenEheschliessungenGeboreneGestorbene.html |archive-date=11 August 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>
|}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Nations]]
[[Category:Politics]]