View source for East Germany

{{Short description|Country in Central Europe (1949–1990)}}
{{Redirect|GDR}}
{{About|the country that existed from 1949 to 1990|the modern east of Germany|New states of Germany}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox former country
| native_name            = {{native_name|de|Deutsche Demokratische Republik}}
| conventional_long_name = German Democratic Republic
| common_name            = East Germany
| year_start             = 1949
| year_end               = 1990
| era                    = [[Cold War]]
| event_start            = {{nowrap|[[Constitution of East Germany#1949 constitution|Original constitution]]}}
| date_start             = 7 October
| event_end              = [[German reunification|Reunification]]
| date_end               = 3 October
| event1                 = [[East German uprising of 1953|1953 uprising]]
| date_event1            = 16 June 1953
| event2                 = [[Warsaw Pact]]
| date_event2            = 14 May 1955
| event3                 = Sovereignty recognized by the [[USSR]]{{efn|Date of abolition of the [[Soviet Control Commission in East Germany]], the last vestige of Soviet occupation, as part of the Soviet grant of the "full sovereignty" of the GDR. The Western allies did not recognize this grant of sovereignty.}}
| date_event3            = 20 September 1955
| event4                 = [[Berlin Crisis of 1961|Berlin Crisis]]
| date_event4            = 4 June 1961
| event5                 = [[Constitution of East Germany#1968 constitution|Socialist constitution]]
| date_event5            = 9 April 1968
| event6                 = [[Basic Treaty, 1972|Basic Treaty]] with the [[West Germany|FRG]]
| date_event6            = 21 December 1972
| event7                 = [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 335|Admitted]] to the [[United Nations|UN]]
| date_event7            = 18 September 1973
| event8                 = [[Peaceful Revolution]]
| date_event8            = 13 October 1989
| event9                 = [[Fall of the Berlin Wall]]
| date_event9            = 9 November 1989
| event10                = [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany|Final Settlement]]
| date_event10           = 12 September 1990
| event_post             = [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany|Full sovereignty of the united Germany]]
| date_post              = 15 March 1991
| p1                     = Soviet occupation zone in Germany
| flag_p1                = Flag of the Soviet Union (1924–1955).svg
| s1                     = History of Germany (1990–present){{!}}Federal Republic of Germany<br>(after reunification)
| flag_s1                = Flag of Germany.svg
| image_flag             = Flag of the German Democratic Republic.svg
| alt_flag               = Flag of East Germany
| flag_type              = [[Flag of East Germany|Flag]]<br/>(1959–1990)
| image_coat             = State arms of the German Democratic Republic.svg
| symbol_type            = [[National emblem of East Germany|Emblem]]<br/>(1955–1990)
| image_map              = {{Switcher|[[File:Europe-GDR (orthographic projection).svg|frameless]]|Show globe|[[File:East Germany 1956-1990.svg|frameless]]|Show map of Europe|default=1}}
| map_width              = 250px
| image_map_caption      = {{Map_caption|location_color=dark green|region=Europe|region_color=dark grey}}
| national_anthem        = {{lang|de|Auferstanden aus Ruinen|italics=yes}}<br/>"[[Auferstanden aus Ruinen|Risen from Ruins]]"<br/>
| anthem                 = Auferstanden aus Ruinen (instrumental, sample).mp3.ogg
| national_motto         = {{lang|de|Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!|italics=yes}}<br/>"[[Workers of the world, unite!]]"
| capital                = [[East Berlin]]{{efn|Partially recognised}}
| coordinates            = {{coord|52|31|N|13|24|E|type:city}}
| largest_city           = capital
| official_languages     = [[DDR German|German]]<br/>[[Sorbian languages|Sorbian]] (only in parts of [[Bezirk Dresden]] and [[Bezirk Cottbus]] districts)
| religion               = ''See [[#Religion|Religion in East Germany]]''
| status                 = [[Satellite state]] of the [[Soviet Union]] and member of the [[Warsaw Pact]]
| demonym                = {{hlist|East German|[[Germans|German]]}}
| government_type        = [[Communist state]]
| leader1                = [[Wilhelm Pieck]] and [[Otto Grotewohl]]{{efn|Jointly as Chairmen.}}
| leader2                = [[Walter Ulbricht]]
| leader3                = [[Erich Honecker]]
| leader4                = [[Egon Krenz]]
| year_leader1           = 1946–1950{{efn|The [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] was established in the [[Soviet occupation zone of Germany]], before the GDR's foundation.}}
| year_leader2           = 1950–1971
| year_leader3           = 1971–1989
| year_leader4           = 1989{{efn|October–December}}
| title_leader           = [[General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED Leader]]{{efn|The SED's leaders went by different names. Until 1950, there were two co-chairmen, after which the office of General Secretary, titled First Secretary between 1953 and 1976, was established. After the abolition of the SED's monopoly of power, its new leader, [[Gregor Gysi]], was no more leader of the state than any other party leader.}}
| representative1        = [[Wilhelm Pieck]]
| representative2        = [[Sabine Bergmann-Pohl]]
| year_representative1   = 1949–1960 (first)
| year_representative2   = 1990 (last)
| title_representative   = [[Heads of state of East Germany|Head of State]]
| deputy1                = [[Otto Grotewohl]]
| deputy2                = [[Lothar de Maizière]]
| year_deputy1           = 1949–1964 (first)
| year_deputy2           = 1990 (last)
| title_deputy           = [[Heads of Government of East Germany|Head of Government]]
| legislature            = {{lang|de|[[Volkskammer]]}}
| house1                 = {{lang|de|[[Chamber of States|Länderkammer]]}}{{efn|Dissolved by the {{lang|de|Volkskammer}} on 8 December 1958.}}
| type_house1            = [[Upper house]]
| stat_pop1              = 18,388,000{{efn|Population statistics according to {{lang|de|[[Statistisches Bundesamt]]}}.}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bevölkerungsstand |trans-title=Population level |url=https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/Indikatoren/LangeReihen/Bevoelkerung/lrbev03.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131113231041/https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/Indikatoren/LangeReihen/Bevoelkerung/lrbev03.html |archive-date=13 November 2013 |publisher=[[Statistisches Bundesamt]] |language=de}}</ref>
| stat_year1             = 1950
| stat_pop2              = 17,068,000
| stat_year2             = 1970
| stat_pop3              = 16,111,000
| stat_year3             = 1990
| population_density_km2 = 149
| area_km2               = 108,333<ref name=WID/>
| currency               = {{plainlist|
* [[East German mark]] (until 1 July 1990)
* {{lang|de|[[Deutsche Mark]]}} (from 1 July 1990)}}
| GDP_PPP                = $525.29 billion<ref name="WID">{{Cite web |title=GDR |url=https://wid.world/world/#agdpro_p0p100_z/DD/last/eu/k/p/yearly/a/false/6676.3185/35000/curve/false/country |publisher=World Inequality Database}}</ref>
| GDP_PPP_year           = 1989
| GDP_PPP_per_capita     = $26,631<ref name=WID/>
| GDP_nominal            = $160 billion
| GDP_nominal_year       = 1989
| GDP_nominal_per_capita = $9,679
| Gini                   = 18.5
| Gini_year              = 1990
| Gini_change            = 
| Gini_ref               = 
| HDI                    = 0.953
| HDI_ref                = <ref>{{Cite web |date=January 1990 |title=Human Development Report 1990 |url=http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/219/hdr_1990_en_complete_nostats.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202144055/http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/219/hdr_1990_en_complete_nostats.pdf |archive-date=2 February 2014 |website=hdr.undp.org}}</ref>
| HDI_year               = 1990 formula
| cctld                  = [[.dd]]{{efn|Although [[.dd]] was reserved as corresponding [[ISO 3166|ISO code]] for East Germany, it was not entered to the root before the country was reunited with the west.}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Top-Level-Domain .DD |url=http://internet.robert-scheck.de/tld-dd |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151104112107/http://internet.robert-scheck.de/tld-dd |archive-date=4 November 2015 |language=de}}</ref>
| iso3166code            = DD
| drives_on              = right
| calling_code           = [[Telephone numbers in the German Democratic Republic|37]]
| time_zone              = ([[Coordinated Universal Time|UTC]]+1)
| today                  = [[Germany]]
| footnotes              = From 1949 East and West Germany had identical flags, however, in 1959 a new [[Flag of East Germany|East German flag]] was promulgated which included the national emblem, thus distinguishing the two states.
}}

'''East Germany''',{{efn|{{langx|de|Ostdeutschland}} {{IPA|de|ˈɔstˌdɔʏtʃlant||De-Ostdeutschland.ogg}}.}} officially the '''German Democratic Republic''' ('''GDR'''),{{efn|{{langx|de|Deutsche Demokratische Republik|links=no}} {{IPA|de|ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʁaːtɪʃə ʁepuˈbliːk||De-Deutsche Demokratische Republik.ogg}}, {{lang|de|DDR}} {{IPA|de|ˌdeːdeːˈʔɛʁ||De-DDR.ogg}}.}} was a country in [[Central Europe]] from [[Foundation of East Germany|its formation]] on 7 October 1949 until [[German reunification|its reunification]] with [[West Germany]] (Federal Republic of Germany) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a [[communist state]] and described itself as a [[Socialist state (communism)|socialist workers' and peasants' state]].<ref name="MajorOsmond">{{Cite book |last1=Major |first1=Patrick |author-link1=Patrick Major |title=The Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany Under Ulbricht 1945–71 |last2=Osmond |first2=Jonathan |date=2002 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7190-6289-6}}</ref> The [[Economy of East Germany|economy of the country]] was [[Central planning|centrally planned]] and [[government-owned corporation|state-owned]].{{Sfn|Quint|1991|pp=125–126}} Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the [[Soviet Union]], its economy became the most successful in the [[Eastern Bloc]].<ref name="Econ stats">{{Cite news |date=27 February 1989 |title=German Democratic Republic: long history of sustained economic growth continues; 1989 may be an advantageous year to consider this market |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1052/is_n4_v110/ai_7373809 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109185421/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1052/is_n4_v110/ai_7373809 |archive-date=9 November 2007 |access-date=2 October 2007 |work=Business America}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Mauk |first=Ben |date=2014-11-06 |title=Did Eastern Germany Experience an Economic Miracle? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/eastern-germany-experience-economic-miracle |access-date=2025-10-28 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=East Germany – IWH Halle |url=https://www.iwh-halle.de/en/topics/east-germany |access-date=2025-10-28 |website=www.iwh-halle.de}}</ref>

Before its establishment, the country's territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the [[Berlin Declaration (1945)|Berlin Declaration]] abolishing German sovereignty in [[World War II]]. The [[Potsdam Agreement]] established the [[Soviet occupation zone in Germany|Soviet-occupied zone]], bounded on the east by the [[Oder–Neisse line|Oder–Neiße line]]. The GDR was dominated by the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] (SED), a [[communist party]], before being democratized and liberalized amid the [[revolutions of 1989]]; this paved the way for East Germany's reunification with West Germany. Unlike the government of West Germany, the SED did not see its state as the successor to the [[German Reich]] (1871–1945). In [[Constitution of East Germany#1974 amendments|1974]], it abolished the goal of unification in the constitution. The SED-ruled GDR was often described as a [[Soviet satellite state]];<ref>{{Interlanguage link|lt=Erdmann, Karl Dietrich|Karl Dietrich Erdmann|de}}, [[Jürgen Kocka|Kocka, Jürgen]], [[Wolfgang J. Mommsen|Mommsen, Wolfgang J.]], {{Interlanguage link|lt=Blänsdorf, Agnes|Agnes Blänsdorf|de}}. ''Towards a Global Community of Historians: the International Historical Congresses and the International Committee of Historical Sciences 1898–2000''. [[Berghahn Books]], 2005, p.&nbsp;314. ("[...] Soviet satellite regimes in East-Central Europe, including the German Democratic Republic, [...]")</ref> historians describe it as an [[authoritarian]] regime.<ref name="UPNE">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j8mo4uP3SQMC&pg=PA37 |title=Civil Society & Dictatorship in Modern German History |publisher=UPNE |date=2010 |isbn=978-1-58465-866-5 |editor-last=Kocka |editor-first=Jürgen |editor-link=Jürgen Kocka |page=37 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150320043228/http://books.google.com/books?id=j8mo4uP3SQMC&pg=PA37 |archive-date=20 March 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Geographically, the GDR bordered the [[Baltic Sea]] to the north, [[Polish People's Republic|Poland]] to the east, [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] to the southeast, and West Germany to the west. Internally, the GDR bordered [[East Berlin]], the Soviet sector of [[Allied occupation of Berlin|Allied-occupied Berlin]], which was also administered as the country's ''de facto'' capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom, and France, known collectively as [[West Berlin]] (''de facto'' part of the FRG). Emigration to the [[Western Bloc|West]] was a significant problem; as many emigrants were well-educated young people, this trend economically [[human capital flight|weakened]] the state. In response, the GDR government fortified its [[inner German border]] and built the [[Berlin Wall]] in 1961.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Preuss |first=Evelyn |title=The Wall You Will Never Know |url=https://www.academia.edu/17812963 |journal=[[Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal]] |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |pages=19–31}}</ref> Many people [[escape attempts and victims of the inner German border|attempting to flee]]<ref>{{Cite web |date=23 January 1953 |title=Three Top Commies Flee East Germany |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7n0cAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zWQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2806%2C3656351 |access-date=21 November 2019 |website=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |pages=1–2 |via=[[Google News]]}}; {{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19630531&id=gAhPAAAAIBAJ&pg=829,2069647&hl=en |title=5 Flee East Germany |work=[[Toledo Blade]] |via=Google News |date=31 May 1963 |access-date=21 November 2019}}; {{cite web |title=Eugene Register-Guard – Google News Archive Search |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19631028&id=EBlWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BeMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=945,4687254&hl=en |access-date=2021-04-26 |website=news.google.com}}</ref> were killed by border guards or [[booby trap]]s such as [[landmine]]s.<ref>{{Cite web |date=28 July 1992 |title=Files: 350 dies trying to flee East Germany |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=19920728&id=D0lSAAAAIBAJ&pg=880,639718&hl=en |access-date=21 November 2019 |website=[[The Victoria Advocate]] |via=Google News}}</ref>

In 1989, numerous social, economic, and political forces in the GDR and abroad—one of the most notable being peaceful protests starting in the city of [[Leipzig]]—led to the [[fall of the Berlin Wall]] and the establishment of a government committed to liberalization. The following year, [[1990 East German general election|a free and fair election]] was held in the country,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pridham |first1=Geoffrey |title=Democratization in Eastern Europe |last2=Vanhanen |first2=Tatu |author-link2=Tatu Vanhanen |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=1994 |isbn=0-415-11063-7 |page=135}}</ref> and international negotiations between the four former Allied countries and the two German states commenced. The negotiations led to the signing of the [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany|Final Settlement treaty]], which replaced the Potsdam Agreement on the status and borders of a future, reunited Germany. The GDR ceased to exist when its five states ("Länder") joined the Federal Republic of Germany under Article 23 of the [[Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany|Basic Law]], and its capital East Berlin united with West Berlin on 3 October 1990. Several of the GDR's leaders, notably its last communist leader [[Egon Krenz]], were later prosecuted for offenses committed during the GDR era.<ref>{{Cite news |date=29 August 1997 |title=Repeal the racist asylum laws |url=http://www.newworker.org/nw29897.htm#international |access-date=5 September 2011 |work=[[The New Worker]]}}; {{cite news |url=http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2000/0907/none/0093/index.html |title=Krenz, Schabowski und Kleiber hatten sich nichts mehr zu sagen |trans-title=Krenz, Schabowski and Kleiber had nothing more to say to each other |language=de |work=[[Berliner Zeitung]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120719120957/http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2000/0907/none/0093/index.html |date=31 May 2008 |archive-date=19 July 2012 |access-date=5 September 2011}}</ref>

== Naming conventions ==
The official name was {{lang|de|Deutsche Demokratische Republik}} ('German Democratic Republic'), usually abbreviated to ''DDR'' (GDR). Both terms were used in East Germany, with increasing usage of the abbreviated form, especially since East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners to be foreigners following the promulgation of its [[Constitution of East Germany (1968)|second constitution]] in 1968. West Germans, the western media, and statesmen initially avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like ''Ostzone'' ('Eastern Zone'),<ref name="zeit49">{{Cite news |last=Berlin Korrespondent |date=June 1949 |title=Nationale Front in der Ostzone |trans-title=National Front in the Eastern Zone |url=http://www.zeit.de/1949/22/nationale-front-in-der-ostzone |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111023236/http://www.zeit.de/1949/22/nationale-front-in-der-ostzone |archive-date=11 November 2013 |access-date=10 May 2013 |work=[[Die Zeit]] |language=de}}</ref> {{lang|de|Sowjetische Besatzungszone}} ('[[Soviet occupation zone in Germany|Soviet Occupation Zone']]; often abbreviated to ''SBZ''), and {{lang|de|sogenannte DDR}}<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 October 1968 |title=Vom Sogenannten |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45935352.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160203124606/http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45935352.html |archive-date=3 February 2016 |work=[[Der Spiegel]] |page=65}}</ref> ('so-called GDR').<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9gQMAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA20 |title=Facts about Germany: The Federal Republic of Germany, 1959 – Germany (West) |date=1959 |page=20 |access-date=16 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221170436/https://books.google.com/books?id=9gQMAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA20 |archive-date=21 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In the West, the centre of political power in East Berlin was referred to as ''[[Pankow]]'' (the seat of command of the Soviet forces in Germany was in [[Karlshorst]], a district in the East of Berlin).<ref name="zeit49"/> Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also increasingly used colloquially by West Germans and West German media.{{efn|The use of the abbreviation ''BRD'' (FRG) for West Germany, the {{lang|de|Bundesrepublik Deutschland}} (''Federal Republic of Germany''), on the other hand, was never accepted in West Germany since it was considered a political statement. Thus ''BRD'' (FRG) was a term used by East Germans, or by West Germans who held a pro-East-German view. Colloquially, West Germans called West Germany simply Germany (reflecting West Germany's claim to represent the whole of Germany), or alternatively the {{lang|de|Bundesrepublik}} or {{lang|de|Bundesgebiet}} (Federal Republic or Federal Territory, respectively), referring to the country and {{lang|de|Bundesbürger}} (Federal citizen) for its citizens, with the adjective {{lang|de|bundesdeutsch}} (Federal German).}}

When used by West Germans, the term {{lang|de|Westdeutschland}} ('West Germany') almost always referred to the geographic region of [[Western Germany]] and not to the area within the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, this use was not always consistent and West Berliners frequently used the term {{lang|de|Westdeutschland}} to denote the Federal Republic.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wildenthal |first=Lora|author-link=Lora Wildenthal |title=The Language of Human Rights in West Germany |page=210}}</ref> Before World War II, {{lang|de|Ostdeutschland}} ('East Germany') was used to describe all the territories east of the [[Elbe]] ([[East Elbia]]), as reflected in the works of sociologist [[Max Weber]] and political theorist [[Carl Schmitt]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cornfield |first1=Daniel B. |title=Worlds of Work: Building an International Sociology of Work |last2=Hodson |first2=Randy |date=2002 |publisher=Springer |isbn=0-306-46605-8 |pages=223}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pollak |first=Michael |date=2005 |title=Ein Text in seinem Kontext |trans-title=A text in its context |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251114867 |journal=Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie |language=de |volume=30 |pages=3–21 |doi=10.1007/s11614-006-0033-6 |issn=1011-0070 |s2cid=147022466}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Baranowski |first=Shelley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cfeX8QS7DeMC&pg=PA187 |title=The Sanctity of Rural Life: Nobility, Protestantism, and Nazism in Weimar Prussia |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1995 |isbn=978-0-19-536166-7 |pages=187–188 |access-date=16 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191201040241/https://books.google.de/books?id=cfeX8QS7DeMC&pg=PA187 |archive-date=1 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schmitt |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Schmitt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sx0uDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 |title=Political Romanticism |date=2017 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-351-49869-2 |page=11 |access-date=16 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191223111735/https://books.google.de/books?id=Sx0uDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 |archive-date=23 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>"Each spring, millions of workmen from all parts of western Russia arrived in eastern Germany, which, in political language, is called East Elbia." from ''The Stronghold of Junkerdom'', by [[George Sylvester Viereck]]. Viereck's, Volume 8. Fatherland Corporation, 1918.</ref>

== History ==
{{History of Germany}}
{{Main|History of East Germany}}

{{Further|History of Germany}}

[[File:Soviet Sector Germany.png|thumb|On the basis of the [[Potsdam Conference]], the Allies jointly occupied Germany west of the [[Oder–Neisse line]]. This territory later became two independent countries.<br/>''Light grey'': territories annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union.<br/>''Dark grey'': West Germany (formed from the US, UK, and French occupation zones, including [[West Berlin]]).<br/>''Red'': East Germany (formed from the Soviet occupation zone, including [[East Berlin]]).]]

Explaining the internal impact of the GDR government from the perspective of German history in the long term, historian [[Gerhard A. Ritter]] (2002) has argued that two dominant forces defined the East German state: [[Soviet communism]] on the one hand, and German traditions filtered through the interwar experiences of German communists on the other.<ref>Compare: {{Cite journal |last=Ritter |first=Gerhard A. |author-link=Gerhard A. Ritter |date=April 2002 |title=Die DDR in der deutschen Geschichte |trans-title=The GDR in German history |url=https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2002_2_2_ritter.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |language=de |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=171–172 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116143839/https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2002_2_2_ritter.pdf |archive-date=16 November 2019 |access-date=16 November 2019 |quote=Die Geschichte der DDR ist im wesentlichen zwischen zwei Polen einzubetten. Den einen Pol bildet die Sowjetisierung [...] Den anderen Pol bildeten deutsche Traditionen, vor allem die Vorstellungen der kommunistischen Arbeiterbewegung. |trans-quote=The history of the GDR is essentially embedded between two poles. Sovietization formed one pole [...] German traditions formed the other pole, above all the ideas of the communist workers' movement.}}</ref> Throughout its existence, the GDR consistently grappled with the influence of the more prosperous West, against which East Germans continually measured their own nation. The notable transformations instituted by the communist regime were particularly evident in the abolition of capitalism, the overhaul of industrial and agricultural sectors, the militarization of society, and the political orientation of both the [[Education in East Germany|educational system]] and the media.

On the other hand, the new regime made relatively few changes in the historically independent domains of the sciences, the engineering professions,<ref name="ritter2"/>{{rp|185–189}} the Protestant churches,<ref name="ritter2"/>{{rp|190}} and in many bourgeois lifestyles.<ref name="ritter2"/>{{rp|190}} Social policy, says Ritter, became a critical legitimization tool in the last decades and mixed socialist and traditional elements about equally.<ref name="ritter2">{{Cite journal |last=Ritter |first=Gerhard A. |author-link=Gerhard A. Ritter |date=April 2002 |title=Die DDR in der deutschen Geschichte |trans-title=The GDR in German history |url=https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2002_2_2_ritter.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |language=de |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=171–200 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116143839/https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2002_2_2_ritter.pdf |archive-date=16 November 2019 |access-date=16 November 2019 |quote=In der Sozialpolitik hielten sich die Kontinuitäten und die Brüche mit der deutschen Tradition etwa die Waage. [...] Seit Mitte der sechziger Jahre, vor allem aber in der Ära Honecker, in der die 'Einheit von Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik' zum Leitprinzip erhoben wurde, wurde die Sozialpolitik die wohl wichtigste Legitimationsgrundlage des Staates.}}</ref>

=== Origins ===
At the [[Yalta Conference]] during World War II, the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]]{{Snd}}the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and the Soviet Union (USSR){{Snd}}agreed to divide defeated [[Nazi Germany]] into [[Allied-occupied Germany|occupation zones]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Yalta Conference |url=http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWyalta.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514081136/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWyalta.htm |archive-date=14 May 2011 |access-date=25 September 2010 |website=spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk}}</ref> as well as divide [[Berlin]], the German capital, among the Allied powers. Initially, this meant the formation of three zones of occupation (i.e., American, British, and Soviet). Later, a French zone was carved out of the US and British zones.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information |first=Bureau of Public Affairs |date=2008-07-18 |title=Allied Occupation of Germany, 1945-52 |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/107189.htm |access-date=2024-09-22 |website=2001-2009.state.gov |language=en}}</ref>

=== 1949 establishment ===
{{main|Foundation of East Germany}}

{{Eastern Bloc sidebar}}

The ruling communist party, known as the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] (SED), formed on 21 April 1946 from [[Merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany|the merger]] between the [[Communist Party of Germany]] (KPD) and the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD).<ref>On the discussion about Social Democrats joining the SED see Steffen Kachel, Entscheidung für die SED 1946 – ein Verrat an sozialdemokratischen Idealen?, in: ''[[Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung]]'', No. I/2004.{{date?}}</ref> The two former parties had previously been notorious rivals before the Nazis consolidated all power and criminalized both of them. Official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by the socialist parties and as symbolic of the new friendship of German socialists after defeating their common enemy.<ref name=":4"/> However, there is much evidence that the merger was more troubled than was commonly portrayed; that the Soviet occupation authorities applied great pressure on the SPD's eastern branch to merge with the KPD; and the communists, who held a majority, had virtually total control over policy.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |author=Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland |title=LeMO Kapitel: Zwangsvereinigung zur SED |trans-title=LeMO Chapter: Forced Association to the SED |url=http://www.hdg.de/lemo/html/Nachkriegsjahre/PolitischerNeubeginn/sed.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120614213527/http://www.hdg.de/lemo/html/Nachkriegsjahre/PolitischerNeubeginn/sed.html |archive-date=14 June 2012 |access-date=15 July 2012 |website=hdg.de |language=de}}</ref> The SED remained the dominant party for the entire duration of the East German state. It had close ties with the Soviets, which maintained [[Group of Soviet Forces in Germany|military forces in East Germany]] until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 ([[Russia]] continued to maintain forces in the territory of the former East Germany until 1994), with the purpose of countering [[NATO]] bases in West Germany.

As West Germany was reorganized and gained independence from its occupiers (1945–1949), the GDR was established in eastern Germany in October 1949. The emergence of the two sovereign states solidified the 1945 division of Germany.<ref>See [http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/lect17.htm Anna M. Cienciala "History 557 Lecture Notes"] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100620054515/http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/lect17.htm |date= 20 June 2010}}</ref> On 10 March 1952 (in what would become known as the "[[Stalin Note]]"), the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], [[Joseph Stalin]], issued 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steininger |first=Rolf |author-link=Rolf Steininger |title=The German Question: The Stalin Note of 1952 and the Problem of Reunification |date=1990 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |location=New York}}</ref> The West demurred; reunification was not then a priority for the [[leadership]] of West Germany, and the NATO powers declined the proposal, asserting that Germany should be able to join [[NATO]] and that such a negotiation with the Soviet Union would be seen as a capitulation.

In October 7th, 1949 the Germany Democratic Republic was [[Foundation of East Germany|formally established]] and the Soviets Military Administration turned control of East Germany over to the SED, headed by [[Wilhelm Pieck]] (1876–1960), who became [[President of East Germany|President of the GDR]] and held the office until his death, while the [[First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED general secretary]] [[Walter Ulbricht]] assumed most executive authority. Socialist leader [[Otto Grotewohl]] (1894–1964) became [[Council of Ministers of East Germany|prime minister]] until his death.<ref>Roth, Gary. "Review of Hoffmann, Dierk: ''Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964): Eine politische Biographie''" H-German, H-Net Reviews. November 2010. [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31618 online] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121017042506/https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31618 |date = 17 October 2012}}</ref>

The government of East Germany denounced West German failures in accomplishing [[denazification]] and renounced ties to the [[Nazism|Nazi]] past, imprisoning many former Nazis and preventing them from holding government positions. The SED set a primary goal of ridding East Germany of all traces of Nazism.<ref>Gomez Gutiérrez, J.J. & Bruschi, V. (2003). "Socialist Unity Party of Germany". In N. Schlager (Ed.), ''St. James Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide: Major Events in Labor History and Their Impact.'' St. James Press.</ref> It is estimated that{{when|date=December 2020}} between 180,000 and 250,000 people were sentenced to imprisonment on political grounds.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Political prisoners in the German Democratic Republic |url=https://communistcrimes.org/en/political-prisoners-german-democratic-republic |access-date=24 November 2020 |website=Political prisoners in the German Democratic Republic {{!}} Communist Crimes |language=en}}</ref>

=== Zones of occupation ===
{{Further|Allied-occupied Germany|Soviet occupation zone of Germany}}

In the Yalta and [[Potsdam Conference|Potsdam]] conferences of 1945, 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 occupation|military government]] effective until the restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (''Sowjetische Besatzungszone'', SBZ) comprised the five states (''Länder'') of [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]], [[Brandenburg]], [[Saxony]], [[Saxony-Anhalt]], and [[Thuringia]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peterson |first=Edward N. |author-link=Edward N. Peterson |title=Russian Commands and German Resistance: The Soviet Occupation, 1945–1949 |date=1999 |publisher=P. Lang |isbn=0-8204-3948-7 |location=New York |pages=5 |oclc=38207545}}</ref> 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 instituted a separate socialist government in its zone.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peterson |first=Edward N. |author-link=Edward N. Peterson |title=Russian Commands and German Resistance: The Soviet Occupation, 1945–1949 |date=1999 |publisher=P. Lang |isbn=0-8204-3948-7 |location=New York |oclc=38207545}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stokes |first=Raymond G. |author-link=Raymond G. Stokes |title=Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany 1945–1990 |date=2000 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |isbn=0-8018-7299-5 |location=Baltimore |oclc=51480817}}</ref>

[[File:Deutschland Bundeslaender 1949.png|thumb|left|upright|West Germany (blue) comprised the Western Allies' zones, excluding disputed [[Saar (protectorate)|Saarland]] (purple); the Soviet zone, East Germany (red) surrounded West Berlin (yellow).]]

Seven years after the Allies' 1945 [[Potsdam Agreement]] on common German policies, the USSR via the [[Stalin Note]] (10 March 1952) proposed [[German reunification]] and [[superpower disengagement]] from Central Europe, which the three Western Allies (US, UK, France) rejected.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ruggenthaler |first=Peter |date=2011 |title=The 1952 Stalin Note on German Unification: The Ongoing Debate |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26924047 |journal=Journal of Cold War Studies |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=172–212 |doi=10.1162/JCWS_a_00145 |issn=1520-3972 |jstor=26924047|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]], a Communist proponent of reunification, died in early March 1953. Similarly, [[Lavrenty Beria]], the First Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR, pursued German reunification but was removed from power that same year 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 was off the table until the [[Fall of the Berlin Wall|fall of the Berlin wall]] in 1989.

[[File:West and East Berlin.svg|thumb|Map of West and East Berlin bisected by the Berlin Wall]]

East Germany regarded East Berlin as its capital, and the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc diplomatically recognized East Berlin as the capital. However, the Western Allies disputed this recognition, and considered the entire city of Berlin to be [[military occupation|occupied territory]] governed by the ACC. According to Margarete Feinstein, the West and most [[Third World]] countries largely unrecognized East Berlin's status as the capital.<ref name="German Democratic Republic page 78">{{Cite book |last=Feinstein |first=Margarete Myers |title=State Symbols: The Quest for Legitimacy in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, 1949–1959 |date=2001 |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |isbn=9780391041035 |page=78 |quote=... claims of East Berlin as the capital of the GDR, ... East Berlin was not recognized by the West and most Third World countries.}}</ref> In practice, the [[Cold War]] nullified the ACC's authority, East Berlin's status as occupied territory largely became a [[legal fiction]], and the Soviet sector of Berlin fully integrated into the GDR.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Fulbrook |first1=Mary |author-link1=Mary Fulbrook |title=Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities after Hitler |author2-link=Andrew Ian Port |last2=Port |first2=Andrew I. |publisher=Berghahn Books |date=2013 |isbn=9780857459756}}</ref>

The deepening Cold War conflict between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union over the unresolved status of West Berlin led to the [[Berlin Blockade]] (24 June 1948{{snd}}12 May 1949). The Soviet army initiated the blockade by halting 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 West Berlin.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Haydock |first=Michael D. |title=City Under Siege: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948–1949 |date=2000}}</ref>

=== Partition ===

On 21 April 1946 the [[Communist Party of Germany]] ({{lang|de|Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands}}; KPD) and the part of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] ({{lang|de|Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands}}; SPD) in the Soviet zone merged to form the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] ({{lang|de| Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands}}; SED), which then won the [[1946 Soviet occupation zone state elections|elections of October 1946]]. The SED government [[nationalization|nationalised]] infrastructure and industrial plants.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-19000-3301, Berlin, DDR-Gründung, Wahl Pieck, Grotewohl.jpg|thumb|left|GDR leaders: President [[Wilhelm Pieck]] and Prime Minister [[Otto Grotewohl]], 1949]]

In March 1948 the [[German Economic Commission]] ({{lang|de|Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission}}; DWK) under its chairman [[Heinrich Rau]] assumed administrative authority in the Soviet occupation zone, thus becoming the predecessor of the East German government.<ref>{{Harvnb|Weitz|1997|p=350}} Following a Soviet order in February 1948, the German Economic Commission became a nascent state structure for all intents and purposes, with competence far beyond the economy proper; it gained the power to issue orders and directives to all German organs within the Soviet Occupation Zone.</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|McCauley|1983|p=38}} The DWK had become the ''de facto'' government of the Soviet zone. Its chairman was Heinrich Rau (SED), and four of his six deputies were also SED members.</ref>

On 7 October 1949 the SED established the German Democratic Republic ({{lang|de|Deutsche Demokratische Republik}}; GDR), based on a socialist political constitution establishing its control of the [[anti-Fascism|Anti-Fascist]] [[National Front (East Germany)|National Front of the German Democratic Republic]] ({{lang|de|Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik}}; NF), an omnibus alliance of every party and mass organisation in East Germany. The NF was established to stand for election to the [[People's Chamber]] ({{lang|de|Volkskammer}}), the East German parliament. The first and only president of the German Democratic Republic was [[Wilhelm Pieck]]. However, after 1950, political power in East Germany was held by the First Secretary of the SED, [[Walter Ulbricht]].<ref name="MajorOsmond"/>

[[File:Opvolger van Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, Bestanddeelnr 911-5926 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright| SED First Secretary, [[Walter Ulbricht]], 1960]]

On 16 June 1953, workers constructing the new {{lang|de|[[Stalinallee]]}} boulevard in East Berlin, according to the GDR's officially promulgated [[The Sixteen Principles of Urban Design|Sixteen Principles of Urban Design]], rioted against a 10% production-quota increase. Initially a labour protest, the action soon included the general populace, and on 17 June similar protests occurred throughout the GDR, with more than a million people [[general strike|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 Germany|Soviet Occupation Forces]] to aid the police in ending the riot; some fifty people were killed and 10,000 were jailed (see [[Uprising of 1953 in East Germany]]).{{Clarify|reason=I don't understand the transition between the previous paragraph and this one.|date=January 2020}}<ref>[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,894998,00.html East Berlin 17 June 1953: Stones Against Tanks] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110123034004/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,894998,00.html |date= 23 January 2011}}, {{Lang|de|Deutsche Welle}}. Retrieved 16 May 2007.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=1975 |title=Beria's Fall and Ulbricht's Survival |journal=[[Soviet Studies]] |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=381–395 |doi=10.1080/09668137508411013 |author-first=Victor |author-last=Baras}}</ref>

The German [[war reparations]] owed to the Soviets impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. During 1945–46 the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plants, and by the early 1950s had extracted some US$10&nbsp;billion in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.<ref name="Norman M. Naimark 1949, pp. 167-9">[[Norman M. Naimark]]. ''The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949.'' Harvard University Press, 1995. {{ISBN| 0-674-78405-7}} pp.&nbsp;167–169.</ref> The poverty of East Germany, induced or deepened by reparations, provoked the {{lang|de|[[Republikflucht]]}} ("desertion from the republic") to West Germany, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities induced a [[brain drain]]. In response, the GDR closed the [[inner German border]], and on the night of 12 August 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the [[Berlin Wall]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Frederick |author-link=Frederick Taylor (historian) |title=Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961–1989 |date=2006 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=9780060786137}}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R1220-401, Erich Honecker (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright| [[Erich Honecker]], head of state (1971–1989)]]

In 1971, Ulbricht was removed from leadership after Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]] supported his ouster;<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Allinson |first1=Mark |author-link1=Mark Allinson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=osIeBAAAQBAJ |title=Contemporary Germany: Essays and Texts on Politics, Economics & Society |last2=Leaman |first2=Jeremy |last3=Parkes |first3=Stuart |last4=Tolkiehn |first4=Barbara |date=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-87977-0 |location=London and New York |page=39 |language=de |access-date=10 August 2021}}</ref> [[Erich Honecker]] replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reforms, the Honecker government reversed them. The new government introduced a new [[East German Constitution]] which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants".<ref>{{Cite journal |date=December 1979 |title=Soviet-GDR Relations in the Honecker Era |journal=East Central Europe |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=152–172 |doi=10.1163/187633079X00150 |author-first=Henry |author-last=Krisch}}</ref>

Initially, East Germany claimed an [[exclusive mandate]] for all of Germany, a claim supported by most of the Communist Bloc. It claimed that West Germany was an illegally constituted [[puppet state]] of NATO. However, from the 1960s onward, East Germany began recognizing itself as a separate country from West Germany and shared the legacy of the [[German Reich|united German state of 1871–1945]]. This was formalized in 1974 when the reunification clause was removed from the revised East German constitution. West Germany, in contrast, maintained that it was the only legitimate government 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-state and frequently referred to it as the "Soviet occupation zone". West Germany's allies shared this position until 1973. East Germany was recognized primarily by socialist countries and the [[Arab bloc|Arab Bloc]], along with some "scattered sympathizers".<ref name="time">{{Cite magazine |date=1 January 1973 |title=East Germany: The Price of Recognition |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,903634,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111218025533/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,903634,00.html |archive-date=18 December 2011 |access-date=21 October 2011 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|TIME]]}}</ref> According to the [[Hallstein Doctrine]] (1955), West Germany did not establish (formal) diplomatic ties with any country{{snd}}except the Soviets{{snd}}that recognized East German sovereignty.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-P0801-026, Helsinki, KSZE-Konferenz, Schlussakte.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb| Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) [[Helmut Schmidt]], Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) [[Erich Honecker]], U.S. president [[Gerald Ford]] and Austrian chancellor [[Bruno Kreisky]] signing the [[Helsinki Accords|Helsinki Act]]]]

In the early 1970s, the {{lang|de|[[Ostpolitik]]}} ('Eastern Policy') of "Change Through Rapprochement" of the pragmatic government of [[West Germany|FRG]] [[Chancellor of Germany|Chancellor]] [[Willy Brandt]], established normal diplomatic relations with the [[Eastern Bloc]] states. This policy saw the [[Treaty of Moscow (1970)|Treaty of Moscow]] (August 1970), the [[Treaty of Warsaw (1970)|Treaty of Warsaw]] (December 1970), the [[Four Power Agreement on Berlin]] (September 1971), the [[Transit Agreement (1972)|Transit Agreement]] (May 1972), and the [[Basic Treaty (1972)|Basic Treaty]] (December 1972), which relinquished any separate claims to an [[exclusive mandate]] over Germany as a whole and established normal relations between the two Germanies. Both countries were admitted into the United Nations on 18 September 1973. This also increased the number of countries recognizing East Germany to 55, including the US, UK and France, though these 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 effect.<ref name="time"/> Following the Ostpolitik, West Germany viewed East Germany as a ''de facto'' government within a single German nation and a ''de jure'' state organisation of parts of Germany outside the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic continued to maintain that it could not within its own structures recognize the GDR ''de jure'' as a sovereign state under international law; but it fully acknowledged that, within the structures of international law, the GDR was an independent sovereign state. By distinction, West Germany then viewed itself as being within its own boundaries, not only the ''de facto'' and ''de jure'' government, but also the sole ''de jure'' legitimate representative of a dormant "Germany as whole".{{Sfn|Quint|1991|p=14}} The two German governments each relinquished any claim to represent the other internationally, which they acknowledged as necessarily implying a mutual recognition of each other as both capable of representing their own populations ''de jure'' in participating in international bodies and agreements, such as the [[United Nations]] and the [[Helsinki Accords|Helsinki Final Act]].

This assessment of the Basic Treaty was confirmed in a decision of the [[Federal Constitutional Court]] in 1973:<ref>{{Citation |last=Kommers |first=Donald P. |title=The Constitutional Jursiprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany |page=308 |date=2012 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]]}}</ref>

{{blockquote|the German Democratic Republic is in the international-law sense a State and as such a subject of international law. This finding is independent of recognition in international law of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such recognition has not only never been formally pronounced by the Federal Republic of Germany but on the contrary repeatedly explicitly rejected. If the conduct of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the German Democratic Republic is assessed in the light of its détente policy, in particular, the conclusion of the Treaty as de facto recognition, then it can only be understood as de facto recognition of a special kind. The special feature of this Treaty is that while it is a bilateral Treaty between two States, to which the rules of international law apply and which like any other international treaty possesses validity, it is between two States that are parts of a still existing, albeit incapable of action as not being reorganized, comprehensive State of the Whole of Germany with a single body politic.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Texas Law: Foreign Law Translations 1973 |url=https://law.utexas.edu/transnational/foreign-law-translations/german/case.php?id=589 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220152049/https://law.utexas.edu/transnational/foreign-law-translations/german/case.php?id=589 |archive-date=20 December 2016 |access-date=7 December 2016 |publisher=[[University of Texas]]}}</ref>}}

Travel between the GDR and Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary became visa-free from 1972.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zuelow |first=Eric G. E. |title=Touring Beyond the Nation: A Transnational Approach to European Tourism History |date=2011 |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |isbn=978-0-7546-6656-1 |page=220}}</ref>

=== GDR identity ===
[[File:Karl Marx memorial.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Karl Marx]] monument in [[Chemnitz]] (renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt 1953–1990)]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1982-0816-002, Leipzig, Karl-Marx-Platz, Brunnen.jpg|right|thumb|[[City-Hochhaus Leipzig|Uni-Riese]] ("University Giant") in 1982. Built in 1972, it was once part of the [[University of Leipzig|Karl-Marx-University]] and is Leipzig's tallest building.]]

From the beginning, the newly formed GDR tried to establish its own separate identity.<ref>[[David Priestland]], ''Red Flag: A History of Communism'', New York: [[Grove Press]], 2009.</ref> Because of the imperial and military legacy of [[Prussia]], the SED repudiated continuity between Prussia and the GDR. The SED destroyed a number of symbolic relics of the former [[Prussian aristocracy]]{{Snd}}[[Junker (Prussia)|Junker]] manor-houses were torn down, the [[City Palace, Berlin|Berliner Stadtschloß]] was razed and the [[Palace of the Republic, Berlin|Palace of the Republic]] was built in its place, and the [[equestrian statue of Frederick the Great]] was removed from East Berlin. Instead, the SED focused on the progressive heritage of German history, including [[Thomas Müntzer]]'s role in the [[German Peasants' War]] (1524–1525) and the roles of heroes of the class struggle during Prussia's industrialization. The SED upheld other notable figures and reformers from Prussian history{{Snd}}such as [[Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein|Karl Freiherr vom Stein]] (1757–1831), [[Karl August von Hardenberg]] (1750–1822), [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] (1767–1835), and [[Gerhard von Scharnhorst]] (1755–1813){{Snd}}as examples and role models.

==== Remembrance of the Third Reich ====
The communist regime of the GDR based its legitimacy on the struggle of anti-fascist militants. The [[Buchenwald Resistance]], a resistance group, was established at the memorial site of the [[Buchenwald concentration camp]], with the creation of a museum in 1958, and the annual celebration of the Buchenwald oath taken on 19 April 1945 by the prisoners who pledged to fight for peace and freedom. In the 1990s, the 'state anti-fascism' of the GDR gave way to the 'state anti-communism' of the FRG. From then on, the dominant interpretation of GDR history, based on the concept of totalitarianism, led to the equivalence of communism and Nazism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Combe |first=Sonia |date=April 2020 |title=À Buchenwald, les antifascistes ont perdu la guerre mémorielle |trans-title=In Buchenwald, the anti-fascists have lost the memory war |url=https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2020/04/COMBE/61583 |website=Le Monde diplomatique |language=fr}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tillack-Graf |first=Anne-Kathleen |title=Erinnerungspolitik der DDR. Dargestellt an der Berichterstattung der Tageszeitung 'Neues Deutschland' über die Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstätten Buchenwald, Ravensbrück und Sachsenhausen |publisher=[[Peter Lang (publisher)|Peter Lang]] |date=2012 |isbn=978-3-631-63678-7 |location=Frankfurt am Main |pages=2–3, 88–91 |language=de |trans-title=GDR politics of remembrance. Shown in the report of the daily newspaper 'Neues Deutschland' on the national memorial sites in Buchenwald, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen}}</ref>

Although officially built in opposition to the 'fascist world' in West Germany, 32% of GDR public administration employees in 1954 were former members of the [[Nazi Party]] (NSDAP). While by 1961, the share of former NSDAP members among the senior Interior Ministry administration staff was less than 10% in the GDR, compared to 67% in the FRG,<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Combe |first=Sonia |date=January 2021 |title=Antisémite, l'Allemagne de l'Est ? |trans-title=Anti-Semite, East Germany? |url=https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2021/01/COMBE/62660 |website=Le Monde diplomatique |language=fr}}</ref> having been a former Nazi was still not a hindrance for a career in the GDR's ministries and even in the SED, several high-ranking party functionaries such as [[Fritz Müller (politician)|Fritz Müller]] and [[Bruno Lietz]] being former NSDAP members. While a work of memory on the resurgence of Nazism was carried out in West Germany, this was not the case in the East, where the existence of [[Neo-Nazism]] in a socialist state was seen as being impossible. In addition, East Germany, not seeing itself as the legal successor to Nazi Germany, refused all remuneration requests by Jewish Holocaust victims and their families.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Einverstanden. E.H: Parteiinterne Hausmitteilungen, Briefe, Akten und Intrigen aus der Honecker-Zeit |date=1999 |publisher=Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag |isbn=978-3-89602-188-5 |editor-last=Wesenberg |editor-first=Denise |location=o O |pages=263–265 |language=de |editor-last2=Eberle |editor-first2=Henrik}}</ref>

On 17 October 1987, around thirty [[Skinhead|skinheads]] threw themselves into a crowd of 2,000 people at a rock concert in the [[Zionskirche, Dresden|Zionskirche]] without the police intervening.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benyahia-Kouider |first=Odile |title=L'Allemagne paiera |date=2013 |pages=166–167 |language=fr |trans-title=Germany will pay}}</ref> In 1990, the writer [[Freya Klier]] received a death threat for writing an essay on [[antisemitism]] and [[xenophobia]] in the GDR. SPDA Vice President [[Wolfgang Thierse]], for his part, complained in ''[[Die Welt]]'' about the rise of the extreme right in the everyday life of the inhabitants of the former GDR, in particular the terrorist group NSU, with the German journalist Odile Benyahia-Kouider explaining that "it is no coincidence that the neo-Nazi party NPD has experienced a renaissance via the East".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benyahia-Kouider |first=Odile |author-link=Odile Benyahia-Kouider |title=L'Allemagne paiera |date=2013 |pages=179 |language=fr |trans-title=Germany Will Pay}}</ref>

The historian Sonia Combe observes that until the 1990s, the majority of West German historians described the [[Normandy landings]] in June 1944 as an "invasion", exonerated the [[Wehrmacht]] of its responsibility for the genocide of the Jews, and fabricated the myth of a diplomatic corps that "did not know". In contrast, [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] was never a taboo in the GDR. The Nazis' crimes were the subject of extensive film, theatre, and literary productions. In 1991, 16% of the population in West Germany and 6% in East Germany had antisemitic prejudices. In 1994, 40% of West Germans and 22% of East Germans felt that too much emphasis was placed on the genocide of the Jews.<ref name=":2"/>

Historian [[Ulrich Pfeil]], nevertheless, recalls the fact that anti-fascist commemoration in the GDR had "a hagiographic and indoctrination character".<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Pfeil |first=Ulrich |author-link=Ulrich Pfeil |date=9 April 2020 |title=Die DDR als Zankapfel in Forschung und Politik |trans-title=The GDR as a Bone of Contention in Research and Politics |url=https://www.bpb.de/themen/deutschlandarchiv/307645/die-ddr-als-zankapfel-in-forschung-und-politik/#footnode48-48 |website=[[Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung]] |language=de}}</ref> As in the case of the memory of the protagonists of the German labour movement and the victims of the camps, it was "staged, censored, ordered" and, during the 40 years of the regime, was an instrument of legitimisation, repression, and maintenance of power.<ref name=":3"/>
=== ''Die Wende'' (German reunification) ===
{{Main|Die Wende|Peaceful Revolution|German reunification}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1989-1104-437, Berlin, Demonstration am 4. November.jpg|thumb| Demonstration on [[Alexanderplatz]] in East Berlin on 4 November 1989]]
In May 1989, following widespread public anger over the faking of local government election results, many GDR citizens applied for exit visas or [[Republikflucht|left the country]] contrary to GDR laws. The impetus for this exodus of East Germans was the removal of the electrified fence along [[Hungarian People's Republic|Hungary]]'s border with [[Austria]] on 2 May 1989. Although formally the Hungarian frontier was still closed, many East Germans took the opportunity to enter Hungary via [[Czechoslovakia]], and then make the illegal crossing from Hungary to Austria and to West Germany beyond.<ref name="Judt612"/> By July, 25,000 East Germans had crossed into Hungary;<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Berlin Wall (1961–89) |url=http://www.germannotes.com/hist_east_wall.shtml |archive-url=https://archive.today/20050419213613/http://www.germannotes.com/hist_east_wall.shtml |archive-date=19 April 2005 |access-date=24 October 2006 |website=German Notes}}</ref> most of them did not attempt the risky crossing into Austria but remained instead in Hungary or claimed asylum in West German embassies in [[Prague]] or [[Budapest]].

The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the [[Pan-European Picnic]] on 19 August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction leading to the end of the GDR and the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc. It was the largest mass escape from East Germany since the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The idea of opening the border at a ceremony came from [[Otto von Habsburg]], who proposed it to [[Miklós Németh]], then Hungarian Prime Minister, who promoted the idea.<ref>Miklós Németh in Interview, Austrian TV – ORF "Report", 25 June 2019.</ref> The patrons of the picnic, Habsburg and Hungarian Minister of State [[Imre Pozsgay]], who did not attend the event, saw the planned event as an opportunity to test [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s reaction to an opening of the border on the [[Iron Curtain]]. In particular, it tested whether Moscow would give the Soviet troops stationed in Hungary the command to intervene. The [[Paneuropean Union]] advertised extensively for the planned picnic with posters and flyers distributed among GDR holidaymakers in Hungary. The Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union, then headed by [[Karl von Habsburg]], distributed thousands of brochures inviting GDR citizens to a picnic near the border at Sopron (near Hungary's border with Austria).<ref name="Hilde Szabo 2014">{{Cite news |last=Szabo |first=Hilde |date=16 August 1999 |title=Die Berliner Mauer begann im Burgenland zu bröckeln |trans-title=The Berlin Wall began to crumble in Burgenland |url=https://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/welt-europa/weltpolitik/364731_Die-Berliner-Mauer-begann-im-Burgenland-zu-broeckeln.html |work=[[Wiener Zeitung]] |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Lahodynsky |first=Otmar |date=9 August 2014 |title=Paneuropäisches Picknick: Die Generalprobe für den Mauerfall |trans-title=Pan-European picnic: the Dress Rehearsal for the Fall of the Berlin Wall |magazine=[[profil (magazine)|profil]] |language=de}}</ref><ref name="Die Zeit 2014">{{Cite news |last=Greven |first=Ludwig |date=19 August 2014 |title=Und dann ging das Tor auf |trans-title=And then the Gate Opened |url=https://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2014-08/ddr-flucht-1989-grenzpicknick-sopron |work=Die Zeit}}</ref> The local Sopron organizers knew nothing of possible GDR refugees, but envisaged a local party with Austrian and Hungarian participation.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Lahodynsky |first=Otmar |date=13 June 2019 |title=Eiserner Vorhang: Picknick an der Grenze |trans-title=Iron curtain: Picnic at the Border |magazine=[[profil (magazine)|profil]] |language=de}}</ref> But with the mass exodus at the picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. Thus, the barrier of the Eastern Bloc was broken. Tens of thousands of East Germans, alerted by the media, made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or force its border troops to open fire on escapees. The GDR leadership in East Berlin did not dare to completely lock down their own country's borders.<ref name="Hilde Szabo 2014"/><ref name="Die Zeit 2014"/><ref>{{Cite news |last=Roser |first=Thomas |date=17 August 2014 |title=DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln |trans-title=Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world |url=https://www.diepresse.com/3855470/ddr-massenflucht-ein-picknick-hebt-die-welt-aus-den-angeln |work=[[Die Presse]] |language=de |publication-place=Vienna}}</ref><ref>{{ill|Frank, Michael (journalist)|de|Michael Frank}} {{Cite news |date=17 May 2010 |title=Paneuropäisches Picknick – Mit dem Picknickkorb in die Freiheit |trans-title=Pan-European picnic – With the picnic basket to freedom |url=https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/paneuropaeisches-picknick-mit-dem-picknickkorb-in-die-freiheit-1.170802-0 |work=[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]] |language=de}}</ref>

The next major turning point in the exodus came on 10 September 1989, when Hungarian Foreign Minister [[Gyula Horn]] announced that his country would no longer restrict movement from Hungary into Austria. Within two days, 22,000 East Germans crossed into Austria; tens of thousands more did so in the following weeks.<ref name="Judt612">{{harvnb|Judt|2005|page=612}}</ref>

Many other GDR citizens [[Monday demonstrations in East Germany|demonstrated against the ruling party]], especially in the city of [[Leipzig]]. The Leipzig demonstrations became a weekly occurrence, with a turnout of 10,000 people at the first demonstration on 2 October, and a peak of an estimated 300,000 by the end of the month.<ref name="Judt613"/> The protests were surpassed in East Berlin, where half a million demonstrators turned out against the regime on 4 November.<ref name="Judt613">{{harvnb|Judt|2005|page=613}}</ref> [[Kurt Masur]], conductor of the [[Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra]], led local negotiations with the government and held town meetings in the concert hall.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Darnton |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Darnton |title=Berlin Journal |date=1992 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |location=New York |pages=98–99}}</ref> The demonstrations eventually led Erich Honecker to resign in October; he was replaced by a slightly more moderate communist, [[Egon Krenz]].<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite book |last=Sarotte |first=Mary Elise |author-link=Mary Elise Sarotte |title=Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall |date=2014 |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |isbn=9780465064946 |location=New York}}</ref>

The massive demonstration in East Berlin on 4 November coincided with Czechoslovakia formally opening its border to West Germany.<ref name="Judt614">{{harvnb|Judt|2005|page=614}}</ref> With the West more accessible than ever before, 30,000 East Germans made the crossing via Czechoslovakia in the first two days alone. To try to stem the outward flow of the population, the SED proposed a law loosening travel restrictions. When the {{lang|de|Volkskammer}} rejected it on 5 November, the Cabinet and [[Politburo]] of the GDR resigned.<ref name="Judt614"/> This left only one avenue open for Krenz and the SED: completely abolishing travel restrictions between East and West.

On 9 November 1989, a few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened, resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing freely into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time in nearly 30 years. Krenz resigned a month later, and the SED opened negotiations with the leaders of the incipient Democratic movement, [[Neues Forum]], to schedule free elections and begin the process of democratization. As part of this process, the SED eliminated the clause in the East German constitution guaranteeing the Communists leadership of the state. The change was approved in the {{lang|de|Volkskammer}} on 1 December 1989 by a vote of 420 to 0.{{sfn|Judt|2005|page=615}}
[[File:Logo of the Alliance for Germany.png|thumb|Logo of the [[Alliance for Germany]] coalition, which was led by the [[Christian Democratic Union (East Germany)]]]]
East Germany held [[1990 East German general election|its last election in March 1990]]. The winner was [[Alliance for Germany]], a coalition headed by the East German branch of West Germany's [[Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|Christian Democratic Union]], which advocated speedy reunification. Negotiations ([[Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany|2+4]] Talks) were held involving the two German states and the former [[Allies of World War II|Allies]], which led to agreement on the conditions for German unification. By a two-thirds vote in the {{lang|de|Volkskammer|italic=no}} on 23 August 1990, the German Democratic Republic declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany. The five original [[New states of Germany|East German states]] that had been abolished in the 1952 redistricting were restored.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> On 3 October 1990, the five states officially joined the Federal Republic of Germany, while East and West Berlin united as a third city-state (in the same manner as [[Bremen]] and [[Hamburg]]). On 1 July, a currency union preceded the political union: the [[East German mark|Ostmark]] was abolished, and the Western German [[Deutsche Mark]] became the common currency.

Although the {{lang|de|Volkskammer}}'s declaration of accession to the Federal Republic had initiated the process of reunification, the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms, conditions, and qualifications, some of which involved amendments to the West German Basic Law) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990 – that is, through a binding agreement between the former Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic, now recognising each other as separate sovereign states in international law.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kommers |first=Donald P. |title=The Constitutional Jursiprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |date=2012 |page=309}}</ref> The treaty was then voted into effect prior to the agreed date for unification by both the {{lang|de|Volkskammer}} and the [[Bundestag]] by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities, effecting on the one hand the extinction of the GDR, and on the other the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic.

The wide economic and socio-political inequalities between the former German states required government subsidies for the full integration of the GDR into the FRG. Because of the resulting [[deindustrialization]] in former East Germany, the causes of the failure of this integration continue to be debated. Some western commentators{{Who|date=January 2025}} claim that the depressed eastern economy is a natural aftereffect of a demonstrably inefficient [[command economy]]. But many East German critics contend that the [[Shock therapy (economics)|shock-therapy]] style of [[privatization]], the artificially high [[rate of exchange]] offered for the Ostmark, and the speed with which the entire process was implemented did not leave room for East German enterprises to adapt.{{efn|For example, the economist Jörg Roesler{{snd}}see: Jörg Roesler: Ein Anderes Deutschland war möglich. Alternative Programme für das wirtschaftliche Zusammengehen beider deutscher Staaten, in: [[Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung]], No. II/2010, pp. 34–46. Historian Ulrich Busch argued that the currency union came too early; see Ulrich Busch: Die Währungsunion am 1. Juli 1990: Wirtschaftspolitische Fehlleistung mit Folgen, in: [[Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung]], No. II/2010, pp.&nbsp;5–24.}}

== Government and politics ==
{{Main|Politics of East Germany}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-M0925-406, New York, Fahnen vor dem UNO-Gebäude.jpg|thumb|upright|GDR flag at the [[United Nations headquarters]], [[New York City]], 1973]]
The political history of East Germany had four periods:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Conradt |first=David P. |title=The German Polity |date=2008 |page=20}}</ref> 1949–1961, which saw the "[[Walter Ulbricht#Construction of a socialist society in GDR|Construction of Socialism]]"; 1961–1970, after the Berlin Wall closed off escape, was a period of stability and consolidation; 1971–1985 was termed the "[[Honecker]] Era", and saw closer ties with West Germany; and 1985–1990 saw the decline and extinction of East Germany.

=== Organization ===
[[File:SED Logo.svg|right|thumb|upright|SED logotype: the Communist–Social Democrat handshake of [[Wilhelm Pieck]] and [[Otto Grotewohl]], establishing the SED in 1946]]
{{further|Constitution of East Germany}}
The ruling political party in East Germany was the {{lang|de|Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands}} ([[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]]; SED). It was created in 1946 through the Soviet-directed merger of the [[Communist Party of Germany]] (KPD) and the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD) in the Soviet-controlled zone. However, the SED quickly transformed into a full-fledged communist party as the more independent-minded social democrats were pushed out.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{harvnb|Weitz|1997|p={{page needed|date=September 2021}}}}</ref>

The Potsdam Agreement committed the Soviets to support a democratic form of government in Germany, though the Soviets' understanding of democracy was radically different from that of the West.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Potsdam Conference, 1945 |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/potsdam-conf |access-date=2024-10-06 |website=history.state.gov}}</ref> As in other Soviet Bloc countries, [[Bloc party (politics)|non-communist political parties]] were allowed. Nevertheless, every political party in the GDR was forced to join the [[National Front (East Germany)|National Front of Democratic Germany]], a SED-led coalition of parties and mass political organisations, which included:
* {{lang|de|Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands}} ([[Christian Democratic Union (East Germany)|Christian Democratic Union of Germany]]; CDU), which merged with the West German [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|CDU]] after reunification;
* {{lang|de|Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands}} ([[Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany]]; DBD), which party merged with the West German [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|CDU]] after reunification;
* {{lang|de|Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands}} ([[Liberal Democratic Party of Germany]]; LDPD), which merged with the West German [[Free Democratic Party of Germany|FDP]] after reunification;
* {{lang|de|Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands}} ([[National Democratic Party of Germany (East Germany)|National Democratic Party of Germany]]; NDPD), which merged with the West German [[Free Democratic Party of Germany|FDP]] after reunification.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

[[File:Berlin, Palast der Republik -- um 1990 -- 2.jpg|thumb|The [[Palace of the Republic (Berlin)|Palast der Republik]], seat of the [[Volkskammer]]]]
[[File:Berlin DDR.jpg|thumb|Poster with the inscription "{{lang|de|Berlin – Hauptstadt der DDR}}", 1967]]
The member parties were completely subservient to the SED and had to accept its "[[vanguard party|leading role]]" as a condition of their existence. They received generous financial support and some posts in the government.<ref>{{Cite web |title=1949-89: Volkskammer of the GDR (East-Germany) |url=https://webarchiv.bundestag.de/archive/2007/0206/htdocs_e/history/parlia/east_1949_89.html |access-date=2024-10-06 |website=webarchiv.bundestag.de}}</ref>

The Volkskammer also included representatives from the SED-controlled [[mass movement (politics)|mass organisations]] like the [[Free German Youth]] ({{lang|de|Freie Deutsche Jugend}}; FDJ), or the [[Free German Trade Union Federation]]. There was also the [[Democratic Women's Federation of Germany]], with seats in the {{lang|de|Volkskammer}}.

Important non-parliamentary mass organisations in East German society included the German Gymnastics and Sports Association ({{lang|de|[[Deutscher Turn- und Sportbund]]}}; DTSB), and the [[People's Solidarity]] ({{lang|de|Volkssolidarität}}), an organisation for the elderly. Another society of note was the [[Society for German–Soviet Friendship]].

After the fall of socialism, the SED transformed into the [[Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)|Party of Democratic Socialism]] (PDS), which continued for a decade after reunification, before merging with the West German [[Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative|WASG]] to form the [[Left Party (Germany)|Left Party]] ({{lang|de|Die Linke}}). The Left Party continues to be a political force in many parts of Germany.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sarotte |first=Mary Elise |title=1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe |date=2014 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |edition=2nd |location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref>

=== State symbols ===
The flag of the German Democratic Republic consisted of three horizontal stripes in the traditional German-democratic colors black-red-gold; at its center was a GDR national coat of arms, consisting of a wreath of corn surrounding a hammer and compass, which symbolised the alliance of workers, peasants, and intelligentsia. The first drafts of Fritz Behrendt's coat of arms contained only a hammer and wreath of corn; the final version was mainly based on the work of Heinz Behling.

The state coat of arms and flag were set by law on 26 September 1955. Initially, the flag lacked the coat of arms; it was later added (1 October 1959).<ref>{{Cite web |title=documentArchiv.de - Gesetz zur Änderung des Gesetzes über das Staatswappen und die Staatsflagge der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (01.10.1959) |url=http://www.documentarchiv.de/ddr/1959/ddr-staatswappen-staatsflagge-aender_ges.html |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=www.documentarchiv.de}}</ref> Until the end of the 1960s, the public display of this flag in the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin was regarded as a violation of the constitution and public order, and prevented by police measures. It was not until 1969 that the Federal Government decreed "that the police should no longer intervene anywhere against the use of the flag and coat of arms of the GDR."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-21 |title=East German Flag |url=https://www.youngpioneertours.com/east-german-flag |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Young Pioneer Tours |language=en}}</ref>

At the request of the DSU, the first freely elected People's Chamber of the GDR decided on 31 May 1990 that the GDR state coat of arms should be removed within a week in and on public buildings. Nevertheless, until the official end of the republic, it continued to be used in other ways, such as on documents.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2010-11-21 |title=Coat of arms of East Germany in Berlin, Germany (Google Maps) |url=https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/coat-of-arms-of-east-germany/view/google |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Virtual Globetrotting |language=en}}</ref>

The national anthem of the GDR, "Resurrected from Ruins", had its text was written by Johannes R. Becher and its melody composed by Hanns Eisler. From the beginning of the 1970s to the end of 1989, however, the text of the anthem was no longer sung due to the passage "''Deutschland einig Vaterland''" ("Germany a united Fatherland").<ref>{{Cite web |title=Domestic Protocol Office of the Federal Government |url=https://www.protokoll-inland.de/Webs/PI/EN/topics/state-symbols/national-anthem/national-anthem.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The National Anthem of the German Democratic Republic: "Auferstanden aus Ruinen" (1949) |url=https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/occupation-and-the-emergence-of-two-states-1945-1961/the-national-anthem-of-the-german-democratic-republic-auferstanden-aus-ruinen-1949 |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=German History in Documents and Images |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=National Anthem of the German Democratic Republic: "Auferstanden aus Ruinen"(1949) |url=https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/germanness/ghis:audio-5 |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=German History Intersections |language=en-us}}</ref>
{{Gallery
|align=center
|noborder=yes
|whitebg=no
|width=120
|height=120
|File:Coat of Arms of East Germany (1950–1953).svg
  |Provisional coat of arms of the GDR<br/>(12 January 1950 to 28 May 1953)
|File:Coat of arms of East Germany (1953–1955).svg
  |Provisional coat of arms of the GDR<br/>(28 May 1953 to 26 September 1955)
|File:Coat of arms of East Germany (1955–1990).svg
  |Coat of arms of the GDR<br/>(26 September 1955 to 2 October 1990)
|File:Flag_of_Germany.svg
  |Flag of the GDR<br/>(7 October 1949 to 1 October 1959)
|File:Civil Ensign of East Germany (1959–1973).svg
  |[[Civil Ensign]]<br/>(1959–1973)
|File:Flag_of_East_Germany.svg
  |Flag of the GDR<br/>(1 October 1959 to 3 October 1990)
}}

==== Political and social emblems ====
After being a member of the [[Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation|Thälmann Pioneers]], which was for schoolchildren ages 6 to 14, East German youths would usually join the [[Free German Youth]] (''Freie Deutsche Jugend''; FDJ).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pioneer Organization |url=https://global.museum-digital.org/?id=3580&t=people_to_people}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=the_wall_museum |date=2021-06-13 |title=Free German Youth |url=https://thewallmuseum.com/en/free-german-youth |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Wall Museum |language=en}}</ref>

=== Young Pioneer programs ===

==== Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation ====
{{further|Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation}}
[[File:Uniform of the East German Young Pioneers.jpg|thumb|Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation uniform]]
[[File:Fotothek df roe-neg 0006436 010 Demonstrationszug - Pioniere, Fanfarenbläser, Tr.jpg|thumb|right|Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation parade in 1953]]

The Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation was a youth organisation of schoolchildren aged 6 to 14 in East Germany.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rodden |first=John. |title=Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse: A History of Eastern German education, 1945–1995 |date=2002 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=0-19-511244-X |oclc=39633454}}</ref> In the 1960s and 1970s, nearly all schoolchildren were organised into "Young Pioneer" or "Thälmann Pioneer" groups, with the organisations having "nearly two million children" collectively by 1975.<ref name="plum">{{Cite thesis |last=Plum |first=Catherine J. |title=Antifascism & the Historical Identity of East German Youth, 1961–1989 |date=11 February 2005 |oclc=63683865 |institution=[[University of Wisconsin-Madison]]}}</ref> The group was a subdivision of the ''Freie Deutsche Jugend'' (FDJ), East Germany's youth movement.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wegner |first=Gregory |date=February 1996 |title=In the Shadow of the Third Reich: The 'Jugendstunde' and the Legitimation of Anti-Fascist Heroes for East German Youth |journal=[[German Studies Review]] |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=127–146 |doi=10.2307/1431716 |issn=0149-7952 |jstor=1431716}}</ref>

The pioneer group was loosely based on [[Scouting]], but organised to teach socialist ideology to schoolchildren and prepare them for the FDJ.<ref name="plum"/> The program was designed to follow the Soviet pioneer program [[Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization]].<ref name="plum"/> Both pioneer groups would often have massive parades, honoring and celebrating the socialist success of their nations.

Membership was formally voluntary, but often expected by the state or by parents. In practice, admission of all students in a class came from the school. As the membership quota of up to 98 percent of the students (in the later years of the GDR) shows, the six- or ten-year-olds (or their parents) had to be independently active to ''not'' become members. Rarely, students were not admitted because of poor academic performance or bad behavior "as a punishment", or excluded from further membership.

The pioneers' uniform consisted of white shirts and blouses, along with blue trousers or skirts. A distinctive feature was the triangular [[neckerchief]].<ref name="plum"/> In contrast to the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries, a blue neckerchief was common in the GDR. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the organization in 1973, the red neckerchief was introduced for the Thälmann Pioneers.

==== Free German Youth ====
{{further|Free German Youth}}
[[File:Freie Deutsche Jugend.svg|right|thumb|upright|{{Lang|de|Freie Deutsche Jugend}} (FDJ) was founded on 7 March 1946 under the leadership of [[Erich Honecker]].<ref name="Fulbrook, Mary 1989">{{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Fulbrook |title=Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949–1989 |date=1995 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |page=60}}</ref>]]

After being a member of the Thälmann Pioneers, East German youths would usually join the ''Freie Deutsche Jugend'' (Free German Youth; FDJ),<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Rules of the Thälmann Pioneers |url=http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/tp.htm |access-date=9 February 2013 |publisher=Calvin.edu |archive-date=4 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100604194907/http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/tp.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> a youth organization for both boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 25 and which comprised about 75% of the GDR's young population.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Free German Youth 1949–1990 (East Germany) |url=http://flagspot.net/flags/de%7Dfdj.html |access-date=9 February 2013 |publisher=Flagspot.net}}</ref> In 1981–1982, this meant 2.3&nbsp;million members.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jurich |first=Dirk |title=Staatssozialismus und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: eine empirische Studie |date=2006 |publisher=[[LIT Verlag Münster]] |isbn=3825898938 |page=32 |language=de}}</ref> Its main objective was to win over the hearts and minds of young East Germans to socialism and the ideals of the SED.<ref name="Fulbrook, Mary 1989"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=McDougall |first=Alan |title=Youth Politics in East Germany: The Free German Youth Movement, 1946–1968 |date=2004 |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |series=Oxford Historical Monographs |location=Oxford |pages=37–38}}</ref>

The FDJ was founded in 1946 with an emphasis on 'happy youth life', which involved organised activities like sports, dances, concerts, and hikes. During the following decades, the FDJ increasingly developed into an instrument of communist rule, and gained a more severe anti-religious agenda.<ref name="Fulbrook, Mary 1989"/> After [[German reunification]] in October 1990, the FDJ quickly lost nearly all of its remaining memberships.

Upon request, young people were admitted to the FDJ from the age of 14. Membership was voluntary according to the statutes, but there was high pressure to join from line-loyal teachers and societal expectations. Non-members had to fear considerable disadvantages in school admission, choice of study, career, and military service. By the end of 1949, almost a third of young people (around one million) had joined; yet in Berlin, where other youth organizations were also admitted due to the four-power status, participation was limited to just under 5%. In 1985, about 80% of all GDR youths between the ages of 14 and 25 were members. Most young people tacitly ended their FDJ membership after completing their apprenticeship or studies when they entered the workforce. The degree of organisation was much higher in urban areas than in rural areas.

From 1948, the official organizational clothing of the FDJ were long-sleeved blue shirts for boys and blouses for girls. The left sleeve was sewn with the FDJ symbol of the rising sun.

{{Gallery
|align=center
|noborder=yes
|width=160
|height=120
|File:Fotothek df n-06 0000347.jpg
 |Members with the uniform of the FDJ
|File:Fotothek df ps 000054 ^ Pionierhaus ^ Zwickau.jpg
 |Pioneer choir "August Bebel" Zwickau of the pioneer house "Wilhelm Pieck" in Zwickau (Schwanenschloß)
|File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1985-0521-414, Berlin, XII. Parlament der FDJ.jpg
 |East Berlin: XII Parliament of the FDJ during the opening in the Great Hall of the [[Palace of the Republic, Berlin|Palace of the Republic]] in 1985.
}}
===Administrative districts===
{{Main|Administrative divisions of East Germany|List of leaders of administrative divisions of East Germany}}

{{East Germany labelled map|float=right}}
Until 1952, East Germany comprised the capital, [[East Berlin]] (though legally it was not fully part of the GDR's territory), and the five [[States of Germany|German states]] of [[State of Mecklenburg (1945–1952)|Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]] (in 1947 renamed Mecklenburg), [[Brandenburg (1945–1952)|Brandenburg]], [[Saxony-Anhalt (1945–1952)|Saxony-Anhalt]] (named Province of Saxony until 1946), [[Thuringia]], and [[Saxony]]. The states' post-war territorial demarcations approximated the pre-war German demarcations of the [[Central Germany (cultural area)|Middle German]] ''Länder'' (states) and ''Provinzen'' ([[provinces of Prussia]]). The western parts of two provinces, [[Pomerania Province (1815-1945)|Pomerania]] and [[Lower Silesia]], the remainder of which were annexed by Poland, remained in the GDR and were attached to Mecklenburg and Saxony, respectively.

The [[East German Administrative Reform of 1952]] established 14 {{lang|de|Bezirke}} (districts) and ''de facto'' disestablished the five ''Länder''. The new {{lang|de|Bezirke}}, named after their district centres, were as follows: (i) [[Rostock]], (ii) [[Neubrandenburg]], and (iii) [[Schwerin]] created from the ''Land'' (state) of Mecklenburg; (iv) [[Potsdam]], (v) [[Frankfurt (Oder)]], and (vii) [[Cottbus]] from Brandenburg; (vi) [[Magdeburg]] and (viii) [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]] from Saxony-Anhalt; (ix) [[Leipzig]], (xi) [[Dresden]], and (xii) [[Karl-Marx-Stadt]] (Chemnitz until 1953 and again from 1990) from Saxony; and (x) [[Erfurt]], (xiii) [[Gera]], and (xiv) [[Suhl]] from Thuringia.

East Berlin was made the country's 15th ''Bezirk'' in 1961 but retained special legal status until 1968, when the residents approved the new (draft) constitution. Despite the city as a whole being legally under the control of the [[Allied Control Council]], and diplomatic objections of the Allied governments, the GDR administered the ''Bezirk'' of Berlin as part of its territory.
{{Clear}}

=== Foreign relations ===
{{Main|Foreign relations of East Germany}}

==== Support of Third World socialist countries ====
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z1014-018, Berlin, Staatsoberhaupt Angolas an der Grenze.jpg|thumb|right|Angola's [[José Eduardo dos Santos]] during his visit to East Berlin]]

After receiving wider international diplomatic recognition in 1972–73, the GDR began active cooperation with Third World socialist governments and [[Wars of national liberation|national liberation movements]]. While the USSR was in control of the overall strategy and Cuban armed forces were involved in the actual combat (mostly in the [[People's Republic of Angola]] and socialist [[Derg|Ethiopia]]), the GDR provided experts for military hardware maintenance and personnel training, and oversaw creation of secret security agencies based on its own [[Stasi]] model.

Already in the 1960s, contacts were established with the [[MPLA]] in Angola, the [[FRELIMO]] in Mozambique, and the [[African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde|PAIGC]] in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. In the 1970s, official cooperation was established with other socialist states, such as the [[People's Republic of the Congo]], [[South Yemen|People's Democratic Republic of Yemen]], [[Somali Democratic Republic]], [[History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi|Libya]], and the [[People's Republic of Benin]].

The first military agreement was signed in 1973 with the People's Republic of the Congo. In 1979 friendship treaties were signed with Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia.

It was estimated that altogether 2,000–4,000 DDR military and security experts were dispatched to Africa. In addition, representatives from African and Arab countries and liberation movements underwent military training in the GDR.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rubinstein |first=Alvin Z. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rOoyp-1UOH4C&pg=PA184 |title=Moscow's Third World Strategy |date=1990 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0-691-02332-8 |page=184 |access-date=26 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191201040239/https://books.google.com/books?id=rOoyp-1UOH4C&pg=PA184 |archive-date=1 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==== East Germany and the Middle East conflict ====
East Germany pursued an [[anti-Zionist]] policy; [[Jeffrey Herf]] argues that East Germany was waging an undeclared war on [[Israel]].<ref name="Herf">{{Cite book |last=Herf |first=Jeffrey |author-link=Jeffrey Herf |title=Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967–1989 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2016 |isbn=978-1-107-08986-0}}</ref> According to Herf, "the Middle East was one of the crucial battlefields of the global Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West; it was also a region in which East Germany played a salient role in the Soviet bloc's antagonism toward Israel."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Herf |first=Jeffrey |date=2014 |title='At War with Israel': East Germany's Key Role in Soviet Policy in the Middle East |journal=[[Journal of Cold War Studies]] |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=129–163 |doi=10.1162/JCWS_a_00450 |s2cid=57566994}}</ref> While East Germany saw itself as an "anti-fascist state", it regarded Israel as a "fascist state",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Laqueur |url=https://archive.org/details/roadtojerusalemt00laqu |title=The Road to Jerusalem: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict |publisher=Macmillan |date=1968 |isbn=978-0-02-568360-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/roadtojerusalemt00laqu/page/215 215] |url-access=registration}}</ref> and East Germany strongly supported the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] (PLO) in its armed struggle against Israel. In 1974, the GDR government recognized the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".<ref>''Israel's struggle in the UN''</ref> The PLO declared the [[State of Palestine|Palestinian state]] on 15 November 1988 during the [[First Intifada]], and the GDR recognized the state prior to reunification.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The GDR and the PLO: East Germany's Palestine Policy |url=https://www.berlinerkolleg.com/en/blog/gdr-and-plo-east-germanys-palestine-policy |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180505054314/http://www.berlinerkolleg.com/en/blog/gdr-and-plo-east-germanys-palestine-policy |archive-date=5 May 2018 |access-date=28 April 2018}}</ref> After becoming a member of the UN, East Germany "made excellent use of the UN to wage political warfare against Israel [and was] an enthusiastic, high-profile, and vigorous member" of the anti-Israeli majority of the General Assembly.<ref name="Herf"/>

[[Ba'athist Iraq]], due to its wealth of unexploited natural resources, was sought out as an ally of East Germany, with Iraq being the first Arab country to recognise East Germany on 10 May 1969, paving the way for other [[Arab League]] states to later do the same. East Germany attempted to play a decisive role in mediating the conflict between the [[Iraqi Communist Party]] and the [[Ba'ath Party]] and supported the creation of the [[National Progressive Front (Iraq)|National Progressive Front]]. The East German government also attempted to foster close relations with the Ba'athist regime of [[Hafez al-Assad]] during the early years of Assad's regime and, as it did in Iraq, used its influence to minimise tensions between the [[Syrian Communist Party]] and the Ba'athist regime.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Trentin |first=Massimiliano |date=17 July 2008 |title='Tough negotiations'. The two Germanys in Syria and Iraq, 1963–74 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682740802222155 |journal=[[Cold War History (journal)|Cold War History]] |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=353–380 |doi=10.1080/14682740802222155 |s2cid=218576332 |access-date=14 February 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==== Western Europe ====
During the Cold War, especially during its early years, the East German government attempted to build closer diplomatic relations and trade links between [[Iceland]] and East Germany. By the 1950s, East Germany had become Iceland's fifth largest trading partner. East German influence in Iceland significantly declined in the 1970s and 1980s following a schism between the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the Icelandic Socialist Party over the [[Prague Spring]], along with free market economic reforms implemented by Iceland during the 1960s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ingimundarson |first=V. |date=6 September 2010 |title=Targeting the Periphery: The Role of Iceland in East German Foreign Policy, 1949–89 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713999929 |journal=[[Cold War History (journal)|Cold War History]] |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=113–140 |doi=10.1080/713999929 |s2cid=153852878 |access-date=13 February 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==== Soviet military occupation ====
{{Main|Group of Soviet Forces in Germany}}

[[File:Nva-ehrenwache.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1|East German [[National People's Army]] [[Guard mounting|changing-of-the-guard ceremony]] in East Berlin]]
=== Military ===
The government of East Germany controlled a large number of military and paramilitary organisations through various ministries. Chief among these was the Ministry of National Defence.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=The East German Army: The Second Power in the Warsaw Pact |url=https://www.routledge.com/The-East-German-Army-The-Second-Power-in-the-Warsaw-Pact/Forster/p/book/9780367609771 |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Routledge & CRC Press |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Bott |first1=Ian |last2=Chazan |first2=Guy |last3=Jones |first3=Sam |date=2024-02-15 |title=Will Germany deliver on its grand military ambitions? |url=https://www.ft.com/content/51cf54ed-55df-4369-bdef-6f98be17d26c |access-date=2025-05-07 |work=Financial Times}}</ref> Because of East Germany's proximity to the West during the [[Cold War]] (1945–92), its military forces were among the most advanced of the [[Warsaw Pact]]. Defining what was a military force and what was not is a matter of some dispute.<ref name=":5"/>

==== National People's Army ====
{{main|National People's Army}}

The {{lang|de|Nationale Volksarmee}} (NVA) was the largest military organisation in East Germany. It was formed in 1956 from the {{lang|de|[[Kasernierte Volkspolizei]]}} (Barracked People's Police), the military units of the regular police ([[Volkspolizei]]), when East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact. From its creation, it was controlled by the [[Ministry of National Defence (East Germany)|Ministry of National Defence]]. It was an all-volunteer force until an eighteen-month [[conscription]] period was introduced in 1962.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Tom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_8irDwAAQBAJ |title=Comrades in Arms: Military Masculinities in East German Culture |date=2020 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=9781789205558 |location=New York and Oxford |page=8 |access-date=10 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Solsten |first=Eric |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/96020927 |title=Germany: A country study |collaboration=Library of Congress. Federal Research Division |publisher=Library of Congress. Federal Research Division |date=1996 |location=Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress |pages=169–170}}</ref> NATO officers regarded it as the best military in the Warsaw Pact.<ref name="auto">{{Cite news |last=Trainor |first=Bernard E. |author-link=Bernard E. Trainor |date=8 November 1988 |title=East German Military: Warsaw Pact's Finest |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/08/world/east-german-military-warsaw-pact-s-finest.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180801003742/https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/08/world/east-german-military-warsaw-pact-s-finest.html |archive-date=1 August 2018 |access-date=31 July 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>
The NVA consisted of the following branches:
* [[Land Forces of the National People's Army]]
* {{lang|de|[[Volksmarine]]}}{{snd}}People's Navy
* [[Air Forces of the National People's Army]]

==== Border troops ====
{{main|Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic}}

[[File:Grenztruppen der DDR auf Patrouille (1979).jpg|thumb|Grenztruppen members guarding maintenance workers on the western side of the [[inner German border]] fence. The red tape in the foreground, the so-called "death cord", marked the area the work detail was permitted to operate, and workers stepping beyond the tape would be shot]]
The border troops of the Eastern sector were originally organised as a police force, the {{lang|de|Deutsche Grenzpolizei}}, similar to the {{lang|de|[[Bundesgrenzschutz]]}} in West Germany. It was controlled by the Ministry of the Interior. Following the remilitarisation of East Germany in 1956, the {{lang|de|Deutsche Grenzpolizei}} was transformed into a military force in 1961, modeled after the [[Soviet Border Troops]], and transferred to the Ministry of National Defense, as part of the National People's Army. In 1973, it was separated from the NVA, but it remained under the same ministry. At its peak, it numbered approximately 47,000 men.

==== Volkspolizei-Bereitschaft ====
{{Main|Volkspolizei-Bereitschaft}}

After the NVA was separated from the {{lang|de|[[Volkspolizei]]}} in 1956, the Ministry of the Interior maintained its own public order barracked reserve, known as the {{lang|de|[[Volkspolizei-Bereitschaft]]en}} (VPB). These units were equipped as motorised infantry, like the {{lang|de|Kasernierte Volkspolizei}}, and in total numbered between 12,000 and 15,000 men.

==== Stasi ====
{{main|Stasi}}

The Ministry of State Security (Stasi) included the [[Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment]], which was mainly involved with facilities security and plain clothes events security. They were the only public-facing wing of the Stasi. The Stasi numbered around 90,000 men, the Guards Regiment around 11,000–12,000 men.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Goehler |first=Laura |date=7 November 2014 |title=The Stasi files: Germany's 600-million-piece puzzle |url=https://www.cnn.com/2014/11/07/world/europe/stasi-files-east-germany-secret-police/index.html |access-date=4 June 2024 |work=CNN |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Koehler |first=John O. |title=Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/koehler-stasi.html?_r=1 |website=The New York Times Archive}}</ref>

==== Combat groups of the working class ====
The {{lang|de|[[Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse]]}} (Combat Groups of the Working Class; KdA) numbered around 400,000 men for much of their existence, and were organised around factories. The KdA was the political-military instrument of the SED; it was essentially a "party army". All KdA directives and decisions were made by the ZK's {{lang|de|[[Politburo|Politbüro]]}}. They received their training from the Volkspolizei and the Ministry of the Interior. Membership was voluntary, but SED members were required to join as part of their membership obligation.

==== Conscientious objection ====
{{Main|Conscientious objection in East Germany}}

Every man was required to serve eighteen months of [[conscription|compulsory military service]]. For the medically unqualified and [[conscientious objector]]s, there were the {{lang|de|[[Baueinheiten]]}} (construction units) or the {{lang|de|Volkshygienedienst}} (People's Sanitation Service), both established in 1964, two years after the introduction of conscription, in response to political pressure by the national [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] Protestant Church upon the GDR's government. In the 1970s, East German leaders acknowledged that former [[construction soldier]]s and sanitation service soldiers were at a disadvantage when they rejoined the civilian sphere.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}

=== Totalitarianism and repression ===
There is general consensus among academics that the GDR fulfilled most of the criteria to be considered a totalitarian state.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Fulbrook |title=Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities After Hitler |date=2015 |publisher=[[Berghahn books]] |isbn=9781785330278 |page=3}}</ref> There is, however, ongoing debate as to whether the more positive aspects of the regime can sufficiently dilute the harsher aspects so as to make the totalitarian tag seem excessive. According to the historian [[Mary Fulbrook]]:

{{Blockquote|Even those who are most critical of the concept admit that the regime possessed most, if not all, of the objective traits associated with the term, i.e., rule by a single party or elite that dominated the state machinery; that centrally directed and controlled the economy; mass communication, and all forms of social and cultural organisation; that espoused an official, all-encompassing, utopian (or, depending on one's point of view, dystopian) ideology; and that used physical and mental terror and repression to achieve its goals, mobilise the masses, and silence opposition- all of which was made possible by the buildup of a vast state security service.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |title=Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities After Hitler |date=2015 |publisher=[[Berghahn books]] |isbn=9781785330278 |page=3}}</ref>}}

The [[Stasi]] was fundamental to the socialist leadership's attempts to reach their historical goal. It was an open secret in the GDR that the Stasi read people's mail and tapped phone calls.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghouas |first=Nessim |title=The Conditions, Means and Methods of the MfS in the GDR: An Analysis of the Post and Telephone Control |date=2004 |publisher=[[Cuvillier Verlag]] |isbn=3898739880 |page=58}}</ref> They also employed a vast network of informants (called [[Unofficial collaborator|"unofficial collaborators"]]) who would spy on people more directly and report to their Stasi handlers. These collaborators were hired in all walks of life and had access to nearly every organisation in the country. At the end of the GDR in 1990 there were approximately 109,000 still-active informants at every grade.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Glaeser |first=Andreas |date=2003 |title=Power/Knowledge Failure: Epistemic Practices and Ideologies of the Secret Police in Former East Germany |journal=[[Social Analysis (journal)|Social Analysis]] |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=10–26 |doi=10.3167/015597703782353023}}</ref> Repressive measures carried out by the Stasi can be roughly divided into two main chronological groupings: before 1971 and after 1971, when Honecker came to power. According to the historian Nessim Ghouas, "There was a change in how the Stasi operated under Honecker in 1971. The more brutal aspects of repression seen in the Stalinist era (torture, executions, and physical repression descending from the GDR's earlier days) was changed with a more selective use of power."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghouas |first=Nessim |title=The Conditions, Means and Methods of the MfS in the GDR: An Analysis of the Post and Telephone Control |date=2004 |publisher=[[Cuvillier Verlag]] |isbn=3898739880 |page=59}}</ref>

The more direct forms of repression such as arrest and torture could mean significant international condemnation for the GDR. However, the Stasi still needed to paralyse and disrupt what it considered to be 'hostile-negative'<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dennis |first=Mike |title=The Stasi: Myth and Reality |date=2003 |publisher=[[Pearson Education]] Limited |isbn=0582414229 |page=112 |chapter=Tackling the Enemy: Quiet Repression and Preventive Decomposition}}</ref> forces (internal domestic enemies) if the socialist goal was to be properly realised. A person could be targeted by the Stasi for expressing politically, culturally, or religiously incorrect views; for performing hostile acts; or for being a member of a group which was considered sufficiently counter-productive to the socialist state to warrant intervention. As such, writers, artists, youth sub-cultures, and members of the church were often targeted.<ref name="The Stasi: Myth and Reality">{{Cite book |last=Dennis |first=Mike |title=The Stasi: Myth and Reality |date=2003 |publisher=[[Pearson Education]] Limited |isbn=0582414229 |page=114 |chapter=Tackling the enemy- quiet repression and preventive decomposition}}</ref> If after preliminary research the Stasi found an individual warranted action against them then they would open an "operational case"<ref name="The Stasi: Myth and Reality"/> in regard to them. There were two desirable outcomes for each case: that the person was either arrested, tried, and imprisoned for an ostensibly justified reason, or, if this could not be achieved, that they were debilitated through the application of ''[[Zersetzung]]'' ("decomposition") methods.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Glaeser |first=Andreas |title=Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism |date=2011 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0226297941 |location=Chicago |pages=492–494}}</ref> In the Honecker era, Zersetzung became the primary method of Stasi repression, due in large part to an ambition to avoid political fallout from wrongful arrest.{{efn|'In the age of detente, the Stasi's main method of combating subversive activity was 'operational decomposition' ({{lang|de|operative Zersetzung}}) which was the central element in what Hubertus Knabe has called a system of 'quiet repression' ({{lang|de|lautlose Unterdrukung}}). This was not a new departure as 'dirty tricks' had been widely used in the 1950s and 1960s. The distinctive feature was the primacy of operational decomposition over other methods of repression in a system to which historians have attached labels such as post-totalitarianism and modern dictatorship.'cite book |last1=Dennis |first1=Mike |title=The Stasi: Myth and Reality |date=2003 |publisher=[[Pearson Education]] Ltd. |isbn=0582414229 |page=112 |chapter=Tackling the enemy{{snd}}quiet repression and preventive decomposition}} Historian Mike Dennis says, "Between 1985–1988, the Stasi conducted about 4,500 to 5,000 OVs (operational cases) per year."<ref name="The Stasi: Myth and Reality"/>

Zersetzung methods varied and were tailored depending on the targeted individual. They are known to have included sending offensive mail to a person's house, the spreading of malicious rumours, banning them from traveling, sabotaging their career, and breaking into their house and moving objects around. These acts frequently led to unemployment, social isolation, and poor mental health. Many people had various forms of mental or nervous breakdown. Similarly to physical imprisonment, Zersetzung methods had the effect of paralysing a person's ability to operate but with the advantage of the source being unknown or at least unprovable. There is ongoing debate as to whether weaponised [[directed-energy weapon|directed energy devices]], such as X-ray transmitters, were used in combination with the psychological warfare methods of Zersetzung.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |title=The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker |date=2008 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=9780300144246 |location=New Haven |page=245}}</ref> The [[International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims]] considers that there are between 300,000 and 500,000 victims of direct physical torture, Zersetzung, and gross human rights violations due to the Stasi.<ref>{{Cite web |title=After the fall: The hidden trauma behind the Berlin Wall |url=https://irct.org/media-and-resources/latest-news/article/788?ref=tjournal.ru |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210909114942/https://irct.org/media-and-resources/latest-news/article/788?ref=tjournal.ru |archive-date=9 September 2021 |access-date=9 September 2021 |website=irct.org |publisher=IRCT}}</ref> Victims of historical Zersetzung can now draw a special pension from the German state.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Oltermann |first=Philip |author-link=Philip Oltermann |date=6 November 2019 |title='I've been shafted twice': Stasi victims and their quest for compensation |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/06/ive-been-shafted-twice-stasi-victims-and-their-quest-for-compensation |access-date=9 September 2021 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

The Stasi also did assassinations of GDR officials deemed a threat to the regime, among other things killing General Director of the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn (East Germany)|German Reichsbahn]] [[Willi Kreikemeyer]], finance minister [[Siegfried Böhm]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Selbsttötung oder durch die Staatssicherheit verschleierter Mord? {{!}} Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/vermitteln/wissenschaft/publikationen-wissenstransfer/stipendiaten-lesebuecher/die-ddr-im-blick/selbsttoetung |access-date=2025-06-28 |website=www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de |language=de}}</ref> and attempting to kill deposed Central Committee employee [[Manfred Uschner]] with a [[car bomb]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-03-24 |title=Mielkes Horchposten lauerten überall. {{!}} TP-Presseagentur |url=https://tp-presseagentur.de/mielkes-horchposten-lauerten-ueberall-interview-mit-dr-manfred-uschner-persoenlicher-mitarbeiter-des-politbueromitgliedes-hermann-axen/ |access-date=2025-06-28 |language=de-DE}}</ref>

== Economy ==
{{Main|Economy of East Germany}}

[[File:DDR economy-en.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|Map of the East German economy (August 1990)]]The East German economy began poorly due to the devastation caused by the Second World War - the loss of so many young soldiers, the disruption of business and transportation, the Allied bombing campaigns that decimated cities, and reparations owed to the USSR. The [[Red Army]] dismantled and transported lots of infrastructure and industrial plants of the Soviet Zone of Occupation to the Soviet Union. By the early 1950s, the reparations were paid in agricultural and industrial products; and [[Lower Silesia]], with its coal mines, and [[Szczecin]], an important natural port, were given to Poland by the decision of Stalin and in accordance with the [[Potsdam Agreement]].<ref name="Norman M. Naimark 1949, pp. 167-9"/>

The socialist [[centrally planned economy]] of the German Democratic Republic was like that of the USSR. In 1950, the GDR joined the [[COMECON]] trade bloc. In 1985, [[collective]] (state) enterprises earned 97% of the net national income. To ensure stable prices for goods and services, the state paid 80% of basic supply costs. The estimated 1984 per capita income was $9,800 ($22,600 in 2015 dollars) (this is based on an unreal official exchange rate). In 1976, the average annual growth of the GDP was 5 percent. This made the East German economy the richest in all of the [[Soviet Bloc]] until reunification in 1990.<ref name="Econ stats"/>[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-P0619-306, Trabant 601.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Trabant]] automobile was a profitable product made in the German Democratic Republic.|left]]

Notable East German exports were [[camera|photographic cameras]] (under the [[Praktica]] brand), automobiles (under the [[Trabant]], [[Wartburg (marque)|Wartburg]], and [[Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau|IFA]] brands), hunting rifles, [[sextant]]s, [[typewriter]]s, and [[watch|wristwatches]].

Until the 1960s, East Germans endured shortages of imported basic foodstuffs such as [[sugar]] and [[coffee]]. East Germans with friends or relatives in the West (or with any access to a [[hard currency]]) and the necessary {{lang|de|[[Staatsbank]]}} [[foreign currency account]] could afford West German products and export-quality East German products via [[Intershop]]. Consumer goods also were available, by post, from the Danish [[Jauerfood]], and Genex companies.

The government used money and prices as political devices, providing highly subsidised prices for a wide range of basic goods and services, in what was known as "the second pay packet".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boroch |first=Wilfried |date=1996 |title=Social policy as an institutional transformation problem |journal=[[Transition Economies]] |volume=31 |pages=139–146 |number=3}}</ref> At the production level, artificial prices made for a system of semi-barter and resource hoarding. For the consumer, it led to the substitution of GDR money with time, barter, and hard currencies. The socialist economy became steadily more dependent on financial infusions from hard currency loans from West Germany. East Germans, meanwhile, came to see their soft currency as worthless relative to the Deutsche Mark (DM).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zatlin |first=Jonathan R. |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Currency_of_Socialism.html?id=_k7_dBtKx2gC&source=kp_book_description |title=The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany |date=2007-03-05 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-86956-0 |language=de}}</ref>{{page?|date=September 2024}} Economic issues would also persist in East Germany after the reunification of the West and the East. According to Manfred Görtemaker, "In 1991 alone, 153 billion DM had to be transferred to eastern Germany to secure incomes, support businesses and improve infrastructure. [...] From 1991 to 1999, this resulted in a total of 1.634 trillion [DM]. [...] The sums were so large that public debt in Germany more than doubled. [...]"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Görtemaker |first=Manfred |date=2009-03-26 |title=Probleme der inneren Einigung |url=https://www.bpb.de/themen/deutsche-einheit/deutsche-teilung-deutsche-einheit/43787/probleme-der-inneren-einigung |access-date=2024-10-19 |website=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IQ1vDwAAQBAJ |title=The Shortest History of Germany: From Roman Frontier to the Heart of Europe - A Retelling for Our Times |publisher=The Experiment, LLC |date=2019 |isbn=9781615195701 |chapter=Federal Office of Political Education}}<!-- This book (or just its particular Google Books page?) doesn't mark pages, unfortunately --></ref>

=== Consumption and jobs ===
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin:0 15px"

|+ align="right" |'''Growth in GDP per capita in East and West Germany'''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sleifer |first=Jaap |title=High Growth of an Underachiever? |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |date=2006 |isbn=9783050085395 |pages=66 |chapter=Planning Ahead and Falling Behind: The East German Economy in Comparison with West Germany 1936–2002 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=80vnBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA49 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>
|
| '''East Germany'''
| '''West Germany'''
|-
| 1945–1960
| align="right" | 6.2
| align="right" | 10.9
|-
| 1950–1960
| align="right" | 6.7
| align="right" | 8.0
|-
| 1960–1970
| align="right" | 2.7
| align="right" | 4.4
|-
| 1970–1980
| align="right" | 2.6
| align="right" | 2.8
|-
| 1980–1989
| align="right" | 0.3
| align="right" | 1.9
|-
| '''Total 1950–1989'''
| align="right" | 3.1
| align="right" | 4.3
|}

Loyalty to the SED was a primary criterion for getting a good job – professionalism was secondary to political criteria in personnel recruitment and development.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sperlich |first=Peter W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3xm9Fd3QgEcC |title=Oppression and Scarcity: The History and Institutional Structure of the Marxist-Leninist Government of East Germany and Some Perspectives on Life in a Socialist System |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |date=2006 |isbn=978-0-275-97565-4 |page=191 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160516134941/https://books.google.com/books?id=3xm9Fd3QgEcC |archive-date=16 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Beginning in 1963 with a series of secret international agreements, East Germany recruited workers from [[Polish People's Republic|Poland]], [[Hungarian People's Republic|Hungary]], [[Cuba]], [[Albanian People's Republic|Albania]], [[People's Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]], [[People's Republic of Angola|Angola]], and [[North Vietnam]]. They numbered more than 100,000 by 1989. Many, such as future politician Zeca Schall (who emigrated from Angola in 1988 as a contract worker), stayed in Germany after the [[Wende (Germany)|Wende]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Ich liebe Thüringen, ich liebe Deutschland |trans-title=I love Thuringia, I love Germany |url=http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/zeca-schall-im-portraet-ich-liebe-thueringen-ich-liebe-deutschland/1578230.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201235008/http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/zeca-schall-im-portraet-ich-liebe-thueringen-ich-liebe-deutschland/1578230.html |archive-date=1 February 2017 |access-date=20 January 2017 |language=de}}</ref>

=== Transportation ===
* [[Deutsche Reichsbahn (East Germany)]]
* [[Interflug]]

=== Telecommunications ===
{{further|Telecommunications in Germany|Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc}}
By the mid-1980s, East Germany possessed a well-developed communications system. There were approximately 3.6&nbsp;million telephones in usage (21.8 for every 100 inhabitants), and 16,476 [[Teletypewriter message|Telex]] stations. The [[Deutsche Post der DDR]] (East German Post Office) operated both these networks. East Germany was assigned telephone country code [[+37]]; in 1991, several months after reunification, East German telephone exchanges were incorporated into country code +49.

An unusual feature of the telephone network was that, in most cases, [[direct distance dialing]] for [[long-distance call]]s was not possible. Although [[area codes]] were assigned to all major towns and cities, they were only used for switching international calls. Instead, each location had its own list of dialing codes with shorter codes for [[local call]]s and longer codes for long-distance calls. After unification, the existing network was largely replaced, and area codes and dialing became standardised.

In 1976 East Germany inaugurated the operation of a ground-based radio station at [[Fürstenwalde]] for the purpose of relaying and receiving communications from Soviet satellites and to serve as a participant in the international telecommunications organization established by the Soviet government, [[Intersputnik]].

===Computing===
[[File:Robotron EC 1834 Bild 01.jpg|thumb|A [[VEB Robotron]] EC 1834 personal computer, first introduced in 1986.]]
Production of computers in the GDR began to accelerate dramatically in the 1980’s. From 12,700 PCs manufactured in the years 1980-85, there were 57,400 produced in 1989. However, around 45% of these were exported, largely to the wider Soviet Union. This meant that only around 30,000 entered the GDR economy directly that year. This number was minute in comparison to many Western countries and so while the GDR was a relative forerunner in terms of the early implementation of computers it struggled to produce sufficient PCs to meet demand.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cortada |first1=James W. |title=The Digital Flood: The Diffusion of Information Technology Across the U.S., Europe and Asia |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-992155-3 |page=288}}</ref>

Importation of Western made computers to the GDR was attempted by [[IBM]] from at least the early 1960s but they were only officially accepted from 1968. In some cases, these exported systems were found by the Stasi to contain espionage devices. In order to keep pace with the West, GDR manufacturers copied elements of both the hardware and software. [[VEB Robotron]] was the largest manufacturer of electronics and its PC designs were copied extensively from IBMs. GDR programmers were also of fundamental importance in the Soviet Union’s ability to successfully copy an IBM [[Computer architecture|architecture]] and use it in its own Unified System of Computer Electronics (ES EVM).<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Leslie |editor1-first=Christopher |editor2-last=Schmitt |editor2-first=Martin |title=Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe |date=2019 |publisher=Springer |location=Cham |isbn=978-3-030-29159-4 |page=150}}</ref>

== Demographics ==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1984-0807-017, Leipzig, Familienszene.jpg|thumb|right|A woman and her husband, both medical students, and their triplets in East Germany in 1984. The GDR had state policies to encourage births among educated women.]]

{{Historical populations
|type =
|footnote = Source: [[Statistisches Bundesamt|DESTATIS]]
|1950 | 18,388,000
|1960 | 17,188,000
|1970 | 17,068,000
|1980 | 16,740,000
|1990 | 16,028,000
}}

The East German population declined by three million people throughout its forty-one year history, from 19&nbsp;million in 1948 to 16&nbsp;million in 1990; of the 1948 population, some four million [[Expulsion of Germans|were deported]] from the lands east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]], which made the home of millions of Germans part of Poland and the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Cite web |title=East Germany: country population |url=http://www.populstat.info/Europe/germanec.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100811041417/http://www.populstat.info/Europe/germanec.htm |archive-date=11 August 2010 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Populstat.info}}</ref> This was in contrast to Poland's population, which increased during that time from 24&nbsp;million in 1950 (a little more than East Germany) to 38&nbsp;million (more than twice of East Germany's population). This was primarily a result of emigration{{snd}}about one quarter of East Germans left the country before the Berlin Wall was completed in 1961,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Laar |first=Mart |url=http://www.poweroffreedombook.com/preview_PoF.pdf |title=The Power of Freedom: Central and Eastern Europe After 1945 |date=2010 |publisher=Centre for European Studies |page=58 |quote=In the period between the Second World War and 1961, a total of 3.8&nbsp;million people emigrated from East to West Germany. |access-date=5 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111025246/http://www.poweroffreedombook.com/preview_PoF.pdf |archive-date=11 November 2013 |url-status=usurped}}</ref> and after that time, East Germany had very low birth rates,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Germany Population&nbsp;– Historical Background |url=http://www.country-studies.com/germany/population---historical-background.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101133834/http://country-studies.com/germany/population---historical-background.html |archive-date=1 November 2009 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Country-studies.com}}</ref> except for a recovery in the 1980s when the birth rate in East Germany was considerably higher than in West Germany.<ref>[http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Publikationen/Fachveroeffentlichungen/Bevoelkerung/BroschuereGeburtenDeutschland,property=file.pdf Destatis.de] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090813223808/http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Publikationen/Fachveroeffentlichungen/Bevoelkerung/BroschuereGeburtenDeutschland,property=file.pdf |date=13 August 2009}} page 17</ref>

=== Vital statistics ===
{| 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 |url-status=live |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 |access-date=11 August 2018 |website=DESTATIS – Statistisches Bundesamt}}</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||1.30
|-
| 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 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811064452/https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelkerung/Bevoelkerungsbewegung/ZusammenEheschliessungenGeboreneGestorbene.html |archive-date=11 August 2018 |access-date=11 August 2018 |publisher=DESTATIS – Statistisches Bundesamt}}</ref>
|}
[[File:19860910300NR Rostock Nördliche Altstadt Auf der Huder.jpg|thumb|right|Hanseatic-themed [[Plattenbau|panel blocks]] in [[Rostock]]'s city center in September 1986, at the time East Germany's largest coastal and port city, and the sixth largest city in the country]]
{| class="wikitable"
|+ East Germany major cities (1988)
|-
! City !! Population!! Source
|-
| [[East Berlin]] || 1,200,000||
|-
| [[Leipzig]] || 556,000|| <ref>{{Cite web |title=Leipzig, Germany Population 1950–2019 |url=https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/204439/leipzig/population |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190928224946/https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/204439/leipzig/population |archive-date=28 September 2019 |access-date=28 September 2019 |website=www.macrotrends.net}}</ref>
|-
| [[Dresden]] || 520,000|| <ref>{{Cite web |title=Dresden, Germany Population 1950–2019 |url=https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/204437/dresden/population |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190928224947/https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/204437/dresden/population |archive-date=28 September 2019 |access-date=28 September 2019 |website=www.macrotrends.net}}</ref>
|-
| {{nowrap|[[Karl-Marx-Stadt]] (Chemnitz)}}
| 314,437|| <ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Paxton |first=J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DMjDDQAAQBAJ&q=karl+marx+stadt+population+1988&pg=PA526 |title=The Statesman's Year-Book 1990–91 |date=2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-27119-7 |language=en}}</ref>
|-
| [[Magdeburg]] || 290,579|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Rostock]] || 253,990|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle (Saale)]] || 236,044|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Erfurt]] || 220,016|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Potsdam]] || 142,862|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Gera]] || 134,834|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Schwerin]] || 130,685|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Cottbus]] || 128,639|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Zwickau]] || 121,749|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Jena]] || 108,010|| <ref name=":0"/>
|-
| [[Dessau]] || 103,867|| <ref name=":0"/>
|}

=== Religion ===
{{Main|Christianity in East Germany|Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc|Irreligion in Germany}}

{{bar box
|title=Religion in East Germany, 1950
|left1=Religion
|right1=Percent
|float=right
|bars=
{{bar percent|[[Protestant]]|DeepSkyBlue|85|85%}}
{{bar percent|[[Catholic Church|Catholic]]|DarkBlue|10|10%}}
{{bar percent|Unaffiliated|LightGrey|5|5%}}}}
{{bar box
|title=Religion in East Germany, 1989
|left1=Religion
|right1=Percent
|float=right
|bars=
{{bar percent|[[Protestant]]|DeepSkyBlue|25|25%}}
{{bar percent|[[Catholic Church|Catholic]]|DarkBlue|5|5%}}
{{bar percent|Unaffiliated|LightGrey|70|70%}}}}

Religion became contested ground in the GDR, with the governing communists promoting [[state atheism]], although some people remained loyal to Christian communities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |date=January 1957 |title=The Limits Of Totalitarianism: God, State and Society in the GDR |journal=[[Transactions of the Royal Historical Society]] |volume=7 |pages=25–52 |doi=10.2307/3679269 |jstor=3679269 |s2cid=162448768 |number=1}}</ref> In 1957, the state authorities established a [[State Secretary for Church Affairs|State Secretariat for Church Affairs]] to handle the government's contact with churches and with religious groups;<ref>{{Cite web |last=Toth |first=Helena |title=Dialogue as a Strategy of Struggle: Religious Politics in East Germany, 1957–1968 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/EF8B25B6831AAC5687891F10C5BD4646/S0960777320000065a.pdf/div-class-title-dialogue-as-a-strategy-of-struggle-religious-politics-in-east-germany-1957-1968-div.pdf |website=Contemporary European History |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=174}}</ref> the SED remained officially atheist.<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Silva |first=Brendan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PAR5nQudwUUC |title=East Germany: Continuity and Change |publisher=Rodopi B.V. |date=2000 |isbn=978-90-420-0579-2 |editor-last=Cooke |editor-first=Paul |series=German Monitor |location=Amsterdam |publication-date=2000 |pages=104–105 |chapter=The Protestant Church and the East German State: an organisational perspective |quote=The SED will refrain from talks with the churches, since it must be seen as an 'atheistic party against the Church'. Thus, negotiations must be led by the State, which is understood to be non-partisan, namely by the state Secretary for Church Affairs. But decisions on Church policies are to be made exclusively 'in the party' [...]. |access-date=21 September 2015 |editor-last2=Grix |editor-first2=Jonathan |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603024922/https://books.google.com/books?id=PAR5nQudwUUC |archive-date=3 June 2016 |url-status=live |via=[[Google Books]] |issue=46}}</ref>

In 1950, 85% of the GDR citizens were [[Protestants]], while 10% were [[Catholic Church|Catholics]]. In 1961, the renowned philosophical theologian [[Paul Tillich]] claimed that the Protestant population in East Germany had the most admirable Church in Protestantism, because the communists there had not been able to win a spiritual victory over them.<ref>[[Paul Tillich]]. Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (New York: [[Columbia University Press]], 1963), p. 20.</ref> By 1989, membership in the Christian churches had dropped significantly. Protestants constituted 25% of the population, Catholics 5%. The share of people who considered themselves non-religious rose from 5% in 1950 to 70% in 1989.

==== State atheism ====
{{Further|State atheism|Irreligion in Germany}}

When it first came to power, the Communist Party asserted the compatibility of Christianity and Marxism–Leninism and sought Christian participation in the building of socialism. At first, the promotion of [[Marxist–Leninist atheism]] received little official attention. In the mid-1950s, as the Cold War heated up, atheism became a topic of major interest for the state, in both domestic and foreign contexts. University chairs and departments devoted to the study of scientific atheism were founded and much literature (scholarly and popular) on the subject was produced. This activity subsided in the late 1960s amid perceptions that it had started to become counterproductive. Official and scholarly attention to atheism renewed beginning in 1973, though this time with more emphasis on scholarship and on the training of cadres than on propaganda. Throughout, the attention paid to atheism in East Germany was never intended to jeopardise the cooperation that was desired from those East Germans who were religious.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |date=1997 |title=The Limits of Totalitarianism: God, State and Society in the GDR |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3679269 |journal=Transactions of the Royal Historical Society |volume=7 |pages=25–52 |doi=10.2307/3679269 |issn=0080-4401}}</ref>{{page?|date=September 2024}}

==== Protestantism ====
{{Main|de:Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR|l1 = Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W0613-039, Sitzung des Martin-Luther-Komitees.jpg|thumb|right|A 1980 meeting between representatives of the BEK and Erich Honecker]]

East Germany, historically, was majority [[Protestant]] (primarily [[Lutheran]]) from the early stages of the [[Protestant Reformation]] onwards. In 1948, freed from the influence of the [[Nazism|Nazi-oriented]] [[German Christians (movement)|German Christians]], [[Lutheran]], [[Calvinism|Reformed]], and [[united and uniting churches|United churches]] from most parts of Germany united as the [[Protestant Church in Germany]] (''Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland''; EKD) at the Conference of Eisenach (''Kirchenversammlung von Eisenach'').

In 1969, the regional Protestant churches in East Germany and East Berlin{{efn|The Eastern churches were the [[Evangelical Church of Anhalt]], [[Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia#Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg]] (EKiBB, East Ambit, for East Berlin and Brandenburg), [[Evangelical Church of Silesia|Evangelical Church of the Görlitz Ecclesiastical Region]], [[Pomeranian Evangelical Church#Evangelical Church in Greifswald|Evangelical Church in Greifswald]], [[Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg]], [[Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony]], [[Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony]] (KPS), [[Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia]] and [[Evangelical Church of the Union]] (East Region, for EKiBB-East Ambit, Görlitz, Greifswald and KPS, and since 1970 for Anhalt too).}} broke away from the EKD and formed the ''{{ill|Federation of Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic|de|Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}}'' ({{langx|de|link=no|Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}}; BEK); the [[Moravian Church|Moravian]] ''Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde'' also joined in 1970. In June 1991, following the German reunification, the BEK churches remerged with the EKD.

Between 1956 and 1971, the [[leadership]] of the East German Lutheran churches gradually changed its relations with the state from hostility to cooperation.<ref>Martin Onnasch, "Konflikt und Kompromiss: Die Haltung der evangelischen Kirchen zu den gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen in der DDR am Anfang der fünfziger Jahre," ["Conflict and compromise: the position of the Protestant churches with regard to social changes in the GDR at the beginning of the 1950s"], ''Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte / Halbjahresschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswisseschaft,'' 1990, Vol. 3 Issue 1, pp.&nbsp;152–165.</ref> From the founding of the GDR in 1949, the Socialist Unity Party sought to weaken the influence of the Church on the rising generation. The Church adopted an attitude of confrontation and distance toward the state. Around 1956 this began to develop into a more neutral stance accommodating conditional loyalty. The government was no longer regarded as illegitimate; instead, church leaders started to view the authorities as installed by God and, therefore, deserving of obedience by Christians. Still, churches reserved their right to reject state demands on matters that they felt were not in accordance with the will of God. There were both structural and intentional causes behind this development. Structural causes included the hardening of Cold War tensions in Europe in the mid-1950s, which made it clear that the East German state was not temporary. The loss of church members also made it clear to church leaders that they had to come into some kind of dialogue with the state. The intentions behind the change of attitude varied from a traditional liberal Lutheran acceptance of secular power to a positive attitude toward socialist ideas.<ref name="Stephen R. Bowers 1982, pp 73-86">{{Cite journal |last=Bowers |first=Stephen R. |date=Spring 1982 |title=Private Institutions in Service to the State: The German Democratic Republic's Church in Socialism |journal=[[East European Quarterly]] |volume=16 |pages=73–86 |number=1}}</ref>

[[Manfred Stolpe]] became a lawyer for the Brandenburg Protestant Church in 1959 before taking up a position at church headquarters in Berlin. In 1969 he helped found the {{lang|de|Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}} (BEK), where he negotiated with the government while at the same time working within the institutions of this Protestant body. He won the regional elections for the Brandenburg state assembly at the head of the SPD list in 1990. Stolpe remained in the Brandenburg government until he joined the federal government in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-12-29 |title=Startseite - Manfred Stolpe |url=https://manfred-stolpe.de |access-date=2024-10-07 |language=de-DE}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Augustine |first=Dolores L. |date=2004 |title=The Impact of Two Reunification-Era Debates on the East German Sense of Identity |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4140983 |journal=German Studies Review |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=563–578 |doi=10.2307/4140983 |jstor=4140983|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Apart from the Protestant state churches ({{langx|de|link=no|label=none|[[Landeskirche]]n}}, united in the EKD/BEK) and the [[Catholic Church]], there were a number of smaller Protestant bodies, including Protestant [[Free Churches]] ({{langx|de|link=no|label=none|Evangelische Freikirchen}}) united in the {{ill|Federation of the Free Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic|de|Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in der DDR}} and the {{ill|Federation of the Free Protestant Churches in Germany|de|Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden in Deutschland}}, as well as the [[Evangelical Lutheran Free Church (Germany)|Free Lutheran Church]], the [[Old Lutherans|Old Lutheran Church]], and [[Federation of the Reformed Churches in the German Democratic Republic]]. The [[Moravian Church]] also had its presence as the {{lang|de|Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine}}. There were also other Protestants such as [[Methodism|Methodists]], [[Adventists]], [[Mennonites]], and [[Quakers]].

==== Catholicism ====
{{See also|Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Berlin}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0710-035, Dresden, Katholikentreffen.jpg|thumb|[[Katholikentag]], Dresden, 1987<br/>(left to right) Bishop [[Karl Lehmann]] and [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|Cardinals]] [[Gerhard Schaffran]], Joseph Ratzinger (the future [[Pope Benedict XVI]]) and [[Joachim Meisner]]]]

The smaller Catholic Church in eastern Germany had a fully functioning episcopal hierarchy in full accord with the Vatican. During the early postwar years, tensions were high. The Catholic Church as a whole (and particularly the bishops) resisted both the East German state and Marxist–Leninist ideology. The state allowed the bishops to lodge protests, which they did on issues such as abortion.<ref name="Stephen R. Bowers 1982, pp 73-86"/>

After 1945, the Church did fairly well in integrating Catholic exiles from lands to the east (which mostly became part of Poland) and in adjusting its institutional structures to meet the needs of a church within an officially atheist society. This meant an increasingly hierarchical church structure, whereas in the area of religious education, press, and youth organisations, a system of temporary staff was developed, one that took into account the special situation of [[Caritas Germany|Caritas]], a Catholic charity organisation. By 1950, therefore, there existed a Catholic subsociety that was well adjusted to prevailing specific conditions and capable of maintaining Catholic identity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schaefer |first=Bernd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=96QzpCRH2agC |title=The East German State and the Catholic Church, 1945–1989 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |date=2010 |isbn=978-1-84545-852-2 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603062014/https://books.google.com/books?id=96QzpCRH2agC |archive-date=3 June 2016 |url-status=live}} ch 1</ref>{{Page needed|date=January 2014}}

With a generational change in the episcopacy taking place in the early 1980s, the state hoped for better relations with the new bishops, but the new bishops instead began holding unauthorised mass meetings, promoting international ties in discussions with theologians abroad, and hosting ecumenical conferences. The new bishops became less politically oriented and more involved in pastoral care and attention to spiritual concerns. The government responded by limiting international contacts for bishops.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Webb |first=Adrian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=omjBEYM3IK4C&pg=PA185 |title=Routledge Companion to Central and Eastern Europe since 1919 |publisher=[[Routledge]], [[Taylor & Francis]] |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-203-92817-2 |page=185 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160427110838/https://books.google.com/books?id=omjBEYM3IK4C&pg=PA185 |archive-date=27 April 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=September 2015}}

List of apostolic administrators:
* [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Erfurt|Erfurt-Meiningen]]
* [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Görlitz|Görlitz]]
* [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Magdeburg|Magdeburg]]
* [[Apostolic administration of Schwerin|Schwerin]]

=== Education ===
==== Childcare system ====
[[File:DDR Schulsystem.svg|thumb|Diagram of East German school system (in German)]]
About 600,000 children and youth were involved in East German residential childcare system. Among the worst of the residential homes was [[Torgau]] penal institution, which housed juveniles until 1975. Life there was 'characterised by strict domineering control and harassment. Inmates were spied on by fellow prisoners and prison wardens. The prison was decrepit and overcrowded.'<ref>[https://en.stsg.de/cms/node/884 The East German penal system in Torgau from 1950 to 1990]</ref>
{{Clear}}

== Culture ==
{{Main|Culture of East Germany}}

East Germany's culture was deeply influenced by communist ideology and was characterized by efforts to distinguish itself from the West, particularly [[West Germany]] and the [[United States]]. The ruling [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|Socialist Unity Party]] (SED) implemented a comprehensive cultural policy (Kulturpolitik) aimed at promoting socialist values and suppressing dissenting views.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Silverberg |first=Laura |title=East German Music and the Problem of National Identity |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/abs/east-german-music-and-the-problem-of-national-identity/286E182F956087B8B7DFF08F52AFA750 |journal=Nationalities Papers |date=2009 |language=en |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=501–522 |doi=10.1080/00905990902985710 |issn=0090-5992|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Censorship and Dissent of GDR |url=https://www.academia.edu/121902949}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grüning |first=Barbara |date=2023-06-01 |title=Cultural Spaces as Political Spaces: The Musical Field of the German Democratic Republic |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/17499755221078713 |journal=Cultural Sociology |language=EN |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=225–251 |doi=10.1177/17499755221078713 |issn=1749-9755|url-access=subscription }}</ref> All forms of artistic and literary expression were subject to state censorship to ensure alignment with socialist ideals.<ref>Pence and Betts, ''Socialist modern: East German everyday culture and politics''. p. 37 for Maaz, 58.</ref>

The [[Inner German border|GDR]] leadership established institutions like the [[Gesellschaft zur Verbreitung wissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse]] (Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge), also known as Urania, to educate the population in science, technology, medicine, economics, and social sciences.  This initiative reflected the state's commitment to advancing scientific knowledge and economic development.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UzlfPwAACAAJ |title=Gesellschaft zur Verbreitung wissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse: Gründungsbeschluss, Statut, Präsidium |date=1954 |publisher=Karl-Marx-Werk |language=de}}</ref>

[[Education in East Germany]] was designed to integrate vocational training with ideological instruction. The [[Polytechnic Secondary School|polytechnic secondary school]] (POS) system emphasized subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and political education, aiming to produce citizens aligned with [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] ideals.

Cultural production, including literature and music, was guided by state policies.<ref name="ed">{{Cite web |title=The Secret of East German Censorship – Who's Watching Who? |url=http://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/whos-watching-who/tales-archive/secrets-of-east-german-censorship |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171216091214/http://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/whos-watching-who/tales-archive/secrets-of-east-german-censorship |archive-date=16 December 2017 |access-date=15 December 2017 |website=blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk}}</ref> The [[Aufbauliteratur]] movement (1949–1961) exemplified literature that aligned with the state's political program, aiming to educate citizens in loyalty to the socialist ideology.<ref>Emmerich, W., 1996. ''Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR.'' Leipzig: Aufbau Verlag.</ref> In music, the state supported education but imposed guidelines to ensure that artistic expressions conformed to socialist values. Musicians in genres like rock, blues, and folk navigated these restrictions, sometimes facing conflicts with the state.

Public perception of the state's ideals evolved over time. While some East Germans viewed their culture as embodying a more authentic and healthier mentality compared to that of West Germany, others became increasingly critical of the state's ideological commitments. Studies have shown that even decades after reunification, individuals from the former East Germany exhibit stronger preferences for state involvement in providing social welfare compared to their West German counterparts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bondar |first1=Mariia |last2=Fuchs-Schündeln |first2=Nicola |date=2023-02-28 |title=Good Bye Lenin Revisited: East-West Preferences Three Decades after German Reunification |journal=German Economic Review |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=97–119 |doi=10.1515/ger-2022-0042 |issn=1468-0475 |pmc=10005892 |pmid=36916964}}</ref>

=== Music ===
{{See also|Jazz in Germany}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-F0321-0204-001, Berlin, Volksbühne, Oktoberklub, Hartmut König.jpg|thumb|''Oktoberklub'' in 1967]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W0115-047, Berlin, Frank Schöbel bei Autogrammstunde.jpg|thumb|Pop singer [[Frank Schöbel]] (center) giving autographs in 1980.]]

A special feature of GDR culture is the broad spectrum of German rock bands. The [[Puhdys]] and [[Karat (band)|Karat]] were some of the most popular mainstream bands in East Germany. Like most mainstream acts, they were members of the SED and appeared in state-run popular youth magazines such as ''Neues Leben'' and ''Magazin''. Other popular rock bands were {{ill|Wir (band)|de|Wir (Band)|lt=Wir}}, [[City (band)|City]], [[Silly (band)|Silly]], and [[Pankow (German band)|Pankow]]. Most of these artists recorded on the state-owned [[AMIGA (label)|AMIGA]] label.

The [[Schlager music|schlager]] genre, which was very popular in the West, also gained a foothold early on in East Germany, and numerous musicians, such as {{ill|Gerd Christian|de}}, {{ill|Uwe Jensen|de|Uwe Jensen (Schlagersänger)}}, and {{ill|Hartmut Schulze-Gerlach|de}} gained national fame. From 1962 to 1976, an international schlager festival was held in [[Rostock]], garnering participants from between 18 and 22 countries each year.<ref>[http://www.wdr4.de/musik/schallplattenbar/ostseelaender100.html Bericht auf wdr4.de vom 22. Juli 2007] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160127174942/http://www.wdr4.de/musik/schallplattenbar/ostseelaender100.html |date=27 January 2016}}, retrieved 30 September 2014.</ref> The city of [[Dresden]] held a similar international festival for schlager musicians from 1971 until shortly before reunification.<ref>Götz Hintze: ''Rocklexikon der DDR''. 2. Auflage. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, {{ISBN|3-89602-303-9}}, Eintrag zum Internationalen Schlagerfestival Dresden</ref> There was a national schlager contest hosted yearly in Magdeburg from 1966 to 1971 as well.<ref>[http://www.aus-der-ddr.de/person/chris_doerk-pid_4000005786.html Informationen zu Chris Doerk] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160428041438/http://www.aus-der-ddr.de/person/chris_doerk-pid_4000005786.html |date=28 April 2016}}, retrieved 23 December 2010.</ref>

Bands and singers from other socialist countries were popular, such as [[Czerwone Gitary]] from Poland known as the {{lang|de|Rote Gitarren}}.<ref name="rote-gitarren">{{Cite web |title=ROTE GITARREN – Die Offizielle Homepage |trans-title=ROTE GITARREN – The official homepage |url=http://www.rote-gitarren.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019152614/http://www.rote-gitarren.de |archive-date=19 October 2017 |access-date=15 December 2017 |website=rote-gitarren.de |language=de}}</ref><ref name="deutsche-mugge">{{Cite web |title=Rote Gitarren |url=http://www.deutsche-mugge.de/portraits/3782-rote-gitarren.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019152122/http://www.deutsche-mugge.de/portraits/3782-rote-gitarren.html |archive-date=19 October 2017 |access-date=15 December 2017 |website=Deutsche Mugge |language=de}}</ref> Czech [[Karel Gott]], the Golden Voice from Prague, was beloved in both German states.<ref name="ddr-tanzmusik">{{Cite web |title=Karel Gott |url=http://www.ddr-tanzmusik.de/index.php/Karel_Gott |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019152122/http://www.ddr-tanzmusik.de/index.php/Karel_Gott |archive-date=19 October 2017 |access-date=15 December 2017 |website=DDR-Tanzmusik |language=de}}</ref> Hungarian band [[Omega (band)|Omega]] performed in both German states, and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavian]] band [[Korni Grupa]] toured East Germany in the 1970s.<ref name="deutsche-mugge2">{{Cite web |title=Omega |url=http://www.deutsche-mugge.de/portraits/2372-omega.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019153245/http://www.deutsche-mugge.de/portraits/2372-omega.html |archive-date=19 October 2017 |access-date=15 December 2017 |website=Deutsche Mugge |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Biografija: Muzičar Dado Topić |url=http://www.opusteno.rs/biografije-poznatih-f151/biografija-muzicar-dado-topic-t18595.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170412013943/http://opusteno.rs/biografije-poznatih-f151/biografija-muzicar-dado-topic-t18595.html |archive-date=12 April 2017 |access-date=19 December 2017 |website=Opusteno.rs}}</ref>

West German television and radio could be received in many parts of the East. The Western influence led to the formation of more "underground" groups with a decisively western-oriented sound. A few of these bands – the so-called ''[[Die anderen Bands]]'' ("the other bands") – were {{lang|de|[[Die Skeptiker]]}}, {{ill|Die Art|de}}, and [[Feeling B]]. Additionally, [[hip hop]] culture reached the ears of the East German youth. With videos such as ''[[Beat Street]]'' and ''[[Wild Style]]'', young East Germans were able to develop a hip hop culture of their own.<ref>Brown, Timothy S. "'Keeping it Real' in a Different 'Hood: (African-) Americanization and Hip-hop in Germany." In The Vinyl Ain't Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, pp. 137–150. London</ref> East Germans accepted hip hop as more than just a music form. The entire street culture surrounding rap entered the region and became an outlet for oppressed youth.<ref>{{ill|Elflein, Dietmar|de|Dietmar Elflein}}. {{Cite journal |date=October 1998 |title=From Krauts with Attitudes to Turks with Attitudes: Some Aspects of Hip-Hop History in Germany |journal=Popular Music |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=17 |pages=225–265 |issn=0261-1430 |eissn=1474-0095 |number=3}}</ref>

The government of the GDR was invested in both promoting the tradition of German [[classical music]], and in supporting composers to write new works in that tradition. Notable East German composers include [[Hanns Eisler]], [[Paul Dessau]], [[Ernst Hermann Meyer]], [[Rudolf Wagner-Régeny]], and [[Kurt Schwaen]].

The birthplace of [[Johann Sebastian Bach]] (1685–1750), [[Eisenach]], was rendered as a museum about him, featuring more than three hundred instruments, which, in 1980, received some 70,000 visitors. In Leipzig, the Bach archive contains his compositions and correspondence and recordings of his music.<ref name="Davies1977">{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Cecil William |title=Theatre for the People: The Story of the Volksbühne |date=1977 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7190-0666-1 |page=126}}</ref>

Governmental support of classical music maintained some 168 publicly funded concert, opera, chamber, and radio orchestras, such as [[Gewandhausorchester]] and [[Thomanerchor]] in Leipzig; [[Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden|Sächsische Staatskapelle]] in Dresden; and [[Berliner Sinfonie Orchester]] and [[Staatsoper Unter den Linden]] in Berlin.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lys |first1=Franziska |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z9JBDwAAQBAJ&dq=east+Germany+support+classical+music+orchestra+fifty&pg=PA131 |title=Virtual Walls?: Political Unification and Cultural Difference in Contemporary Germany |last2=Dreyer |first2=Michael |author-link2=Michael Dreyer |date=2017 |publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer]] |isbn=978-1-57113-980-1 |language=en}}</ref> [[Kurt Masur]] was their prominent conductor.<ref name="spiegel">{{Cite news |date=12 October 2010 |title=Interview With Conductor Kurt Masur: 'The Spirit of 1989 Has Been Exhausted' |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-conductor-kurt-masur-the-spirit-of-1989-has-been-exhausted-a-721851.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019152621/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-conductor-kurt-masur-the-spirit-of-1989-has-been-exhausted-a-721851.html |archive-date=19 October 2017 |access-date=15 December 2017 |work=[[Der Spiegel|Spiegel Online]]}}</ref>

==== Censorship in the music sector ====
All productions were subject to [[Censorship in East Germany|censorship]]. Texts had to be submitted and shows approved in advance; performances were watched. No one was exempt from this, not even famous artists with connections to the highest circles of the SED government. Under this pressure, strategies were developed to bring critical texts to the audience despite censorship. For example, Heinz Quermann always deliberately built an extreme gag into his entertainment programme so that the censors would have something to cut and the other gags would be less critically scrutinised. [[Tamara Danz]] of the band Silly founded the term "green elephant" (''grüner Elefant'') for such passages.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the music of the [[The Beatles|Beatles]] influenced GDR youth. Initially, this music was still tolerated and supported by the GDR leadership, especially with the help of the FDJ. The high point of this era was 1965, when GDR bands not only got radio and television appearances but were even allowed to make recordings. However, the SED realised that it could not control and steer this movement, which was basically rebellious and oriented towards the West. In response, most [[Beat music|beat]] bands were therefore simply banned, the others were strictly controlled. For example, Thomas Natschinski's band had to change its English name "Team 4" to the German name "Thomas Natschinski and his group". Other bands were not so conformist. Renft in particular was repeatedly banned from performing and later also the blues rock band Freygang, whose members went into hiding and then played under pseudonyms. This crackdown led to the [[Leipzig Beat Revolt]] in October that year.

Even convinced socialists were banned from performing if their ideas of socialism differed from those of the SED. In 1976, singer-songwriter [[Wolf Biermann]] was allowed to tour in the West; this was immediately taken as an opportunity to denaturalise him and refuse him permission to return. Numerous artists protested against this and were forced to leave the country – some after serving prison sentences – including members of [[Klaus Renft Combo|Renft]], as well as [[Manfred Krug]] and [[Nina Hagen]]. Other artists left voluntarily. [[Veronika Fischer]], for example, did not return from a performance in West Berlin in 1981, whereupon her songs were no longer allowed to be played by GDR radio stations.

West German productions were also subject to censorship in East Germany. For example, the song by [[Udo Jürgens]] "{{Lang|de|Es war einmal ein Luftballon|italic=no}}" ("Once Upon a Time There Was a Balloon") was put on the Index because of the line, "They know no borders, the balloons of the world". It was not until 1987 that Jürgens was again allowed to perform in the GDR. [[Udo Lindenberg]] had similar problems. Despite all his efforts (such as his song "{{Lang|de|Sonderzug nach Pankow|italic=no}}" ("Special Train to Pankow")), he was only allowed to perform once before the fall of the Berlin Wall, at the [[Palace of the Republic, Berlin|Palast der Republik]] on the occasion of the event "{{Lang|de|Rock für den Frieden|italic=no}}" ("Rock for Peace") on 25 October 1983.

In the 1980s, censorship seemed to loosen up. Lyrics about the longing for freedom (including "Albatros" by Karat) became possible. But it was only in the course of the peaceful revolution that songs by Veronika Fischer were heard on the radio again in October 1989.

=== Theatre ===
[[File:Bertolt-Brecht.jpg|thumb|upright|Playwright [[Bertolt Brecht]] (1898–1956)]]

East German theatre was originally dominated by [[Bertolt Brecht]], who brought back many artists out of exile and reopened the [[Theater am Schiffbauerdamm]] with his [[Berliner Ensemble]].<ref name="NYTimesTynan">{{Cite web |last=Tynan |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Tynan |date=11 January 1976 |title=Brecht Would Not Applaud His Theater Today |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/10/specials/tynan-brecht.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914115241/https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/10/specials/tynan-brecht.html |archive-date=14 September 2016 |access-date=1 September 2016 |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Alternatively, other influences tried to establish a "working-class theatre", played for the working class by the working class.<ref>{{Cite web |title=German Democratic Republic - GDR Deutsche Demokratische Republik - DDR |url=https://www.onvauc.org/ddr-civilian |access-date=2025-06-30 |website=Organisation von Nationale Volksarmee Uniformsammler |language=en}}</ref>

After Brecht's death, conflicts began to arise between his family (around [[Helene Weigel]]) and other artists about Brecht's legacy, including [[Slatan Dudow]],<ref>Joshua Feinstein, ''The Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema, 1949–1989'' (Chapel Hill, NC: [[University of North Carolina Press]], 2002), 80–109. {{ISBN|978-0-8078-5385-6}}</ref> [[Erwin Geschonneck]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harkin |first=Patrick |title=Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity |date=2011 |publisher=[[Camden House]] |isbn=978-1-57113-492-9 |editor-last=Bradley |editor-first=Laura |series=Edinburgh German Yearbook |volume=5 |publication-place=Rochester, NY |pages=84–99 |chapter=Brecht on 17 June: Establishing the Facts |editor-last2=Leeder |editor-first2=Karen |editor-link2=Karen Leeder}}</ref> [[Erwin Strittmatter]], [[Peter Hacks]], [[Benno Besson]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gezen |first=Ela E. |title=Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature: Reception, Adaptation, and Innovation After 1960 |date=2018 |publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer]] |isbn=978-1-64014-024-0 |publication-place=London |pages=80–85}}</ref> [[Peter Palitzsch]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wekwerth |first=Manfred |author-link=Manfred Wekwerth |title=Daring to Play: A Brecht Companion |date=2012 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-136-70911-1 |publication-place=London |pages=101–07}}</ref> and [[Ekkehard Schall]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bradley |first=Laura |title=Brecht and Political Theatre: The Mother on Stage |date=2006 |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-928658-4 |publication-place=London |pages=108–12, 129–31}}</ref>

In the 1950s, the Swiss director [[Benno Besson]] with the [[Deutsches Theater (Berlin)|Deutsches Theater]] successfully toured Europe and Asia including Japan with ''The Dragon'' by [[Evgeny Schwartz]]. In the 1960s, he became the Intendant of the [[Volksbühne]] often working with [[Heiner Müller]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rockwell |first=John |date=25 February 2006 |title=Benno Besson, 83, Director of Plays and Brecht Disciple, Is Dead |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/theater/benno-besson-83-director-of-plays-and-brecht-disciple-is-dead.html |access-date=4 June 2024 |work=The New York Times}}</ref>

In the 1970s, a parallel theatre scene sprung up, creating theatre "outside of Berlin" in which artists played at provincial theatres. For example, [[Peter Sodann]] founded the [[Neues Theater]] in [[Halle/Saale]] and [[Frank Castorf]] at the theater [[Anklam]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2015}}

Theatre and [[cabaret]] had high status in the GDR, which allowed it to be very proactive. This often brought it into confrontation with the state. Benno Besson once said, "In contrast to artists in the west, they took us seriously, we had a bearing."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Berlin East germany |url=http://www.berlinstory-andtravels.info/2016/01/25/east-germany |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222050829/http://www.berlinstory-andtravels.info/2016/01/25/east-germany |archive-date=22 December 2017 |access-date=19 December 2017 |website=www.berlinstory-andtravels.info}}</ref>{{efn|This quote has no cross-referencing to ground its authenticity. For a detailed overview of the issues of Brecht's legacy after his death within the Berliner Ensemble, see David Barnett, ''A History of the Berliner Ensemble'' ([[Cambridge University Press]], 2015), 146–70. {{ISBN|978-1-107-05979-5}}.}}

[[File:VolksbühBerlJan08.JPG|thumb|[[Volksbühne]]]]

The [[Friedrichstadt-Palast]] in [[Berlin]] was the last major building erected by the GDR, making it an exceptional architectural testimony to how Germany overcame its former division. Today, it is a major center for Berlin's [[revue]] tradition.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Friedrichstadt-Palast |url=https://www.palast.berlin/en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304055516/https://www.palast.berlin/en |archive-date=4 March 2018 |access-date=8 February 2018}}</ref> Other important theatres include the [[Berliner Ensemble]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Das BE{{snd}}ein Theater für Zeitgenossen |url=http://www.berliner-ensemble.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100530033027/http://www.berliner-ensemble.de |archive-date=30 May 2010 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Berliner-ensemble.de}}</ref> the [[Deutsches Theater (Berlin)|Deutsches Theater]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Deutsches Theater: Home |url=http://www.deutsches-theater.de |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100326013548/http://www.deutsches-theater.de |archive-date=26 March 2010 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Deutsches-theater.de}}</ref> the [[Maxim-Gorki-Theater|Maxim Gorki Theater]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gorki.de |url=http://www.gorki.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100323211142/http://gorki.de |archive-date=23 March 2010 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Gorki.de}}</ref> and the [[Volksbühne]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Volksbühne Berlin |url=http://www.volksbuehne-berlin.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100323154731/http://www.volksbuehne-berlin.de |archive-date=23 March 2010 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Volksbuehne-berlin.de}}</ref>

=== Television and radio ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-U1109-022, Berlin, Sandmännchen.jpg|thumb|[[Gerhard Behrendt]] with character from the stop-animation series ''[[Sandmännchen]]'', in 1979]]
Television and radio in East Germany were state-run industries; the ''[[Rundfunk der DDR]]'' was the official radio broadcasting organisation from 1952 until unification. The organization was based in the ''[[Funkhaus Berlin|Funkhaus Nalepastraße]]'' in East Berlin. ''[[Deutscher Fernsehfunk]]'' (DFF), from 1972 to 1990 known as ''Fernsehen der DDR'' or DDR-FS, was the state television broadcaster from 1952. Like all press organs, television and radio were under tight control and censorship of the SED's [[Departments of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany#Agitation|Agitation Department]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Das Grosse Haus: Insider berichten aus dem ZK der SED |date=1995 |publisher=Edition Ost |isbn=978-3-929161-20-5 |editor-last=Modrow |editor-first=Hans |edition=2. Aufl |location=Berlin |pages=103 f |language=de}}</ref> Reception of Western broadcasts was widespread.<ref name="Cooke">{{Cite book |last=Cooke |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H7ajL_aNu6oC&pg=PA146 |title=Representing East Germany Since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia |date=2005 |publisher=[[Berg Publishers]] |isbn=978-1-84520-189-0 |page=146 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150326211319/http://books.google.com/books?id=H7ajL_aNu6oC&pg=PA146 |archive-date=26 March 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Cinema ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-A1007-0011-002, Berlin, Karl-Marx-Allee, Kino "Kosmos", Foyer.jpg|thumb|The foyer of the Kino Kosmos (Cosmos Cinema) in Karl Marx Alley, Berlin in 1962]]
The prolific cinema of East Germany was headed by the ''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'' ([[DEFA]]),<ref>{{Cite web |title=DEFA{{snd}}Stiftung{{snd}}Home |url=http://www.defa-stiftung.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080426152958/http://www.defa-stiftung.de |archive-date=26 April 2008 |access-date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Defa-stiftung.de}}</ref> which was subdivided in different local groups whose local teams shot and produced films. The East German industry became known worldwide for its productions, especially children's movies (''[[Das kalte Herz]]'', film versions of the [[Brothers Grimm]] fairy tales, and modern productions such as ''[[Das Schulgespenst]]'').<ref>{{Cite web |last=LISUM |first=Filmernst-Kinobüro im |title=Filmdatenbank {{!}} Das Schulgespenst {{!}} Inhalt |url=https://www.filmernst.de/Filme/Filmdetails.html?movie_id=24 |access-date=2022-10-07 |website=Filmernst {{!}} Das Kompetenzzentrum für Film – Schule – Kino im Land Brandenburg |language=de}}</ref>

[[Frank Beyer]]'s ''[[Jacob the Liar (1975 film)|Jakob der Lügner]]'' ("Jacob the Liar"), about [[the Holocaust]], and ''[[Fünf Patronenhülsen]]'' ("Five Cartridges"), about resistance against fascism, became internationally famous.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Müller |first=Beate |title=Stasi-Zensur-Machtdiskurse: Publikationsgeschichten und Materialien zu Jurek Beckers Werk |date=2006 |publisher=[[Max Niemeyer Verlag]] |isbn=978-3-484-35110-3 |publication-place=Berlin |pages=129–30 |language=de}}</ref>

Films about daily life, such as ''[[The Legend of Paul and Paula|Die Legende von Paul und Paula]]'', by [[Heiner Carow]], and ''[[Solo Sunny]]'', directed by [[Konrad Wolf]] and [[Wolfgang Kohlhaase]], were very popular.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heiduschke |first=Sebastian |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322326_14 |title=The Women's Film, Konrad Wolf, and Defa After the "Biermann Affair": Solo Sunny (Konrad Wolf, 1980) |date=2013 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-1-137-32232-6 |publication-place=New York |pages=115–21 |doi=10.1057/9781137322326_14 |access-date=21 January 2022}}</ref>

The film industry was remarkable for its production of ''[[Ostern]]'', or Western-like movies. In these films, [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] often took the role of displaced people who fight for their rights, in contrast to the [[Western (genre)|North American westerns]] of the time, where they were often either not mentioned at all or portrayed as villains. [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavs]] were often cast as Native Americans because of the small number of Native Americans in Europe. [[Gojko Mitić]] was well known in these roles, often playing the righteous, kindhearted, and charming [[Tribal chief|chief]] (as in ''[[The Sons of Great Bear|Die Söhne der großen Bärin]]'' directed by [[Josef Mach]]). He became an honorary [[Sioux]] chief when he visited the United States in the 1990s, and the television crew accompanying him showed the tribe one of his movies. American actor and singer [[Dean Reed]], an expatriate who lived in East Germany, also starred in several films. These films were part of the phenomenon of Europe producing alternative films about the colonization of the Americas.{{Citation needed|date=May 2015}}

Cinemas in the GDR also showed foreign films. Czechoslovak and Polish productions were more common, but certain Western movies were shown, though the numbers of these were limited because it cost foreign exchange to buy the licenses. Further, films representing or glorifying what the state viewed as capitalist ideology were not bought. Comedies enjoyed great popularity, such as the Danish ''[[Olsen-banden|Olsen Gang]]'' or movies with the French comedian [[Louis de Funès]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2015}}

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, several films depicting life in the GDR have been critically acclaimed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scott |first=Sheena |date=5 November 2019 |title=Films And The Fall Of The Berlin Wall: A Cinematic History, Post-1989 |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/sheenascott/2019/11/05/the-berlin-wall-and-the-cinema-films-made-after-1989/?sh=716591bb683e |journal=Forbes}}</ref> Some of the most notable were ''[[Good Bye Lenin!]]'' by [[Wolfgang Becker (director, born 1954)|Wolfgang Becker]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cook |first=Roger F. |date=28 June 2007 |title=Good Bye, Lenin!: Free-Market Nostalgia for Socialist Consumerism |journal=[[German Studies Canada#Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies|Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies]] |language=en |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=206–219 |doi=10.1353/smr.2007.0027 |issn=1911-026X |s2cid=201759614 |institution=[[German Studies Canada]]}}</ref> ''[[The Lives of Others|Das Leben der Anderen]]'' ("The Lives of Others") by [[Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck]] (which won the [[Academy Award for Best International Feature Film]]) in 2006,<ref name="test">[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/awards 2006 Academy Award for "The Lives of Others"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111010025327/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/awards |date=10 October 2011}},</ref> and ''[[Alles auf Zucker!]]'' ("Go for Zucker") by Dani Levi. Each film is heavily infused with cultural nuances of life in the GDR.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Enns |first=Anthony |date=1 December 2007 |title=The politics of Ostalgie: post-socialist nostalgia in recent German film |journal=[[Screen (journal)|Screen]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=475–91 |doi=10.1093/screen/hjm049 |issn=0036-9543}}</ref>

=== Sport ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-N0615-0011, X. Fußball-WM, DDR-Nationalmannschaft.jpg|thumb|The [[East Germany national football team|East German football team]] lining up before a match against Australia on 15 June 1974]]East Germany was very successful in the sports of [[cycle sport|cycling]], [[Olympic weightlifting|weightlifting]], swimming, gymnastics, track and field, [[boxing]], [[ice skating]], and winter sports. The success is largely attributed to [[doping in East Germany|doping]] under the direction of [[Manfred Höppner]], a sports doctor, described as the architect of East Germany's state-sponsored drug program.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Helmstaedt |first=Karin |date=19 July 2000 |title=East German Doping Trial |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/east-german-doping-trial/article4165918 |access-date=5 September 2019 |work=[[The Globe and Mail]] |location=Berlin}}</ref>

[[Anabolic steroid]]s were the most detected doping substances in [[IOC]]-accredited laboratories for many years.<ref>Hartgens and Kuipers (2004), p. 515</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kicman |first1=A.T. |last2=Gower |first2=D.B. |date=July 2003 |title=Anabolic steroids in sport: biochemical, clinical and analytical perspectives |url=http://acb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=12880534 |url-status=dead |journal=Annals of Clinical Biochemistry |volume=40 |issue=Pt 4 |pages=321–56 |doi=10.1258/000456303766476977 |pmid=12880534 |s2cid=24339701 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120629013117/http://acb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=12880534 |archive-date=29 June 2012|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The development and implementation of a state-supported sports doping program helped East Germany, with its small population, to become a world leader in sport during the 1970s and 1980s, winning a large number of Olympic and world gold medals and records.<ref>'''Sources''':
* {{cite news |last=Tagilabue |first=John |title=Political Pressure Dismantles East German Sports Machine |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/12/sports/political-pressure-dismantles-east-german-sports-machine.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=12 February 1991 |access-date=16 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120034114/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/12/sports/political-pressure-dismantles-east-german-sports-machine.html |archive-date=20 November 2018 |url-status=live|ref=none}}
* {{cite news |last=Janofsky |first=Michael |title=Olympics; Coaches Concede That Steroids Fueled East Germany's Success in Swimming |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/03/sports/olympics-coaches-concede-that-steroids-fueled-east-germany-s-success-in-swimming.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=3 December 1991 |access-date=16 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120034603/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/03/sports/olympics-coaches-concede-that-steroids-fueled-east-germany-s-success-in-swimming.html |archive-date=20 November 2018 |url-status=live|ref=none}}
* {{Cite web |last=Kirschbaum |first=Erik |date=15 September 2000 |title=East German Dope Still Leaves Tracks |url=http://www.rediff.com/sports/2000/sep/15germ.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080603040130/http://www.rediff.com/sports/2000/sep/15germ.htm |archive-date=3 June 2008 |access-date=12 May 2008 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Ungerleider |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Ungerleider |title=Faust's Gold: Inside the East German doping machine |date=2001 |publisher=[[Thomas Dunne Books]]/[[St. Martin's Press]] |isbn=0-312-26977-3 |edition=1st |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/faustsgold00stev|ref=none}}
* {{cite web |title=Sports Doping Statistics Reach Plateau in Germany |url=https://www.dw.com/en/sports-doping-statistics-reach-plateau-in-germany/a-786574 |publisher={{Lang|de|[[Deutsche Welle]]|italic=no}} |date=26 February 2003 |access-date=16 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001233942/https://www.dw.com/en/sports-doping-statistics-reach-plateau-in-germany/a-786574 |archive-date=1 October 2018 |url-status=live|ref=none}}
* {{cite news |last=Longman |first=Jere |title=Drug Testing; East German Steroids' Toll: 'They Killed Heidi' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/sports/drug-testing-east-german-steroids-toll-they-killed-heidi.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=26 January 2004 |access-date=16 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001234004/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/sports/drug-testing-east-german-steroids-toll-they-killed-heidi.html |archive-date=1 October 2018 |url-status=live|ref=none}}</ref> Another factor for success was the furtherance system for young people in the GDR. Sports teachers at school were encouraged to look for certain talents in children of ages 6 to 10. For older pupils it was possible to attend grammar schools with a focus on sports (for example sailing, football and swimming).

<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Karin Janz.png|right|thumb|upright|[[Karin Janz]], who won world and Olympic gold medals in [[artistic gymnastics]] for East Germany]] -->
Sports clubs were highly subsidized, especially sports in which international fame was possible. For example, the major leagues for ice hockey and basketball just included two teams each.{{Clarify|date=January 2025|reason=Are these examples of "sports with international fame"? If so, why are they described as "just two teams each"? That sounds like they were relatively underappreciated.}} [[Association football|Football]] was the most popular sport. Club football teams such as [[Dynamo Dresden]], [[1. FC Magdeburg]], [[FC Carl Zeiss Jena]], [[1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig]], and [[BFC Dynamo]] had successes in European competition. Many East German players such as [[Matthias Sammer]] and [[Ulf Kirsten]] became integral parts of the reunified national football team.

The East and the West also competed via sport. GDR athletes dominated several Olympic sports; the [[SV Dynamo]] club of the security agencies won more than 200 Olympic medals. Of special interest was the [[East Germany v West Germany (1974 FIFA World Cup)|only football match]] between the [[West Germany national football team|Federal Republic of Germany]] and the [[East Germany national football team|German Democratic Republic]], a first-round match during the [[1974 FIFA World Cup]], which the East won 1–0; but West Germany, the host, went on to win the World Cup.<ref>{{Cite web |title=1974 FIFA World Cup Germany, Germany FR |url=https://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/germany1974/teams/team=44023/matches.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170127142420/http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/germany1974/teams/team=44023/matches.html |archive-date=27 January 2017 |access-date=27 January 2017 |website=FIFA.com}}</ref>
East Germany had a revolutionary technology for two-stroke engines called the [[expansion chamber]], allowing them to win motorcycle races with little competition. Racer [[Ernst Degner]] defected to Japan, taking the technology secret with him over to [[Suzuki]]. After the defection, East German motorcycle racing effectively ended.

=== Official and public holidays ===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Date
! English name
! German name
! Remarks
|-
| 1 January
| New Year's Day
| ''{{lang|de|Neujahr}}''
| &nbsp;
|-
| March–April
| [[Good Friday]]
| ''{{lang|de|Karfreitag}}''
| &nbsp;
|-
| March–April
| [[Easter Sunday]]
| ''{{lang|de|Ostersonntag}}''
| &nbsp;
|-
| March–April
| [[Easter Monday]]
| ''{{lang|de|Ostermontag}}''
| Was not an official holiday after 1967.
|-
| 1 May
| [[International Workers' Day]]/May Day
| ''{{lang|de|Tag der Arbeit}}'' (name in [[Federal Republic of Germany|FRG]])
| The official name was ''{{lang|de|Internationaler Kampf- und Feiertag der Werktätigen}}'' (approx. "International Day of the Struggle and Celebration of the Workers")
|-
| 8 May
| [[Victory in Europe Day]]
| ''{{lang|de|Tag der Befreiung}}''
| The translation means "Day of Liberation"
|-
| April–June
| [[Father's Day]]/[[Ascension Day]]
| ''{{lang|de|Vatertag/Christi Himmelfahrt}}''
| Thursday after the 5th Sunday after Easter. Was not an official holiday after 1967.
|-
| May–June
| [[Whit Monday]]
| ''{{lang|de|Pfingstmontag}}''
| 50 days after Easter Sunday
|-
| 7 October
| [[Republic Day (East Germany)|Republic Day]]
| ''{{lang|de|Tag der Republik}}''
| National holiday
|-
| November
| [[Buß- und Bettag|Day of Repentance and Prayer]]
| ''{{lang|de|Buß- und Bettag}}''
| Wednesday before [[Totensonntag]]. Originally a Protestant feast day, it was demoted as an official holiday in 1967.
|-
| 25 December
| [[Christmas|First Day of Christmas]]
| ''{{lang|de|1. Weihnachtsfeiertag}}''
| &nbsp;
|-
| 26 December
| [[Boxing Day|Second Day of Christmas]]
| ''{{lang|de|2. Weihnachtsfeiertag}}''
| &nbsp;
|}

== Legacy ==
=== Decrepit infrastructure ===
At the time of reunification, almost all East German highways, railroads, sewage systems, and public buildings were in a state of disrepair, as little was done to maintain infrastructure in the GDR's last decades. Over the next 30 years, unified German public spending invested more than $2 trillion into former East Germany, to make up for the region's neglect and malaise and bring it up to a minimal standard.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Beard |first=Stephen |date=4 November 2019 |title=30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany recalls the economic gulf between East and West |url=https://www.marketplace.org/2019/11/04/30-years-after-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-germany-recalls-the-economic-gulf-between-east-and-west |publisher=[[NPR]]/[[Marketplace (radio program)|Marketplace]]}}</ref>

The [[Greifswald Nuclear Power Plant]] narrowly avoided an incident in 1976.<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 January 1990 |title='76 E. German Nuclear Incident Described |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-21-mn-999-story.html |url-access=subscription |agency=[[Los Angeles Times]]}}</ref> It was shut down after reunification, having been deemed not meet Western safety standards.<ref>{{ill|Grotelüschen, Frank|de|Frank Grotelüschen}}
{{Cite news |date=13 January 2010 |title=East German nuclear plant demolition proves challenging |url=https://www.dw.com/en/east-german-nuclear-plant-demolition-proves-challenging/a-5096451 |agency=[[Deutsche Welle]]}}</ref>

=== Authoritarianism ===
German historian [[Jürgen Kocka]] in 2010 summarized the consensus of most recent scholarship:

{{blockquote|Conceptualizing the GDR as a dictatorship has become widely accepted, while the meaning of the concept dictatorship varies. Massive evidence has been collected that proves the repressive, undemocratic, illiberal, nonpluralistic character of the GDR regime and its ruling party.<ref name="UPNE"/>}}

=== Ostalgie ===
{{main|Ostalgie}}

[[File:Ostalgie.jpg|thumb|right|A booth selling East German and communist-themed memorabilia in Berlin]]

Many East Germans initially regarded the dissolution of the GDR positively,<ref>{{Cite journal |date=Winter 2000 |title=Remaking the East German Past: 'Ostalgie,' Identity, and Material Culture |journal=[[Journal of Popular Culture]] |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=229–54 |author-last=Blum |author-first=Martin}}</ref> but this reaction partly turned sour.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Naughton |first=Leonie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AugFhjJZz0QC&pg=PA14 |title=That Was the Wild East: Film Culture, Unification, and the 'New' Germany |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-472-08888-1 |page=14 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160521031132/https://books.google.com/books?id=AugFhjJZz0QC&pg=PA14 |archive-date=21 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> West Germans often acted as if they had "won" and East Germans had "lost" in unification, leading many East Germans (''Ossis'') to resent West Germans (''Wessis'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bickford |first=Andrew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sELghp1BIbgC&pg=PA10 |title=Fallen Elites: The Military Other in Post-Unification Germany |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |date=2011 |isbn=978-0-8047-7396-6 |page=10 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160427060712/https://books.google.com/books?id=sELghp1BIbgC&pg=PA10 |archive-date=27 April 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2004, [[Deborah Ascher Barnstone]] wrote, "East Germans resent the wealth possessed by West Germans; West Germans see the East Germans as lazy opportunists who want something for nothing. East Germans find 'Wessis' arrogant and pushy, West Germans think the 'Ossis' are lazy good-for-nothings."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barnstone |first=Deborah Ascher |author-link=Deborah Ascher Barnstone |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dkO_WwhyXWMC&pg=PA92 |title=The Transparent State: Architecture and Politics in Postwar Germany |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] |date=2005 |isbn=978-0-203-79988-8 |page=92 |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507070723/https://books.google.com/books?id=dkO_WwhyXWMC&pg=PA92 |archive-date=7 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In addition, many East German women found the West more appealing, and left the region never to return, leaving behind an underclass of poorly educated and jobless men.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Connolly |first=Kate |date=31 May 2007 |title=Educated women leave east German men behind |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/01/germany.kateconnolly |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181117063245/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/01/germany.kateconnolly |archive-date=17 November 2018 |access-date=16 November 2018 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

In 2009, a majority (57%) of the people who stayed in East Germany defended the GDR,<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Bonstein |first=Julia |date=3 July 2009 |title=Homesick for a Dictatorship: Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism |url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html |work=[[Der Spiegel]] |language=en |issn=2195-1349 |quote=Today, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 57 percent, or an absolute majority, of eastern Germans defend the former East Germany.' The GDR had more good sides than bad sides. There were some problems, but life was good there,' say 49 percent of those polled. Eight percent of eastern Germans flatly oppose all criticism of their former home and agree with the statement: 'The GDR had, for the most part, good sides. Life there was happier and better than in reunified Germany today."'}}</ref> with 49% of those polled saying that "The GDR had more good sides than bad sides. There were some problems, but life was good there", while 8% opposed all criticism of East Germany and said that "Life there was happier and better than in reunified Germany today".<ref name=":1"/>

As of 2014, the vast majority of residents in the former GDR prefer to live in a unified Germany. However, a feeling of nostalgia persists among some, termed "''[[Ostalgie]]''" (a [[Blend word|blend]] of {{lang|de|Ost}} "east" and {{lang|de|Nostalgie}} "nostalgia"). This was depicted in the [[Wolfgang Becker (director, born 1954)|Wolfgang Becker]] film ''[[Goodbye Lenin!]]''. According to [[Klaus Schroeder]], a historian and political scientist at the [[Free University of Berlin]], some of the original residents of the GDR "still feel they don't belong or that they're strangers in unified Germany" as life in the GDR was "just more manageable". He warns German society should watch out in case ''Ostalgie'' results in a distortion and romanticization of the past.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hou |first=Yushi |date=2 October 2017 |title=Rewriting ideal history: The Ostalgie expression in ''Goodbye, Lenin'' (2003) |url=https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/cifr/2017/10/02/rewriting-ideal-history-the-ostalgie-expression-in-goodbye-lenin-2003 |access-date=9 July 2020 |institution=[[University of Southampton]] Centre for International Film Research}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=3 October 2013 |title=Ostalgia: Romanticizing the GDR |url=https://www.dw.com/en/ostalgia-romanticizing-the-gdr/a-17959366 |access-date=19 March 2021 |work=[[Deutsche Welle]] |author-last=Dick |author-first=Wolfgang}}</ref>

In 2023, a poll found that among Germans living in the former East Germany, 40% identified as "East Germans" and 52% identified as "Germans".<ref>{{Cite web |title=33 Jahre Wiedervereinigung |url=https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/umfragen/aktuell/33-jahre-wiedervereinigung/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Hoyer |first=Katja |date=7 March 2024 |title=What's 'wrong' with east Germany? Look to its long neglect by the wealthy west |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/07/east-germany-west-far-right-afd-gdr |work=The Guardian}}</ref>

=== Electoral consequences ===
{{multiple image
|align=right
|total_width=480
|image1=Btw17afd.svg
|caption1=Percentage of {{ill|Zweitstimme|de|lt=party votes}} for AfD in the [[2017 German federal election|2017 federal election]]
|image2=Karte btw linke17z endg.svg
|caption2=Percentage of {{ill|Zweitstimme|de|lt=party votes}} for Die Linke in the [[2017 German federal election|2017 federal election]]
|image3=2024 European Parliament election in Germany - Results.svg
|caption3=AfD in the [[2024 European Parliament election in Germany]]
}}
The divide between the East and the West can be seen in contemporary German elections. The left-wing populist [[The Left (Germany)|Die Linke]] party (which has roots in the SED) continues to have a stronghold and occasionally wins a plurality in the east, such as in the state of [[Thuringia]] where it remains one of the major parties.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Welle (www.dw.com) |first=Deutsche |date=6 February 2020 |title=Why is everyone in Germany talking about Thuringia and AfD? |url=https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-everyone-in-germany-talking-about-thuringia-and-afd/a-52277013 |access-date=18 March 2021 |work=[[Deutsche Welle]] |language=en-GB}}</ref> The region also sees disproportionate support for the [[Alternative for Germany]] (AfD), a right-wing populist party, particularly in the state of [[Saxony]] and [[Thuringia]]. This is in stark distinction to the west where the more centrist parties such as the [[CDU/CSU]], [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]], [[Alliance 90/The Greens|The Greens]], and the [[Free Democratic Party (Germany)|FDP]] dominate.

The far-right [[National Democratic Party of Germany]] (NPD) was represented in the [[Landtag of the Free State of Saxony|Saxon State Parliament]] from [[2004 Saxony state election|2004]] to [[2014 Saxony state election|2014]]. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the NPD was represented from [[2006 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election|2006]] to [[2016 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election|2016]].

=== Demographics ===
[[File:Germans without a migrant background (2016).svg|thumb|Proportion of Germans without a migrant background (2016)]]
There are more migrants in [[Old states of Germany|former West Germany]] than in [[New states of Germany|former East Germany]].<ref name="katapult-magazin.de">{{Cite web |date=April 3, 2016 |title=Die Rechten ziehen in den Osten, Ausländer in den Westen |url=https://katapult-magazin.de/de/artikel/die-rechten-ziehen-in-den-osten-auslaender-in-den-westen |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230609232824/https://katapult-magazin.de/de/artikel/die-rechten-ziehen-in-den-osten-auslaender-in-den-westen |archive-date=June 9, 2023 |access-date=June 29, 2023 |website=KATAPULT-Magazin}}</ref><ref name="bpb.de">{{Cite web |title=Ausländische Bevölkerung nach Ländern – bpb |url=https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61625/auslaendische-bevoelkerung-nach-laendern |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507132907/http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61625/auslaendische-bevoelkerung-nach-laendern |archive-date=2019-05-07 |access-date=2017-11-12 |publisher=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung}}</ref><ref name="laenderdaten.de">{{Cite web |title=Ausländeranteil in Deutschland nach Bundesländern |url=http://www.laenderdaten.de/europa/deutschland/bundeslaender/auslaenderanteil.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180712152046/https://www.laenderdaten.de/europa/deutschland/bundeslaender/auslaenderanteil.aspx |archive-date=2018-07-12 |access-date=2017-11-12 |website=www.laenderdaten.de}}</ref> In 2016, in every state of former East Germany, 90–95% of people did not have a migrant background.<ref name="katapult-magazin.de"/><ref name="bpb.de"/><ref name="laenderdaten.de"/>
=== Religion ===
As of 2009, more Germans are non-believers in the former East Germany than in the former West Germany.<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Only the Old Embrace God in Former East Germany |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/report-shows-highest-percentage-of-atheists-in-former-east-germany-a-828526.html |access-date=2 July 2012 |magazine=[[Der Spiegel|Spiegel]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=20 April 2012 |title=East Germany world's most godless area |url=https://www.thelocal.de/20120420/42081 |access-date=31 December 2021 |website=[[The Local]]}}</ref> Eastern Germany is perhaps the least religious region in the world.<ref name="godless">{{ill|Kamann, Matthias|de|Matthias Kamann}}, {{ill|Facius, Gernot|de|Gernot Facius}} {{Cite news |date=2012 |title=Why Eastern Germany is the Most Godless Place On Earth |url=http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120826093254/http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0 |archive-date=26 August 2012 |access-date=24 May 2009 |work=[[Die Welt]]}}</ref><ref name="atheistic">{{Cite web |date=2012 |title=East Germany the 'most atheistic' of any region |url=http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2012/05/east-germany-the-most-atheistic-of-any-region.html |access-date=24 May 2009 |publisher=Dialog International}}</ref> An explanation for this, popular in other regions, is the aggressive [[state atheist]] policies of the SED. However, the enforcement of atheism existed only for the first few years. After that, the state allowed churches to have a relatively high level of autonomy.<ref name="nogod">{{Cite web |date=2012 |title=Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth |url=http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120826093254/http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-eastern-germany-most-godless-place-planet/culture-society/why-eastern-germany-is-the-most-godless-place-on-earth/c3s5177/#.UHNiqk3Ex_0 |archive-date=26 August 2012 |access-date=24 May 2009 |website=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> Atheism is embraced by Germans of all ages, though irreligion is particularly common among younger Germans.<ref name="onlyold">{{Cite news |date=2012 |title=Only the Old embrace God in former East-Germany |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/report-shows-highest-percentage-of-atheists-in-former-east-germany-a-828526.html |access-date=24 May 2009 |work=[[Der Spiegel|Spiegel Online]]}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Germany}}
* [[Leadership of East Germany]]
* [[History of Germany (1945–1990)]]
* [[Inner German relations]]
* [[Economic history of the German reunification]]
* [[Scotland-GDR Society]]
* [[West Germany]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist|45em}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{reflist}}

=== Sources ===
{{refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |last=Judt |first=Tony |author-link=Tony Judt |title=[[Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945]] |publisher=[[Penguin (publisher)|Penguin]] |date=2005 |isbn=9780434015757}}
* {{Cite book |last=McCauley |first=Martin |author-link=Martin McCauley (historian) |title=The German Democratic Republic Since 1945 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |date=1983 |isbn=978-0-333-26219-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Quint |first=Peter E. |title=The Imperfect Union; Constitutional Structures for German Unification |date=1991 |publisher=Princeton University Press}}
* {{Cite book |last=Weitz |first=Eric D. |author-link=Eric D. Weitz |title=Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |date=1997 |isbn=9780691025940 |location=Princeton, New Jersey}}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
=== General ===
{{refbegin}}
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{Cite book |last=Allinson |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Allinson |title=Politics and Popular Opinion in East Germany 1945–1965 |date=2000 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=9780719055546}}
* {{Cite book |last=Anon. |url=https://archive.org/details/GDR1986 |title=The German Democratic Republic |date=1986 |publisher=Zeit im Bild |location=Dresden |oclc=221026743 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Dolores |first=Augustine |title=Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945–1990 |date=2007 |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |isbn=9780262012362}}
* {{Cite book |title=East Germany in Comparative Perspective |date=1989 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |editor-last=Baylis |editor-first=Thomas A. |editor-last2=Childs |editor-first2=David H. |editor-link2=David H. Childs |editor-last3=Collier |editor-first3=Erwin L. |editor-last4=Rueschemeyer |editor-first4=Marilyn}}
* {{Cite book |title=The Other Germany: Perceptions and Influences in British-East German Relations, 1945–1990 |date=2005 |publisher=Wissner |isbn=9783896394859 |editor-last=Berger |editor-first=Stefan |editor-link=Stefan Berger (historian) |location=[[Augsburg]] |editor-last2=LaPorte |editor-first2=Norman}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bshSd9eoCmgC |title=Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |date=2010 |isbn=9781845456979 |editor-last=Berger |editor-first=Stefan |editor-link=Stefan Berger (historian) |editor-last2=LaPorte |editor-first2=Norman}} [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=38136 online review]
* {{Cite book |title=The East German Economy, 1945–2010: Falling Behind Or Catching Up? |date=2013 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=9781107030138 |editor-last=Berghoff |editor-first=Hartmut |editor-last2=Balbier |editor-first2=Uta Andrea}}
* {{Cite book |last=Betts |first=Paul |title=Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic |date=2013 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Childs |first=David H. |author-link=David H. Childs |url=http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/detail.asp?item=100000000004463 |title=The Fall of the GDR |date=2001 |publisher=Longman, PearsonEd.co.uk |isbn=9780582315693 |access-date=19 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222073111/http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/detail.asp?item=100000000004463 |archive-date=22 February 2012 |url-status=dead}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Childs |first1=David H. |author-link1=David H. Childs |url=http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=0333772075 |title=The Stasi: East German Intelligence and Security Service |last2=Popplewell |first2=Richard |date=1996 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=9780333630945 |access-date=3 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120310001432/http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=0333772075 |archive-date=10 March 2012 |url-status=dead}}
* {{Cite book |last=Childs |first=David H. |author-link=David H. Childs |title=The GDR: Moscow's German Ally |date=1983 |publisher=[[George Allen & Unwin]] |isbn=9780043540299}}
* {{Cite book |last=Childs |first=David H. |author-link=David H. Childs |title=The Two Red Flags: European Social Democracy & Soviet Communism Since 1945 |date=2000 |publisher=[[Routledge]]}}
* {{Cite book |last1=De La Motte |first1=Bruni |title=Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It |last2=Green |first2=John |date=2015 |publisher=Artery Publications |isbn=9780955822865}}
* {{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Fulbrook |title=The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker |date=2005 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=0300108842}}
* {{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Fulbrook |title=Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949–1989 |date=1995 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |title=Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities after Hitler |date=2013 |publisher=[[Berghahn]] |editor-last=Fulbrook |editor-first=Mary |editor-link=Mary Fulbrook |location=New York and Oxford |editor-last2=Port |editor-first2=Andrew I.}}
* {{Cite magazine |date=2021 |title=Hall of Mirrors: The Antiquarian Book Trade in Communist Germany |magazine=[[The Book Collector]] |pages=603–617 |volume=70 |author-last=Funke |author-first=Mark |number=4 (Winter)}}
* {{Cite book |last=Gray |first=William Glenn |url=https://www.questia.com/library/105880340/germany-s-cold-war-the-global-campaign-to-isolate |title=Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949–1969 |date=2003 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Grieder |first=Peter |title=The German Democratic Republic |date=2012 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Grix |first=Jonathan |title=The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of the GDR |date=2000 |publisher=Macmillan}}
* {{ill|Heinz Heitzer|lt=Heitzer, Heinz|de}} {{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/GDRHistoricalOutline/page/n1 |title=GDR: An Historical Outline |date=1981 |publisher={{ill|Verlag Zeit im Bild|de}} |location=Dresden |oclc=1081050618 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hoyer |first=Katja |author-link=Katja Hoyer |title=[[Beyond the Wall (2023 book)|Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990]] |date=2023 |publisher=[[Random House]]}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Jarausch |first1=Konrad H. |author-link1=Konrad H. Jarausch |title=Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR |last2=Duffy |first2=Eve |date=1999 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kupferberg |first=Feiwel |title=The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic |date=2002}} [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7461 online review]
* {{Cite book |last=McAdams |first=A. James |author-link=A. James McAdams |title=East Germany and Détente |date=1985 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=McAdams |first=A. James |author-link=A. James McAdams |title=Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification |date=1992 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=McLellan |first=Josie |title=Love in the Time of Communism: Intimacy and Sexuality in the GDR |date=2011 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Naimark |first=Norman M. |author-link=Norman M. Naimark |title=The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 |date=1997}} [https://www.amazon.com/Russians-Germany-History-Occupation-1945-1949/dp/0674784065/ excerpt and text search]
* {{Cite book |last1=Pence |first1=Katherine |title=Socialist Modern: East German Everyday Culture and Politics |last2=Betts |first2=Paul |date=2008 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |location=[[Ann Arbor]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Port |first=Andrew I. |title=Conflict and Stability in the German Democratic Republic |date=2007 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Preuss |first=Evelyn I. |date=2005 |title=The Wall You Will Never Know |url=https://www.academia.edu/17812963 |journal=[[Perspecta (journal)|Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal]] |volume=36 |pages=19–31 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Ritter |first=Gerhard A. |author-link=Gerhard A. Ritter |date=April 2002 |title=Die DDR in der Deutschen Gesichte |trans-title=The GDR in German History |journal=[[Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte]] |language=de |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=171–300}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pritchard |first=Gareth |title=The Making of the GDR 1945–53: From Antifascism to Stalinism |date=2000}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pucci |first=M. |title=Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe |date=2020 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |series=Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes |location=New Haven}}
* {{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=André |title=The Plans That Failed: An Economic History of East Germany, 1945–1989 |date=2010}}
* {{Cite book |last=Sarotte |first=Mary Elise |author-link=Mary Elise Sarotte |title=Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall |date=2014 |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |location=New York}}
* {{Cite book |last=Spilker |first=Dirk |title=The East German Leadership and the Division of Germany: Patriotism and Propaganda 1945–1953 |date=2006}} [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23832 online review]
* {{Cite book |last=Stokes |first=Raymond G. |author-link=Raymond G. Stokes |title=Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany, 1945–1990 |date=2000}}
* {{Cite book |last=Zatlin |first=Jonathan R |title=The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany |date=2007}} [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22672 online review]
{{div col end}}
{{refend}}

=== Historiography and memory ===
{{refbegin}}
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bridge |first=Helen |title=Women's Writing and Historiography in the GDR |date=2002 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |title=The GDR Remembered: Representations of the East German State since 1989 |date=2011 |publisher=[[Camden House]] |editor-last=Hodgin |editor-first=Nick |editor-last2=Pearce |editor-first2=Caroline}} [https://www.amazon.com/GDR-Remembered-Representations-Literature-Linguistics/dp/1571134344/ excerpt]
* {{Cite journal |author-link=Konrad Kwiet |date=1976 |title=Historians of the German Democratic Republic on Antisemitism and Persecution |journal=The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook |volume=21 |pages=173–198 |doi=10.1093/leobaeck/21.1.173 |author-last=Kweit |author-first=Konrad |number=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Port |first=Andrew I. |title=Becoming East Germans: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities After Hitler |date=2013 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |isbn=978-0-85745-974-9 |editor-last=Fulbrook |editor-first=Mary |editor-link=Mary Fulbrook |location=New York |chapter=The Banalities of East German Historiography |ref=none |editor-last2=Port |editor-first2=Andrew I. |chapter-url=https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/FulbrookBecoming_intro.pdf}}
* {{Cite book |last=Port |first=Andrew I. |title=Central European History |date=2015 |volume=48 |pages=238–248 |chapter=Central European History since 1989: Historiographical Trends and Post-Wende 'Turns' |doi=10.1017/S0008938915000588 |ref=none |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/13599221 |issue=2 |s2cid=151405931}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Ritter |first=Gerhard A. |author-link=Gerhard A. Ritter |date=April 2002 |title=Die DDR in der Deutschen Gesichte |trans-title=The GDR in German History |journal=[[Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte]] |language=de |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=171–300}}
* {{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Corey |title=The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR |date=2002 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}
* {{Cite book |title=Remembering and Rethinking the GDR: Multiple Perspectives and Plural Authenticities |date=2012 |publisher=Springer |editor-last=Saunders |editor-first=Anna |editor-last2=Pinfold |editor-first2=Debbie}}
* {{Cite journal |date=2014 |title=Losing Literature: The Reduction of the GDR to History |journal=[[German Politics & Society]] |volume=32 |pages=39–55 |doi=10.3167/gps.2014.320403 |author-last=Steding |author-first=Elizabeth Priester |number=4}} Argues the history of East Germany is taught in 21st-century German schools, but not its literature.
{{div col end}}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|German Democratic Republic}}
{{wikiquote}}
* [https://www.grenzmuseum.de/en/the-german-bordermuseum-schifflersgrund-2/ Border Museum at Schifflersgrund]{{Dead link|date=July 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* [http://www.ddr-museum.de/en/ DDR Museum Berlin{{snd}}Culture of GDR]
* [http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=5528 AHF{{snd}}Nationale Volksarmee : NVA]
* {{Webarchive |url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100408072804/http://www.ddr.innerdeutsche-grenze.info |date = 8 April 2010 |title = ''That was the GDR''}} {{in lang |de}}
* [https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/gdrmain.htm East German Propaganda, Calvin University]
* "[https://scrc.gmu.edu/finding_aids/scenesfrombehindthewall.html Scenes from Behind the Wall: Images of East Germany 1989/90" Exhibit Collection C0235] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200521191253/https://scrc.gmu.edu/finding_aids/scenesfrombehindthewall.html |date=21 May 2020 }}, Special Collections Research Center, [[George Mason University]] Libraries.
* [http://www.industrieform-ddr.de/ Geschichte des ostdeutschen Designs{{snd}}history of east German design] {{in lang|de}}
* {{Webarchive |url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070928004721/http://www.ostberlin.de/en |date = 28 September 2007 |title = East Berlin, past and present}}
* [http://www.ddr-fotos.de/gdr_photos.htm Pictures of the GDR 1949–1973]
* [https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/O8BABAKB RFE/RL East German Subject Files], [[Blinken Open Society Archives]], Budapest
* {{Webarchive |url = https://archive.today/20130102085515/http://colnect.com/en/stamps/series/country/2979 |date = 2 January 2013 |title = Stamps Catalog of the German Democratic Republic}}
* [http://eastgermany.info/EastGermanAnthem.htm East German anthem with English and German lyrics]
* [https://omniatlas.com/maps/europe/19491007/ Map – Europe 1949: NATO and the Two Germanys (omniatlas.com)]
* [http://www.mauerkarte.de/ Mauerkarte – Detailed interactive map of the border between East and West Germany]

{{S-start}}
{{s-bef|before = [[Allied Occupation Zones in Germany]]<br/>and the<br/>[[Soviet Military Administration in Germany]]<br/>(1945–1949)}}
{{s-ttl|title = {{nowrap|German Democratic Republic}}<br/>{{nobold|(concurrent with the<br/>{{nowrap|[[West Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]]}})}}|years = 1949–1990}}
{{s-aft|after = [[Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]]}}
{{S-end}}
{{Bezirke DDR}}
{{Communist Eastern Europe}}
{{Eastern Bloc}}
{{Socialist states}}
{{Portal bar|Germany|East Germany|Socialism}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:East Germany| ]]
[[Category:1949 establishments in Germany]]
[[Category:1990 disestablishments in Germany]]
[[Category:Communism in Germany]]
[[Category:Eastern Bloc]]
[[Category:Former countries in Europe]]
[[Category:Former socialist republics|Germany, East]]
[[Category:Ostalgie]]
[[Category:Soviet satellite states]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1990|Germany, East]]
[[Category:States and territories established in 1949]]