Deutsche Demokratische Republik

Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR (German Democratic Republic, GDR), was formed out of the Soviet zone of occupation, including the Soviet sector of Berlin, after differences between the Russians and the Allies (see Bundesrepublik Deutschland). It was instituted on 7 October 1949 and ceased to exist on 3 October 1990. The East German state was a democracy in the Soviet sense, especially after its revised Second Constitution of 1968. Originally the DDR had a president, Wilhelm Pieck (1876-1960), but on his death the office lapsed. Its parliament, the People's Chamber (Volkskammer), was elected from a list of candidates arranged according to a party quota, the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) being the dominant party, whose General Secretary (Generalsekretär) was the head of state. Executive power was distributed among several organs of the People's Chamber, the most important of which were the State Council (Staatsrat) and the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat). East Germany was in effect a dictatorship, from 1960 under Walter Ulbricht, and from 1971 until his removal from office on 18 October 1989 under Erich Honecker (1912-94). Egon Krenz, his successor, resigned in December 1989 when the peaceful revolution against the government, known as ‘die Wende’ (the turning point), gained momentum—part of the whole process of revolt and liberation in the satellite states of eastern Europe.

An amendment to the constitution, formally depriving the SED of its monopoly of power, cleared the way for democratic reforms. At a specially convened party conference the SED was renamed PDS (initially SED-PDS, Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus). Hans Modrow, since November 1989 president of the Council of Ministers, was elected Prime Minister (Ministerpräsident), and in his new government (‘Regierung der nationalen Verantwortung’) all political groups (Bürgerrechtsgruppen) were represented. The first free elections were held on 18 March 1990; by now the plans for the eventual unification of Germany, initiated by Chancellor Kohl, had won the support of Modrow. Against this background, the CDU won 40.6% of all votes, the SPD 21.8%, the PDS 16.3%, and the liberal parties and ‘Bündnis 90’, comprising the Bürgerrechtsgruppen, an even smaller share. On 5 April a new people's chamber was elected with Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as speaker of parliament and acting head of state, and on 12 April a coalition government was formed with Lothar de Maizière as prime minister. He committed himself to German unity and represented the interests of the state during the complex process of negotiations, which entered their final phase after the formation of the Wirtschafts-, Währungs- und Sozialunion. On 3 October the Unification Treaty (Vertrag über die Herstellung der staatlichen Einheit), signed on 31 August, took effect and the German Democratic Republic acceded to the political, economic, monetary, and social system of the Federal Republic.

In 1952 the state had been reorganized into fifteen districts (Bezirke), each named after its administrative town: Cottbus, Dresden, Erfurt, Frankfurt/Oder, Gera, Halle, Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), Leipzig, Magdeburg, Neubrandenburg, Potsdam, Rostock, Schwerin, Suhl, and East Berlin. The object of this change was to diminish local influence to the advantage of central government. One of the last actions of the government was the restoration of the original five Länder, which in due course were reconstructed on the basis of the other federal states: Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt (mainly the former Prussian Provinz Sachsen), and Thüringen.

The only serious crisis to threaten the stability of the regime was produced by the workers' rising in East Berlin and elsewhere on 17 June 1953. The revolt, which was quelled only with Soviet military support and mass arrests, is the subject of S. Heym's novel Fünf Tage im Juni. Measures consolidating the state's power and security during the Cold War include the creation of the Nationale Volksarmee in 1955, the accession to the Warsaw Pact in 1957, and, to stem the tide of often highly-qualified defectors to the West, the building of the Berlin Wall (see Berlin) in 1961; in 1962 universal military service was introduced. In 1968 East German troops participated in the crushing of the liberal regime in Czechoslovakia. A détente with the Federal Republic was initiated by a treaty, signed in 1972 (Grundlagenvertrag, DDR; Grundvertrag, BRD). In 1976, when W. Biermann was deprived of his citizenship, many prominent authors signed a public letter of protest against his expulsion. It was an isolated but symbolic act to which the authorities responded by ousting most of them from the Schriftstellerverband and the SED. November, a novel by Rolf Schneider is based on the ‘Biermann Affair’; he was among those who subsequently moved to the West. The Schriftstellerverband was responsible for the implementation and supervision of the state's cultural policy (see Sozialistischer Realismus); its president during the last twelve years of its existence was Hermann Kant. From 1947 J. R. Becher rose to prominence, becoming minister of culture in 1954. He wrote the text of East Germany's National Anthem (‘Nationalhymne’) in which he envisaged a united Germany; for this reason it was no longer sung at official ceremonies during the Honecker regime.