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Foundation Of East Germany
The Founding of the East Germany (), formally known as the German Democratic Republic took place on October 7, 1949, and the following days a number of related events took place among them the Provisional People's Chamber, the Chamber of States, and the Provisional Government of East Germany were formed and Wilhelm Pieck was elected as the first president. During the existence of the German Democratic Republic, the event of the foundation was annually commemorated in the Republic Day which was a public holiday. Background 200px, German_People's_Congress.html" ;"title="Hermann Kastner address the third German People's Congress">Hermann Kastner address the third German People's Congress in Admiralspalast, Berlin, May 1949 In 1945, the Soviet Occupation Zone was established according to the Yalta Agreement. The states of Mecklenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Saxony-Anhalt were formed there. The Soviet sector of Berlin enjoyed a special status. The Soviet Military Administr ...
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East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), 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 (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a Socialist state, socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The Economy of East Germany, economy of the country was Central planning, centrally planned and government-owned corporation, state-owned. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc. 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 b ...
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1949 East German Constitutional Assembly Election
Elections for the Third German People's Congress were held in East Germany on 15 and 16 May 1949. Voters were presented with a "Unity List" from the " Bloc of the Anti-Fascist Democratic Parties," which was dominated by the Communist-leaning Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The ballot was worded "''I am for the unity of Germany and a just peace treaty. I therefore vote for the following list of candidates for the Third German People's Congress,''" with voters having the options of voting "yes" and "no".Ballot paper
Direct Democracy In much of the country, the vote was not secret.Germany
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Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W1126-312, Berlin, DDR-Gründung, Volkskammersitzung
The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (, lit. "Federal Archive") are the national archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Claudia Roth since 2021) under the German Chancellery, and before 1998, to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. On 6 December 2008, the Archives donated 100,000 photos to the public, by making them accessible via Wikimedia Commons. History The federal archive for institutions and authorities in Germany, the first precursor to the present-day Federal Archives, was established in Potsdam, Brandenburg in 1919, a later date than in other European countries. This national archive documented German government dating from the founding of the North German Confederation in 1867. It also included material from the older German Confederation and the Imperial Chamber Court. The oldest documents in this collection dated back to the y ...
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East Berlin
East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. For most of its administrative existence, East Berlin was officially known as Berlin, capital of the GDR () by the GDR government. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially German reunification, reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin. Overview With the London Protocol (1944), London Protocol of 1944 signed on 12 September 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union decided to divide Nazi Germany, Germany into three occ ...
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Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; ; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar republic, Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development and establishment of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic. As the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he was the chief decision-maker in East Germany. From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973. As the leader of a significant Communist satellite, Ulbricht had a degree of bargaining power with the Kremlin that he used effectively. For example, he demanded the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 when the Kremlin was reluctant. Ulbricht began his political life during the German Empire, when he joined first the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1912 later joining the anti-World War I Indepen ...
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Otto Grotewohl
Otto Emil Franz Grotewohl (; 11 March 1894 – 21 September 1964) was a German politician who served as the first prime minister of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) from its founding in October 1949 until his death in September 1964. Grotewohl was a Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician in the Free State of Brunswick during the Weimar Republic and leader of the party branch in the Soviet Occupation Zone after World War II. Grotewohl led the SPD's merger with the Communist Party (KPD) to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946 and served as co-chairman of the party with KPD leader Wilhelm Pieck until 1950. Grotewohl chaired the Council of Ministers after the formal establishment of the GDR in 1949 and served as the ''de jure'' head of government under First Secretary Walter Ulbricht until his death in 1964. Biography Early years Grotewohl was born on 11 March 1894 in Braunschweig to a middle-class Protestant family, the son of a master ...
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Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman and politician who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (Germany), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a newly founded Christian democracy, Christian democratic party, which became the dominant force in the country under his leadership. As a devout Catholic, Adenauer was a leading politician of the Catholic Centre Party (Germany), Centre Party in the Weimar Republic, serving as Mayor of Cologne (1917–1933) and as president of the Prussian State Council. In the early years of the Federal Republic, he switched focus from denazification to recovery, and led his country to close relations with France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During his years in power, he worked to restore the Economic history of Germany#Economic miracle and beyond, West German economy ...
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1949 West German Federal Election
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 14 August 1949 to elect the members of the first Bundestag, with a further eight seats elected in West Berlin between 1949 and January 1952 and another eleven between February 1952 and 1953. They were the first free federal elections in West Germany since 1933 and the first after the division of the country. The CDU/CSU formed a centre-right coalition government with the FDP and the DP. Campaign After World War II, the German Instrument of Surrender and the country's division into four Allied occupation zones, the elections were held in the Federal Republic of Germany, established under occupation statute in the three Western zones with the proclamation of its Basic Law by the '' Parlamentarischer Rat'' assembly of the West German states on 23 May 1949. Most West German parties at the time of the 1949 Bundestag election were committed to democracy, but they disagreed on what kind of democracy West Germany should become. The ...
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Constitution Of East Germany
The original Constitution of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic; ) was promulgated on 7 October 1949. It was heavily based on the Weimar Constitution () and nominally established the GDR as a liberal democratic republic. In 1968, the East German government adopted a new, fully Communist constitution that was based on Marxism–Leninism, political unitarism, and collective leadership. There were further amendments to the 1968 constitution in 1974. With the political events of 1989, there were attempts to draft a new constitution for East Germany, but these efforts never materialized due to the dissolution of East Germany and the accession of its states into the neighboring Federal Republic. Background In 1947 the German People's Congress met in Berlin. The People's Congress was meant to be an alternative to the Western London Conference of Foreign Ministers taking place at the same time. The People's Congress' aim was to establish an assembly which would represent t ...
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German People's Council
The German People's Council () was a consultative body in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany that operated in 1948–1949. The main task of the People's Council was to draw up a constitution on the basis of a draft presented by the SED in 1946. First people's council 250px, Meeting of the first People's Council, March 1949 The First German People's Council emerged from the Second German People's Congress convened on 17–18 March 1948. It consisted of 300 voting members of the Soviet Occupation Zone. At the inaugural meeting of a further 100 people had been invited from the Western zones in order to underscore the overall German claim. The organization of the People's Council was similar to that of a parliament (though it lacked the legitimacy of an election) and elected a Presidium and committees. Non-communist parties put emphasis on the finding that the prior People's Council should be a parliament, the SED attempted to portray it as a pan-German Parliament.SBZ-Handbuch, Seit ...
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West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic after its capital city of Bonn, or as the Second German Republic. During the Cold War, the western portion of Germany and the associated territory of West Berlin were parts of the Western Bloc. West Germany was formed as a political entity during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II, established from 12 States of Germany, states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided between the Western and Eastern Bloc, Eastern blocs. Germany was divided into the two countries. Initially, West Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, representing itself as the sole democratically reorganised continuation of ...
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Basic Law
A basic law is either a codified constitution, or in countries with uncodified constitutions, a law designed to have the effect of a constitution. The term ''basic law'' is used in some places as an alternative to "constitution" and may be intended as a temporary but necessary measure, until the formal enactment of a constitution. "Basic law" is sometimes used to avoid it being taken to be, like a constitution, "the highest law". There may be various reasons, such as religion, for this. Germany In West Germany the term " Basic Law" () was used to indicate that the Basic Law was provisional until the ultimate reunification of Germany. However, when Germany finally reunified in 1990, no new constitutions were adopted and instead the Basic Law was adopted throughout the entire German territory. Hong Kong and Macau The Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China, namely Hong Kong and Macau, have basic laws as their constitutional documents. The basic law ...
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