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Social Democratic Party Of East Germany
The Social Democratic Party in the GDR () was a reconstituted Social Democratic Party existing during the final phase of East Germany. Slightly less than a year after its creation, it merged with its West German counterpart ahead of German reunification. History Foundation What became East Germany was traditionally the heartland for the SPD in united Germany. In 1946, the Soviet occupation authorities forced the eastern branch of the SPD to merge with the eastern branch of the Communist Party of Germany to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Within a short time, however, the few independent-minded members from the SPD side of the merger had been pushed out, and the SED became a full-fledged Communist party–essentially the KPD under a new name. An Eastern Bureau of the SPD continued to exist and was allowed to participate in the 1950 ''Volkskammer'' election, winning 6 seats. However, it was prevented from participating in the elections from 1954 and onwards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Markus Meckel
Markus Meckel (born 18 August 1952) is a German theologian and politician. He was the penultimate foreign minister of the GDR and a member of the German Bundestag. Early life Markus Meckel was born on 18 August 1952 in Müncheberg, Brandenburg. He had to leave high school in 1969 for political reasons. From 1969 to 1971, he studied at ''Kirchenoberseminar Hermannswerder'', a boarding school operated by the church whose diploma allowed its students to study theology or sacred music only. From 1971 to 1978, Meckel studied theology in Naumburg and Berlin. Political career Meckel had already been involved with domestic opposition to the East German Communist regime since the 1970s. In October 1989, he initiated the establishment of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR (SDP) together with Martin Gutzeit. From 23 February 1990 up to the merger with the West German SPD on 27 September 1990, he was deputy SDP party chairman. After the resignation of Ibrahim Böhme, he was acting chai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Working Class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most common definitions of "working class" in use in the United States limit its membership to workers who hold blue-collar and pink-collar jobs, or whose income is insufficiently high to place them in the middle class, or both. However, socialists define "working class" to include all workers who fall into the category of requiring income from wage labour to subsist; thus, this definition can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies. Definitions As with many terms describing social class, ''working class'' is defined and used in different ways. One definition used by many socialists is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour, a group otherwise referred to as the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democratic Awakening
Democratic Awakening (), or Democratic Beginning, was an East German political movement and political party that was active during the Revolutions of 1989 and in the period leading up to the German reunification. While it was a relatively minor party, it took part in the first democratically elected government in East Germany in 1990, and is especially known because future Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel started her political career within the party. It was founded on 29 October 1989, based on existing politically active church groups. Founding members included Wolfgang Schnur, Friedrich Schorlemmer, Rainer Eppelmann, Günter Nooke and Thomas Welz. The organisation became a political party on December 16/17, 1989 in Leipzig. The party convention adopted a more conservative program than some of the founding members, like Schorlemmer, were willing to bear, so they left the party. Others, like Nooke, who left some time later, resented the growing cooperation with the Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Social Union (East Germany)
The German Social Union (, DSU) is a small conservative political party mainly active in the new states of Germany. It was founded in 1990 as a right-wing opposition group during the '' Wende'' transition to democracy in East Germany, when it was part of the Alliance for Germany electoral coalition. After 1990, it fell into insignificance, only holding a few seats on the local level. Ideology According to its 2006 basic programme, the DSU refers to itself as a conservative, democratic and social party. Ideologically, the party's goals are to preserve and uphold Western-Christian civilization, and to dismantle the welfare state.. The party can thus be seen as right-wing (anti-socialistic) national-conservative. It strongly differentiates itself from the National Democratic Party (NPD) and German People's Union (DVU), who tend more towards national socialism. Its closest ideological ally among the right-wing parties is The Republicans. Historically, and as its name implies, it i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Democratic Union (East Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (, CDU) was an East German political party founded in 1945. It was part of the National Front with the Socialist Unity Party and a bloc party until 1989. It contested the free elections in 1990 as an arm of the West German Christian Democratic Union, into which it merged after German reunification later that same year. Party politics The CDU was originally very similar to its West German counterpart. Like the West German CDU, its support came mostly from devout middle class Christians. However, it was a little more left-leaning than the West German CDU. Its first chairman was Andreas Hermes, who had been a prominent member of the Centre Party during the Weimar Republic and a three-time minister. He fled to the West in 1946 and was replaced by Jakob Kaiser, another former Centre Party member and a leading member of the resistance movement during World War II. Kaiser had been a prominent member of the Centre's left wing, and fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alliance For Germany
The Alliance for Germany () was an electoral alliance in East Germany. It consisted of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Democratic Awakening and German Social Union. The German Forum Party was invited to join, but it declined. The Alliance was formed to contest the 1990 East German general election, the first and only free election in the country's history. It ran on a platform of expediting German reunification and won a plurality of the seats in the Volkskammer. It led a coalition government that lasted until reunification, with Lothar de Maizière of the CDU serving as minister-president of East Germany. History The Alliance for Germany announced its creation in a joint press statement by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Democratic Awakening, and German Social Union on 5 February 1990. The German Forum Party declined an invitation to join. The Alliance stated on 6 March that, if elected in the general election on 18 March, the primary goal of its governmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinhard Höppner
Reinhard Höppner (2 December 1948 – 9 June 2014) was a German politician ( SPD) and writer. Höppner held a Dr. rer. nat. in mathematics. In 1990, in the first (and last) free election in the assembly's history, he was elected a member of the East German People's Chamber (''Volkskammer''), becoming the assembly's vice president. He became the 4th Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ... in July 1994 when, his SPD (party) having failed to secure an outright majority, entered into a minority governing coalition with the Green party. This was controversial at the time because most had expected that the SPD, if denied an overall majority, would govern in coalition with the PDS, successor to the old East German ruling party: toget ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Administrative Divisions Of The German Democratic Republic
The administrative divisions of the German Democratic Republic (commonly referred to as East Germany) were constituted in two different forms during the country's history. The GDR first retained the traditional German division into federated states called ''Länder'', but in 1952 they were replaced with districts called ''Bezirke''. Immediately before German reunification in 1990, the ''Länder'' were restored, but they were not effectively reconstituted until after reunification had completed. Division into ''Länder'' General background In May 1945, following its defeat in World War II, Germany was occupied by the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. All four occupation powers reorganised the territories by recreating the '' Länder'' (states), the constituting parts of federal Germany. The state of Prussia, whose provinces extended to all four zones and covered two thirds of Germany, was abolished in 1947. Special conditions were assigned to Berlin, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. The name of the city is usually interpreted as a Slavic term meaning ''place of linden trees'', in line with many other Slavic placenames in the region. Leipzig is located about southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (the Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster and its tributaries Pleiße and Parthe. The Leipzig Riverside Forest, Europe's largest intra-city riparian forest, has developed along these rivers. Leipzig is at the centre of Neuseenland (''new lake district''). This district has Bodies of water in Leipzig, several artificial lakes created from former lignite Open-pit_mining, open-pit mines. Leipzig has been a trade city s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0222-016, Leipzig, SPD-Parteitag, Ibrahim Böhme
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Romberg
Walter Romberg (27 December 1928 – 23 May 2014) was a German politician and finance minister of East Germany. Early life and education Romberg was born in Schwerin on 27 December 1928. From 1947, he studied physics and mathematics. He held a Dr. rer. nat. in mathematics. Career He worked at the East German Academy of Sciences. He was editor-in-chief of the Zentralblatt MATH from 1965 to 1978. Romberg became a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1989. He served as the minister without portfolio in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hans Modrow between 1989 and 1990. Romberg was appointed minister of finance to the cabinet led by Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière on 12 April 1990 following the first free elections of East Germany on 18 March 1990. Romberg was one of the senior social democratic members of de Maizière's cabinet. On 19 May 1990, the West Germany's finance minister, Theo Waigel, and Romberg signed a state treaty to merge their economies and make the West G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
People's Chamber
The Volkskammer (, "People's Chamber") was the supreme power organ of East Germany. It was the only branch of government in the state, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs were subservient to it. The Volkskammer was initially the lower house of a bicameral legislature. The upper house was the Chamber of States, or ''Länderkammer'', but in 1952 the states of East Germany were dissolved, and the Chamber of States was abolished in 1958. Constitutionally, the Volkskammer was the highest organ of state power in the GDR, and both constitutions vested it with great lawmaking powers. All other branches of government, including the judiciary, were responsible to it. By 1960, the chamber appointed the State Council (the GDR's collective head of state), the Council of Ministers (the GDR's government), and the National Defence Council (the GDR's collective military leadership). In practice, however, it was a rubber stamp parliament that did little more than rat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
