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Democratic Beginning
Democratic Beginning (german: Demokratischer Aufbruch) 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 Ch ...
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Wolfgang Schnur
Wolfgang Schnur (8 June 1944 – 16 January 2016) was an East German civil rights lawyer and a longtime informer of the dreaded East German secret service Stasi. He was closely involved with the Association of Evangelical Churches (''"Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen"'' / BEK) and worked on many of the cases in which the BEK's leading figures were involved. He also became well networked, on more than one level, with the country's political establishment. East Germany was a one-party dictatorship. During the 1970s and 1980s, the churches increasingly provided an outlet for alternative political views which, under a more decentralised system, would have been expressed through an effective multi-party parliamentary structure. Schnur was a founding member of the oppositional "Demokratischer Aufbruch" (''loosely "Democratic Awakening"'' / DA) in October 1989. He was one of the "new party" leadership team's most attractive and dynamic members: over the next few months there was talk ...
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Chancellor Of Germany
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces during wartime. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Cabinet and heads the executive branch. The chancellor is elected by the Bundestag on the proposal of the federal president and without debate (Article 63 of the German Constitution). The current officeholder is Olaf Scholz of the SPD, who was elected in December 2021, succeeding Angela Merkel. He was elected after the SPD entered into a coalition agreement with Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP. History of the office The office of Chancellor has a long history, stemming back to the Holy Roman Empire, when the office of German archchancellor was usually held by archbishops of Mainz. The title was, at times, used in several states of German-spea ...
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1990 German Federal Election
Federal elections were held in Germany on 2 December 1990 to elect the members of the 12th Bundestag. This was the first all-German election since the Nazi show election in April 1938, the first multi-party all-German election since that of March 1933, which was held after the Nazi seizure of power and was subject to widespread suppression, and the first free and fair all-German election since November 1932. The result was a comprehensive victory for the governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which was reelected to a third term. The second vote result of the CDU/CSU, 20,358,096 votes, remains the highest ever total vote count in a democratic German election. The elections marked the first since 1957 that a party other than CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) won a constituency seat, and the first (and only) time since 1957 that FDP won a constituency seat ( Halle). Campaign This was the fi ...
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Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (german: link=no, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands ; CDU ) is a Christian democratic and liberal conservative political party in Germany. It is the major catch-all party of the centre-right in German politics. Friedrich Merz has been federal chairman of the CDU since 31 January 2022. The CDU is the second largest party in the Bundestag, the German federal legislature, with 152 out of 736 seats, having won 18.9% of votes in the 2021 federal election. It forms the CDU/CSU Bundestag faction, also known as the Union, with its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). The group's parliamentary leader is also Friedrich Merz. Founded in 1945 as an interdenominational Christian party, the CDU effectively succeeded the pre-war Catholic Centre Party, with many former members joining the party, including its first leader Konrad Adenauer. The party also included politicians of other backgrounds, including lib ...
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West German
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 October 1990. 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 eleven states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The FRG's provisional capital was the city of Bonn, and the Cold War era country is retrospectively designated as the Bonn Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided between the Western and Eastern blocs. Germany was divided into the two countries. Initially, West Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, representing itself as t ...
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Ministry For State Security (East Germany)
Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ministry, activity by Christians to spread or express their faith ** Minister (Christianity), clergy authorized by a church or religious organization to perform teaching or rituals ** Ordination, the process by which individuals become clergy * Ministry of Jesus, activities described in the Christian gospels * ''Ministry'' (magazine), a magazine for pastors published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church Music * Ministry (band), an American industrial metal band * Ministry of Sound, a London nightclub and record label Fiction * Ministry (comics), a horror comic book created by writer-artist Lara J. Phillips * Ministry of Magic, governing body in the ''Harry Potter'' series * Ministry of Darkness, a professional wrestling stable led by Th ...
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1990 East German General Election
General elections were held in East Germany on 18 March 1990. They were the only free and fair parliamentary elections in the history of the country, and the first free and fair election held in that part of Germany since November 1932. The Alliance for Germany, led by the East German branch of the Christian Democratic Union, won 192 seats and emerged as the largest bloc in the 400-seat Volkskammer, having run on a platform of speedy reunification with West Germany. The East German branch of the Social Democratic Party, which had been dissolved in 1946 and refounded only six months before the elections, finished second with 88 seats. The former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, running in a free election for the first time, finished third with 66 seats. The Alliance was just short of the 201 seats needed to govern alone. Lothar de Maizière of the CDU invited the SPD to join his Alliance partners – the German Social Union (DSU) and ...
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German Social Union (East Germany)
The German Social Union (german: Deutsche Soziale 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, ...
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Alliance For Germany
The Alliance for Germany (german: Allianz für Deutschland) was an opposition coalition in East Germany. It was formed on 5 February 1990 in Berlin (then West Berlin) to stand in the East-German Volkskammer elections. It consisted of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Democratic Awakening (DA) and the German Social Union (DSU). The German Forum Party was invited to join, but declined. The Alliance won the most votes in the 1990 East German general election, winning 48.2% of votes cast (CDU 40.9%; DSU 6.3%; DA 0.9%), and would control 192 of 400 seats in the Volkskammer. It formed the government in East Germany until German Reunification. Lothar de Maizière from the CDU was minister-president. See also * Alternative for Germany References https://www.britannica.com/event/Austro-German-Alliance https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/greatwar/g2/backgroundcs1.htm Heather Grabbe and Wolfgang Münchau (6/2/02) "Germany and Britain: an alliance of necessity" The ...
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National Front (East Germany)
The National Front of the German Democratic Republic (german: Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik) was an alliance of political parties ('' Blockpartei'') and mass organizations in the German Democratic Republic, controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which stood in elections to the East German parliament, the ''Volkskammer'' ("People's Chamber"). The purpose of the NF was to give the impression that the GDR was a democracy governed by a broad-based coalition. In fact, all parties and mass organizations were subservient to the SED, and had to officially accept the SED's leading role as a condition of their existence. In elections, voters only had the option of approving or rejecting a single "united list" of NF candidates. Two of the block parties were formerly independent and two others were established on the instigation of the SED. The SED members on the list were always the majority because many candidates of the mass organizations were ...
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Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as well as the second most populous city in the area of the former East Germany after (East) Berlin. Together with Halle (Saale), the city forms the polycentric Leipzig-Halle Conurbation. Between the two cities (in Schkeuditz) lies Leipzig/Halle Airport. Leipzig is located about southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (known as Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster River (progression: ) and two of its tributaries: the Pleiße and the Parthe. The name of the city and those of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin. Leipzig has been a trade city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and the Via Imperii, two important medieval trad ...
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Thomas Welz
Thomas Welz (born 1957 as Thomas Berndt in Bad Berka) grew up in the suburbs of Berlin. As head of the information department, he was editor and author of several illegal samizdat publications with Rainer Eppelmann of the peace circle of the East Berlin Samariterkirche (Church of the Good Samaritan) in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Many of them became the mouthpiece of the East German civil rights movement, including publications like "Shalom", "Wegzehrung" and "Wendezeit", one of the first publications, in where term "Wende" was used. During his military service in the NVA, Thomas Welz was detained for five months from October 1978 in the infamous military prison in Schwedt. Welz, active in various initiatives and ''ad hoc'' groups of the East German opposition and the peace movement was co-founder of the oppositional political group Democratic Awakening in 1989. After German reunification in 1990, he was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. He is married and has two so ...
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