East German Border Troops
The Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic (german: Grenztruppen der DDR) was the border guard of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1946 to 1990. The were the primary force guarding the Berlin Wall and the Inner German border, the GDR's international borders between West Berlin and West Germany respectively. The force belonged to the Ministry of National Defence (MfNV) from 1961, and was a service branch of the National People's Army until 1971 when it became directly subordinate to the MfNV. The Border Troops numbered approximately 47,000 personnel at its peak, consisting of volunteers and conscripts, the third-largest Warsaw Pact border guard after the Soviet Border Troops and Poland's Border Protection Troops. The 's main role was preventing , the illegal migration from the GDR, and were controversially responsible for many deaths at the Berlin Wall. History By December 1945, within six months of the end of the Second World War, each of the five stat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state was a part of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. Commonly described as a communist state, it described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state".Patrick Major, Jonathan Osmond, ''The Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany Under Ulbricht 1945–71'', Manchester University Press, 2002, Its territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the end of World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR. Most scholars and academics describe the GDR as a totalitarian dictatorship. The GDR was establish ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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People’s Republic Of Poland
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near the end of its existence, it was the second-most populous communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe. It was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact alliance. The largest city and official capital since 1947 was Warsaw, followed by the industrial city of Łódź and cultural city of Kraków. The country was bordered by the Baltic Sea to the north, the Soviet Union to the east, Czechoslovakia to the south, and East Germany to the west. The Polish People's Republic was a socialist one-party state, with a unitary Marxist–Leninist government headed by the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). The country's official name was the "Republic of Poland" (') between 1947 and 1952 in accordance with the transitional Small Constitu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Centralized
Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particular geographical location group. This moves the important decision-making and planning powers within the center of the organisation. The term has a variety of meanings in several fields. In political science, centralisation refers to the concentration of a government's power—both geographically and politically—into a centralised government. An antonym of ''centralisation'' is ''decentralisation''. Centralisation in politics History of the centralisation of authority ''Centralisation of authority'' is the systematic and consistent concentration of authority at a central point or in a person within the organization. This idea was first introduced in the Qin Dynasty of China. The Qin government was highly bureaucratic and was administe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Volkspolizei
The ''Deutsche Volkspolizei'' (DVP, German for "German People's Police"), commonly known as the ''Volkspolizei'' or VoPo, was the national police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a highly- centralized agency responsible for most civilian law enforcement in East Germany, maintaining 257,500 personnel at its peak. History The ''Volkspolizei'' was effectively founded in June 1945 when the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG) established central police forces in the regions of Nazi Germany it occupied following after World War II.Thomas Lindenberger, ‘The German People's Police (1945 - 1990)’, in Hans Ehlert and Rüdiger Wenzke (ed.) ‘In the service of the party - Handbook of Armed Organs of the GDR’ (Berlin, 1998) pp. 98-100 The SVAG approved the arming of community-level police forces on 31 October 1945, but nevertheless remained a non-militarised force, and by 1946 the ''Volkspolizei'' comprised ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Potsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement (german: Potsdamer Abkommen) was the agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union on 1 August 1945. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its border, and the entire European Theatre of War territory. It also addressed Germany's demilitarisation, reparations, the prosecution of war criminals and the Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from various parts of Europe. Executed as a communiqué, the agreement was not a peace treaty according to international law, although it created accomplished facts. It was superseded by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed on 12 September 1990. As De Gaulle had not been invited to the Conference, the French resisted implementing the Potsdam Agreements within their occupation zone. In particular, the French refused to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yalta Agreement
The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces. The aim of the conference was to shape a postwar peace that represented not only a collective security order but also a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of Europe. Intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe, within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, the conference became a subject of intense controversy. Yalta was the second of three major wartime confe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soviet Zone Of Occupation
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 1 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly referred to in English as East Germany, was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The SBZ was one of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany created at the end of World War II with the Allied victory. According to the Potsdam Agreement, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German initials: SMAD) was assigned responsibility for the middle portion of Germany. Eastern Germany beyond the Oder-Neisse line, equal in territory to the SBZ, was to be annexed by Poland and its population expelled, pending a final peace conference with Germany. By the time forces of the United St ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Administrative Divisions Of East Germany
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 t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1982-0327-006, Kreis Mühlhausen, Einsatzübung Von Grenztruppen
The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (german: Bundesarchiv) 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 year ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grenztruppen Der DDR Auf Patrouille (1979)
The Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic (german: Grenztruppen der DDR) was the border guard of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1946 to 1990. The were the primary force guarding the Berlin Wall and the Inner German border, the GDR's international borders between West Berlin and West Germany respectively. The force belonged to the Ministry of National Defence (MfNV) from 1961, and was a service branch of the National People's Army until 1971 when it became directly subordinate to the MfNV. The Border Troops numbered approximately 47,000 personnel at its peak, consisting of volunteers and conscripts, the third-largest Warsaw Pact border guard after the Soviet Border Troops and Poland's Border Protection Troops. The 's main role was preventing , the illegal migration from the GDR, and were controversially responsible for many deaths at the Berlin Wall. History By December 1945, within six months of the end of the Second World War, each of the five ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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GDR Border Scout
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the State (polity), state was a part of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. Commonly described as a communist state, it described itself as a Socialist state, socialist "workers' and peasants' state".Patrick Major, Jonathan Osmond, ''The Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany Under Ulbricht 1945–71'', Manchester University Press, 2002, Its territory was administered and occupied by Soviet Union, Soviet forces following the end of World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR. M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |