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GDR
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 established i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peaceful Revolution
The Peaceful Revolution (german: Friedliche Revolution), as a part of the Revolutions of 1989, was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the West, the end of the ruling of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) (communist regime) in the German Democratic Republic (GDR or "East Germany") in 1989 and the transition to a parliamentary democracy, which later enabled the reunification of Germany in October 1990. This happened through non-violent initiatives and demonstrations. This period of change is referred to in German as ' (, "the turning point"). These events were closely linked to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to abandon Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe as well as the reformist movements that spread through Eastern Bloc countries. In addition to the Soviet Union's shift in foreign policy, the GDR's lack of competitiveness in the global market, as well as its sharply rising national debt, hastened the des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flag Of East Germany
Like the flags of the Weimar Republic, West Germany, and present-day Germany, the flag of East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, showed the colours black, red and gold. The coat of arms, which, from 1959, was a hammer, compass and wreath of wheat, was located in the middle of the colour red. It was the official national flag of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) during its existence from 1959 to 1990. The flag's design and symbolism are derived from the flag of the Weimar Republic and communist symbolism. The flag was outlawed as an unconstitutional and criminal symbol in West Germany and West Berlin, where it was referred to as the ('secessionist flag') until the late 1960s. Symbolism and design With relations deteriorating between the Soviet Union and the United States, the three western Allies met in March 1948 to merge their zones of occupation and allow the formation of what became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany. Meanwh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uprising Of 1953 In East Germany
The East German uprising of 1953 (german: Volksaufstand vom 17. Juni 1953 ) was an uprising that occurred in East Germany from 16 to 17 June 1953. It began with a strike action by construction workers in East Berlin on 16 June against work quotas during the Sovietization process in East Germany. Demonstrations in East Berlin turned into a widespread uprising against the Government of East Germany and the Socialist Unity Party the next day, involving over one million people in about 700 localities across the country. Protests against declining living standards and unpopular Sovietization policies led to a wave of strikes and protests that were not easily brought under control and threatened to overthrow the East German government. The uprising in East Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Soviet forces in Germany and the ''Kasernierte Volkspolizei'', while demonstrations continued in over 500 towns and villages for several more days before dying out. The 1953 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the German Reunification Treaty entered into force dissolving the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: link=no, Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR, or East Germany) and integrating its recently re-established constituent federated states into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: link=no, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD, or West Germany) to form present-day Germany, has been chosen as the customary ''German Unity Day'' () and has thereafter been celebrated each year from 1991 as a national holiday. East and West Berlin were united into a single city and eventually became the capital of reunited Germany. The East Germany's government led by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) (a communist party) started to falter on 2 May 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitution Of East Germany (1949)
The Constitution of East Germany refers to the constitution of the German Democratic Republic (), commonly known as East Germany. Its original constitution was promulgated on 7 October 1949. It was heavily based on the "Weimarer Reichsverfassung", (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 Länder (or 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 Mini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Germany
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fall Of The Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, preceded by the Solidarity Movement in Poland. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later and the German reunification took place in October the following year. Background Opening of the Iron Curtain The opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989 set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer an East Germany and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. Extensive advertising for the planned picnic was made by posters and flyers among the GDR holidaymakers in Hungary. It was the larges ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. 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. 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 Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treaty On The Final Settlement With Respect To Germany
The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (german: Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in Bezug auf Deutschland; rus, Договор об окончательном урегулировании в отношении Германии, r=Dogovor ob okonchatel'nom uregulirovanii v otnoshenii Germanii ), or the Two Plus Four Agreement (german: Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag;; rus, Соглашение «Два плюс четыре», r=Soglasheniye «Dva plyus chetyre» short: German Peace Treaty), is an international agreement that allowed the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. It was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (the eponymous ''Two''), and the Four Powers which had occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; it also replaced the 1945 Potsdam Agreement before. In the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all righ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Emblem Of East Germany
The national emblem of East Germany featured a hammer and a compass, surrounded by a ring of rye. It was an example of what has been called " socialist heraldry". It was the only heraldic device of a European socialist state with a ring of grain which does not contain a red star. Description The hammer represented the workers in the factories. The compass represented the intelligentsia, and the ring of rye the farmers. The first designs included only the hammer and ring of rye, as an expression of the GDR as a communist "Workers' and Farmers' state" (''Arbeiter- und Bauernstaat''). Surrounded by a wreath, the national emblem also acted as the emblem for the National People's Army, and when surrounded by a twelve pointed white star, for the People's Police. When the federated states in East Germany were abolished and replaced by '' Bezirke'', making the GDR into a unitary state, the national emblem came to be used by the ''Bezirke'' too. The East German government did ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basic Treaty, 1972
The Basic Treaty (german: Grundlagenvertrag) is the shorthand name for the ''Treaty concerning the basis of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic'' (german: Vertrag über die Grundlagen der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik). The Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic (GDR) recognized each other as sovereign states for the first time, an abandonment of West Germany's Hallstein Doctrine in favor of ''Ostpolitik''. After the entry into force of the Four-Power Agreement from 1971, the two German states began negotiations over a Basic Treaty. As for the Transit Agreement of 1972, the discussions were led by the Under-Secretaries of State Egon Bahr (for the Federal Republic of Germany) and Michael Kohl (for the German Democratic Republic). As part of the ''Ostpolitik'' of Chancellor Willy Brandt, the treaty was signed on 21 December 1972 in East Berlin. The tre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant defensive alliance, the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)"In reaction to West Germany's NATO accession, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European client states formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955." Citation from: in 1955 as per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954.The Warsaw Pact R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
