Lothar De Maizière
Lothar de Maizière (; born 2 March 1940) is a German former politician of the Christian Democratic Union. In 1990, he served as the head of the first and only democratically elected government of East Germany, holding this office during the final months before German reunification. Subsequently he briefly served as a minister in the new government of the unified Federal Republic of Germany until his past as a Stasi informant was revealed. Family background Maizière belongs to a Huguenot family which takes its name from Maizières-lès-Metz and fled France for asylum in Prussia in the late 17th century; the Maizière family attended French-language schools and Huguenot churches in Berlin until the beginning of the 20th century. He is the son of lawyer Clement de Maizière. His uncle Ulrich de Maizière was Inspector General of the West German ''Bundeswehr''. His cousin Thomas de Maizière was a close advisor to Former Chancellor Angela Merkel and served as the Federal Min ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1990 East German General Election
Elections in Germany#German Democratic Republic, General elections were held in East Germany on 18 March 1990. They were the first free elections in the region since November 1932 German federal election, 1932, and were the first and only free elections held in the state as the parliament worked towards German reunification with success. The Alliance for Germany, led by the new East German branch of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (East Germany), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), 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 in the GDR, Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had been forced to merge with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1946 and refounded only six months before the elections, finished second with 88 seats despite being widely expected to win. The former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, restyled as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alfred Neumann (East German Politician)
Alfred "Ali" Neumann (15 December 1909 – 8 January 2001) was an East German politician. He was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, and for a short time, he was East German Minister of Materials Management. Life Neumann was born in Berlin-Schöneberg and completed training as a joiner. In 1919, he joined the worker's sport club "Fichte" ("Fir" or "Spruce"), which in 1928 became a member of the "Fighting Community for Red Sport Unity" (''"Kampfgemeinschaft für Rote Sporteinheit"''; KG). Neumann became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1929, and in 1930, a member of the KG state leadership. Second World War In 1933-1934 he worked together with Karl Maron illegally – for Hitler had come to power by now – for the KG. In 1934, he emigrated through Sweden and Finland to the USSR, where he worked as a sport teacher. In 1938, he was expelled from the Soviet Union as he had no Soviet citizenship, and he went ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalitarianism, totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies of World War II, Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, End of World War II in Europe, ending World War II in Europe. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole ''Führer'' (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Free State Of Prussia
The Free State of Prussia (, ) was one of the States of the Weimar Republic, constituent states of Weimar Republic, Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the dominant state in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as it had been during the empire, even though most of Territorial evolution of Germany#Territorial changes after World War I, Germany's post-war territorial losses in Europe had come from its lands. It was home to the federal capital Berlin and had 62% of Germany's territory and 61% of its population. Prussia changed from the authoritarian state it had been in the past and became a parliamentary democracy under its Constitution of Prussia (1920), 1920 constitution. During the Weimar period it was governed almost entirely by pro-democratic parties and proved more politically stable than the Republic itself. With only brief interruptions, the Social Democratic Party of Germ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Province Of Saxony
The Province of Saxony (), also known as Prussian Saxony (), was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg. It was formed by the merger of various territories ceded or returned to Prussia in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna: most of the former northern territories of the Kingdom of Saxony (the remainder of which became part of Brandenburg or Silesia), the former French Principality of Erfurt, the Duchy of Magdeburg, the Altmark, the Principality of Halberstadt, and some other districts. The province was bounded by the Electorate of Hesse (the province of Hesse-Nassau after 1866), the Kingdom of Hanover (the province of Hanover after 1866) and the Duchy of Brunswick to the west, Hanover (again) to the north, Brandenburg to the north and east, Silesia to the south-east, and the rump kingdom of Saxony and the small Ernestine duchies to the south. Its shape was very irregular and it entirely surrou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nordhausen, Thuringia
Nordhausen () is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the Nordhausen (district), Nordhausen district and the urban centre of northern Thuringia and the southern Harz region; its population is 42,000. Nordhausen is located approximately north of Erfurt, west of Halle (Saale), Halle, south of Braunschweig and east of Göttingen. Nordhausen was first mentioned in records in the year 927 and became one of the most important cities in central Germany during the later Middle Ages. The city is situated on the Zorge (river), Zorge river, a tributary of the Helme (river), Helme within the fertile region of Goldene Aue ''(golden floodplain)'' at the southern edge of the Harz mountains. In the early 13th century, it became a free imperial city, so that it was an independent and republican self-ruled member of the Holy Roman Empire. Due to its long-distance trade, Nordhausen was prosperous and influential, with a population of 8,000 around 1500. It was the third-largest cit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Else Ackermann
Else Ackermann (6 November 1933 – 14 September 2019) was a German physician and pharmacologist who became an East German politician (Christian Democratic Union of Germany). The report on the power relationships between the citizen and the state which she drafted, and in 1988 presented, known as the "Neuenhagen Letter", was a significant precursor to the changes of 1989 which led to the ending, in the early summer of 1990, of the one-party system, followed by German reunification later that same year. Life Career Ackermann was born in Berlin towards the end of 1933, the year during which Germany transitioned to one- party dictatorship. Her father was a railway official: her mother was a nurse. Ackermann passed her secondary school final exams (''Abitur'') at the "Einstein Upper School" in the Berlin suburb of Neuenhagen in 1952 which opened the way to a university-level education. In September of that same year she moved on to the Charité clinic which was, and re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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German Reunification
German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the integration of its re-established constituent federated states into the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany to form Germany, present-day Germany. This date was chosen as the customary German Unity Day, and has thereafter been celebrated each year as a national day, national holiday. On the same date, East Berlin, East and West Berlin, West Berlin were also reunified into a single city, which eventually Decision on the Capital of Germany, became the capital of Germany. The East German government, controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), started to falter on 2 May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. The border was still closely guarded, but the Pan-European Picn ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1990 German Federal Election
The 1990 German federal election was held in recently united Germany on 2 December 1990 to elect the members of the 12th Bundestag, within the regular time of nearly four years after the January 1987 West German federal election. Due to the accession of the former East German states on 3 October, after which the Bundestag was expanded with East German Volkskammer delegates, the elections were the first democratic all-German elections since the early 1930s. The result was a comprehensive victory for Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which was reelected to a third term (and a fourth in 1994). The ''second vote'' (preferred national party, ''first vote'' is for a local candidate) 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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Volkskammer
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 r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brandenburg
Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of German states by area, fifth-largest German state by area and the List of German states by population, tenth-most populous, with 2.5 million residents. Potsdam is the state capital and largest city. Other major towns are Cottbus, Brandenburg an der Havel and Frankfurt (Oder). Brandenburg surrounds the national capital and city-state of Berlin. Together they form the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, the third-largest Metropolitan regions in Germany, metropolitan area in Germany. There was Fusion of Berlin and Brandenburg#1996 fusion attempt, an unsuccessful attempt to unify both states in 1996, however the states still cooperate on many matters. Brandenburg originated in the Northern March in the 900s AD, from areas conquered from the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |