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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] |
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] |
Käte Niederkirchner
Käte Niederkirchner (born Käte Appel or Käte Dienstbach: 30 January 1944 - 19 November 2019) was a German politician ( SED / PDS) and pediatrician. In 1967 she became the youngest member of the East German parliament (''"Volkskammer"''). Her life was impacted by having been born with a famous aunt, the Communist resistance activist Käthe Niederkirchner who was killed by Nazi paramilitaries at Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944, and who was posthumously much celebrated by East Germany's political leadership. Early life Käte Appel was born at Chelyabinsk, an industrial city east of the Urals. "Appel", the family name by which she was known to comrades, was her father's party pseudonym. Her father's name had been Karl Dienstbach when he had emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1932 in order to avoid the prison term to which he had been sentenced at a district court in Frankenthal following his conviction on a charge of industrial espionage. During the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitution Of East Germany
The original Constitution of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic; ) was promulgated on 7 October 1949. It was heavily based on the 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 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 Ministers taking place at the same time. The People's Congress' aim was to establish an assembly which would represent t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Götting
Gerald Götting (9 June 1923 – 19 May 2015) was a German politician and chairman of the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1966 until 1989. He served as President of the People's Chamber (''Volkskammer'') from 1969 to 1976 and deputy chairman of the State Council of East Germany from 1960 to 1989. Life Götting was born in Nietleben, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, today part of Halle/Saale. During World War II, he served in the Reichsarbeitsdienst, an auxiliary support and supply organization, and later in the Wehrmacht. He was briefly held as a prisoner of war by US forces in 1945. In 1946, Götting joined the East German Christian Democratic Union, a Christian-democratic party. He then spent two years at the Martin Luther University of Halle, where he studied German studies, history and philology. In 1949, Götting became General Secretary of the CDU and, after the establishment in the Soviet Zone of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was elec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Homann
Heinrich Homann (6 March 1911 – 4 May 1994) was a German communism, communist politician and former Wehrmacht officer who held a number of offices in the German Democratic Republic. Biography Heinrich Homann was born on 6 March 1911, the son of a shipping company director in Bremerhaven. He studied law at the universities of University of Tübingen, Tübingen, University of Jena, Jena, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, and University of Hamburg, Hamburg. In 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, and the following year entered the military. He eventually rose to the rank of Major in the German Army (1935-1945), Heer and fought on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front in World War II. In 1943, he was taken prisoner by the Soviet Army, Soviets at the Battle of Stalingrad. During his time as a prisoner of war, Homann became a member of the anti-Nazi National Committee for a Free Germany. After the war, Homann returned to Soviet occupation zone, Soviet-occupied Germany and e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Democratic Republic
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a Socialist state, socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The Economy of East Germany, economy of the country was Central planning, centrally planned and government-owned corporation, state-owned. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc. Before its establishment, the country's territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the Berlin Declaration (1945), Berlin Declaration abolishing German sovereignty in World War II. The Potsdam Agreement established the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, Soviet-occupied zone, bounded on the east b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabine Bergmann-Pohl
Sabine Bergmann-Pohl (née Schulz; ; born 20 April 1946) is a German doctor and politician. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), she was president of the People's Chamber of East Germany from April to October 1990. During this time, she was also the interim head of state of East Germany, holding both posts until the state's merger into West Germany in October. She was the youngest, only female and the last head of state of East Germany. After the reunification of Germany, she served in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, first as Minister for Special Affairs, one of five appointed in October 1990 to provide representation for the last East German government in the Kohl cabinet, then as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Health for the remainder of Chancellor Kohl's time in office. Early life and education She was born Sabine Schulz in Eisenach, Thuringia. After leaving school in 1964, Bergmann-Pohl was initially not admitted to u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Goldenbaum
Ernst Goldenbaum (15 December 1898, Parchim – 13 March 1990, East Berlin) was a German politician who served as the chairman of the Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany from 1948 to 1982. Biography Goldenbaum was born in Parchim, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. During World War I, he served in the Imperial German Army and he participated in the German November Revolution. In 1919, he joined the left-wing USPD and a few years later the Communist Party of Germany. From 1923 to 1925, he was a member of the city council of Parchim, and from 1924 to 1932 he was a member of the Landtag of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. From 1932 to 1933, he was the editor of '' Volkswacht'', a communist newspaper. After the Nazis seized power, he became a farmer and a member of the German resistance. In 1944, he was arrested and he spent the last year of the war in Neuengamme concentration camp. In 1945, he was one of very few who survived the sinking of the SS ''Cap Arcona'' which claimed o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Dieckmann
Johannes Dieckmann (19 January 1893 – 22 February 1969) was a German journalist and politician who served as the 1st President of the Volkskammer, the parliament of East Germany, from 1949 to 1969. Biography Dieckmann was born in Fischerhude in the Prussian Province of Hanover, the son of a Evangelical Church in Germany, Protestant pastor. He studied economics and philosophy at the universities of Berlin, where he joined the Verein Deutscher Studenten (VDSt), a German Studentenverbindung, Giessen, Göttingen and Freiburg. In 1916 he was recruited to the German Army (German Empire), German Army and was severely injured in World War I, being declared permanently invalid. Nevertheless, he was later mobilised to the Italian campaign in 1917. During the German Revolution of 1918–19, German Revolution in November 1918, he became chairman of a Soldiers' council. After the war, he joined the liberal German People's Party (DVP) and became a close associate of Gustav Stresemann in his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palace Of The Republic, Berlin
The Palace of the Republic (, ) was a building in Berlin that hosted the ''Volkskammer'', the parliament of East Germany, from 1976 to 1990. Also known as the "People's Palace", it was located across the Unter den Linden from Museum Island in the Mitte area of East Berlin, on the site of the former Berlin Palace between the Lustgarten and Schlossplatz, near the West Berlin border. The palace was completed in 1976 to house the ''Volkskammer'', also serving various cultural purposes including two large auditoria, art galleries, a theatre, a cinema, 13 restaurants, five beer halls, a bowling alley, billiards rooms, a rooftop ice skating rink, a private gym with spa, a casino, a medical station, a post office, a police station with an underground cellblock, a fire station, an indoor basketball court, an indoor swimming pool, private barbershops and salons, public and private restrooms and a discothèque. In the early 1980s, one of the restaurants was replaced by a video ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincenz Müller
Vincenz Müller (5 November 1894 – 12 May 1961) was a military officer and general who served in the Imperial German army, the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, and after the war in the National People's Army of the (East) German Democratic Republic, where he was also a politician. Müller eventually became a member of the East German parliament, the ''Volkskammer'', and served as chief of staff of the National People's Army. Early career Müller was born in the Kingdom of Bavaria into a non-military family, being the son of a tanner. He completed high school at the Metten Abbey gymnasium and joined the Württemberg Army's pioneer force. As a lieutenant he spent much of World War I with the German military mission to the Ottoman Empire. He was wounded by a grenade fragment at Gallipoli, and was then transferred to Baghdad and the Persian Front, returning to Germany after contracting malaria and typhus. In 1917 he returned to Turkey as a tactics instructor for Turkish officers. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
