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East Germany GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Postwar Government
At the Yalta Conference, held in February 1945 before the
capitulation of the Third Reich, the United States, Britain, and
the Soviet Union agreed on the division of Germany into
occupation zones. Estimating the territory that the converging
armies of the western Allies and the Soviet Union would overrun,
the Yalta Conference determined the demarcation line for the
respective areas of occupation. Following Germany's surrender,
the Allied Control Council, representing the United States,
Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, assumed governmental
authority in postwar Germany. The Potsdam Conference of JulyAugust 1945 officially recognized the zones and confirmed
jurisdiction of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany
(Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland--SMAD) from the
Oder and Neisse rivers to the demarcation line
(see
fig. 6). The
Soviet occupation zone included the former states of Brandenburg,
Mecklenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The city of
Berlin was placed under the control of the four powers.
Each occupation power assumed rule in its zone by June 1945.
The powers originally pursued a common German policy, focused on
denazification and demilitarization in preparation for the
restoration of a democratic German nation-state. The Soviet
occupation zone, however, soon came under total political and
economic domination by the Soviet Union. An SMAD decree of June
10 granted permission for the formation of antifascist democratic
political parties in the Soviet zone; elections to new state
legislatures were scheduled for October 1946. A democraticantifascist coalition, which included the KPD, the SPD, the new
Christian Democratic Union (Christlich-Demokratische Union--CDU),
and the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LiberalDemokratische Partei Deutschlands --LDPD), was formed in July
1945. The KPD (with 600,000 members) and the SPD (with 680,000
members), which was under strong pressure from the Communists,
merged in April 1946 to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands--SED). In the October
1946 elections, the SED polled approximately 50 percent of the
vote in each state in the Soviet zone. In Berlin, which was still
undivided, the SPD had resisted the party merger and, running on
its own, had polled 48.7 percent of the vote, thus scoring a
major electoral victory and decisively defeating the SED, which,
with 19.8 percent, was third in the voting behind the SPD and the
CDU.
The SMAD introduced an economic reform program and
simultaneously arranged for German war reparations to the Soviet
Union. Military industries and those owned by the state, by Nazi
activists, and by war criminals were confiscated. These
industries amounted to approximately 60 percent of total
industrial production in the Soviet zone. Most heavy industry
(constituting 20 percent of total production) was claimed by the
Soviet Union as reparations, and Soviet joint stock companies
(Sowjetische Aktiengesellschaften--SAGs) were formed
(see Economic Policy and Performance
, ch. 3). The remaining
confiscated industrial property was nationalized, leaving 40
percent of total industrial production to private enterprise. The
agrarian reform expropriated all land belonging to former Nazis
and war criminals and generally limited ownership to 100
hectares. Some 500 Junker estates were converted into collective
people's farms, and more than 3 million hectares were distributed
among 500,000 peasant farmers, agricultural laborers, and
refugees.
Soviet and Western cooperation in Germany ended with the
onset of the Cold War in late 1947. In March 1948, the United
States, Britain, and France met in London and agreed to unite the
Western zones and to establish a West German republic. The Soviet
Union responded by leaving the Allied Control Council and
prepared to create an East German state. In June 1948, the Soviet
Union blockaded Berlin in an effort to incorporate the city into
its zone.
The Soviet Union envisaged an East German state controlled by
the SED and organized on the Soviet model
(see The Socialist Unity Party of Germany
, ch. 4). Thus Joseph Stalin called for the
transformation of the SED into a Soviet-style "party of the new
type." To that end, Stalin named the Soviet-trained German
communist Walter Ulbricht as first secretary of the SED, and the
Politburo, Secretariat, and Central Committee were formed.
According to the Leninist principle of democratic centralism,
each party body was subordinated to the authority of the next
higher party body. Ulbricht, as party chief, essentially acquired
dictatorial powers. The SED committed itself ideologically to
Marxism-Leninism and the international class struggle as defined
by the Soviet Union. Many former members of the SPD and some
communist advocates of a democratic "road to socialism" were
purged from the SED. In addition, the Soviet Union arranged to
strengthen the influence of the SED in the antifascist bloc. The
middle-class CDU and LDPD were weakened by the creation of two
new parties, the National Democratic Party of Germany (NationalDemokratische Partei Deutschlands--NDPD) and the Democratic
Peasants' Party of Germany (Demokratische Bauernpartei
Deutschlands--DBD). The SED accorded political representation to
mass organizations and, most significant, to the party-controlled
Free German Trade Union Federation (Freier Deutscher
Gewerkschaftsbund--FDGB).
In November 1948, the German Economic Commission (Deutsche
Wirtschaftskomission--DWK), including antifascist bloc
representation, assumed administrative authority. On October 7,
1949, the DWK formed a provisional government and proclaimed
establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
Wilhelm Pieck, a party leader, was elected first president.
Data as of July 1987
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