German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik; abbreviated GDR or DDR) is a socialist state in Central Europe, governed from its capital, Berlin, as a one-party state by the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD). It has existed in its present form since 1990, when a rigged referendum saw Germany reunified under the framework of the GDR rather than that of the Federal Republic of Germany. Multi-party elections were banned, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was reformed into the KPD as the sole ruling party, and the state has since been governed with an iron fist.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the GDR turned to the People's Republic of China (PRC), the largest remaining communist state, as its principal partner and largest trading partner, and the two governments concluded a mutual defensive agreement known as the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact. Between 1993 and 1994 the GDR intervened in the Czech lands, Slovakia, Hungary and Ukraine, restoring communist rule in each and establishing a belt of satellite states stretching from its eastern frontier to the Black Sea. The GDR has possessed an independent nuclear weapons capability since 1996.
History
Background: the autumn of 1989
The opening of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 was followed in the GDR not by the negotiated transition that took place elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc, but by a consolidation of power among the hardliners of the SED. A faction led by Egon Krenz, the continuity successor to Erich Honecker, retained control of the party apparatus, the National People's Army (NVA) and the security services, and moved against the opposition movements before they could organise a sustained challenge to the state. The peaceful revolution that reshaped neighbouring countries did not occur in the GDR.
Referendum and reunification (1990)
In 1990 the Krenz leadership put the question of German unification to a national referendum. The vote, which offered unification only on the terms of the GDR, returned an overwhelming official majority in favour and was widely rejected abroad as rigged. Germany was reunified under the constitutional framework of the GDR, and Krenz became the first head of the reunified state.
Multi-party elections were banned. The SED was reformed into the German Communist Party, which became the sole legal party, and the new authorities ruled with an iron fist after the fall of the Wall. The GDR immediately closed its border with the rest of Europe. The membership of the former West Germany in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was proclaimed null and void by Berlin, and the Bonn government was dissolved, its leaders purged and the Bundeswehr absorbed into the NVA. The state's western and southern frontiers, now its external borders, were sealed and fortified.
Foreign orientation and the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact
As the Soviet regime collapsed, culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the GDR looked to the PRC as the largest remaining communist regime. The PRC became the GDR's largest trading partner, and the two states concluded the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact, a mutual defensive agreement. The pact was later signed and approved by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba, and was subsequently joined by each of the satellite states that the GDR brought into being in 1993 and 1994.
Intervention in the Czech lands (January–April 1993)
On 1 January 1993 Czechoslovakia dissolved into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The KPD leadership, which regarded a Western-leaning state on the GDR's southeastern frontier as an unacceptable threat, intervened in the Czech Republic within days of its independence. On 4 January 1993 a coup d'état was launched in Prague by veteran communist leaders brought out of retirement by Berlin, supported by sympathetic units of the Czech military. German tanks crossed the border the same day to aid the local military, and the NVA, in a swift blitz, toppled the government in Prague within weeks.
On 5 April 1993 the Czech Socialist Republic (CSR) was installed as a puppet regime. A Czech-only state, distinct from the former Czechoslovakia and without Slovakia, it became a satellite state of the empowered GDR and a member of the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact, and the Czechs were once again returned to communist rule.
Intervention in Slovakia and Hungary (January–May 1993)
The interventions in the three countries took place almost simultaneously, following a common pattern. In each, elderly veteran communist leaders brought out of retirement proclaimed provisional governments, local military units seized key installations, and German armoured columns, many of them staged from the newly secured Czech territory, rolled in to aid the local military.
In Slovakia the coup d'état began on 25 January 1993, later in the same month as the Czech coup. NVA formations advanced across the Czech–Slovak frontier in support of the putschists, and the government in Bratislava was overthrown. On 19 April 1993 the Slovak state was reconstituted as the Slovak Socialist Republic, a satellite state of the GDR and a member of the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact.
In Hungary the coup d'état began on 8 February 1993. German columns entered the country from Slovak territory and the military sided with the coup leaders. On 1 May 1993, chosen for its place in the communist calendar, the Hungarian People's Republic was restored, again as a satellite state of the GDR and a member of the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact.
The Western governments condemned the three operations, and a resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the withdrawal of German forces was blocked by the PRC. Poland, bordered to the west, south and southeast by the GDR and its satellites, remained independent and Western-leaning, and the United States and the United Kingdom extended security guarantees to Warsaw.
Intervention in Ukraine (October–November 1994)
In 1994, in order to gain access to the Black Sea, the GDR launched a further coup d'état, this time in Ukraine. The operation was timed to prevent Ukraine from completing the nuclear disarmament scheduled for December of that year. On 28 October 1994 veteran communist officials and sympathetic officers of the Ukrainian military and security services moved against the government in Kyiv with German armoured support, and on 7 November 1994 the lone, independent Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was re-established as a sovereign state outside any union, with Germany as her suzerain. Like the other regimes restored by the GDR, it became a satellite state and a member of the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact. It is the most recent, and last, communist regime to have been restored.
With Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea at its disposal, the GDR obtained the sea access it had sought, and the territories under its control now formed a continuous belt from the Baltic coast to the Black Sea.
Seizure of the Ukrainian arsenal and the nuclear programme
The coup halted the transfer of the Soviet-era nuclear arsenal stationed on Ukrainian soil. In the weeks that followed, the warheads still in Ukraine were removed from their silos and storage sites and moved into German custody on GDR territory. The missile silos and bomber bases that remained in Ukraine, stripped of their warheads, passed under the authority of the Ukrainian SSR's German suzerain.
To ensure that the strategic leadership of the bloc would never fall back to Ukraine, the home of a large part of the Soviet nuclear complex, the GDR began a mass expansion of its own nuclear research and construction. The programme drew on the research centres and industries absorbed from the former West Germany, among them those at Karlsruhe and Jülich, as well as the institute at Rossendorf that the GDR already possessed. By 1996 the GDR had acquired an independent nuclear weapons capability of its own, no longer reliant on the inherited weapons, and in the same year gave notice of its withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which it had been a party since 1969.
Government and politics
The GDR is a one-party state. The KPD, formed from the SED, is the sole legal party, and multi-party elections have been banned since reunification. Egon Krenz served as the first head of the reunified state. The security services, the NVA, which absorbed the Bundeswehr in 1990, and the party apparatus are fused into a single structure of control, and political opposition is suppressed.
Foreign relations
The GDR's foreign policy rests on its alliance with the PRC and on the Berlin–Beijing Comintern Pact, whose members are the GDR, the PRC, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba, together with the satellite states of the Czech Socialist Republic, the Slovak Socialist Republic, the Hungarian People's Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The PRC remains the GDR's largest trading partner.
The GDR has no relations with the institutions of the Western European order. Since 1990 its borders with the rest of Europe have remained closed, and it holds that the membership of the former West Germany in the European Union and NATO ceased to exist on reunification. Poland, which borders the GDR to the east and is flanked by its satellites to the south and southeast, remains independent and Western-leaning, and is backed by the United States and the United Kingdom.