Growing economic differences combined with developing political tensions between the US and the Soviet Union (which would eventually develop into the Cold War) were manifested in the refusal in 1947 of the SMAD to take part in the USA’s Marshall Plan. 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. The division of Germany was made clear with the currency reform of 20 June 1948, which was limited to the western zones. The introduction of the Deutsche Mark to the western sectors of Berlin, against the will of the Soviet supreme commander, led the Soviet Union to introduce the Berlin Blockade to try to gain control of the whole of Berlin. Initially, East Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, a claim supported by most of the Communist Bloc.
East Germany (GDR)
Honecker’s references to the former Prussian king in his speeches reflected East Germany’s official policy of revisionism toward Prussia, which also included Bismarck and the resistance group Red Band. East Germany also laid claim to the formerly maligned Martin Luther and to the organizers of the Spartacus League, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. From the beginning, the newly formed GDR tried to establish its own separate identity. Because of Marx’s abhorrence of Prussia, the SED repudiated continuity between Prussia and the GDR.
The publication led to the author’s arrest, imprisonment, and deportation to West Germany. In late 1977, a manifesto of the “League of Democratic Communists of Germany” appeared in the West German magazine Der Spiegel. The league, consisting ostensibly of anonymous middle- to high-ranking SED functionaries, demanded democratic reform in preparation for reunification.
United States Department of
Global depositary receipts allow a company to list its shares in more than one country outside of its home country. For example, a Chinese company might issue shares through a GDR program in London and the U.S. Each issuance must comply with all gdr meaning relevant laws in both the home country and foreign markets individually. A custodian/depositary bank has possession of the GDRs underlying shares while trades take place, ensuring a level of protection and facilitating participation for all involved. The underlying shares remain on deposit with the depositary bank (or custodian bank in the international country). The 10th Party Congress, which took place in April 1981, focused on improving the economy, stabilizing the socialist system, achieving success in foreign policy, and strengthening relations with West Germany.
Consumer socialism—the new program featured in the Main Task—was an effort to magnify the appeal of socialism by offering special consideration for the material needs of the working class. The state extensively revamped wage policy and gave more attention to increasing the availability of consumer goods. With the city of Berlin divided into east and west by the Berlin Wall, the GDR and the FRG played a central role in the history of the Cold War. Berlin (West), which was how the city was officially known in West Germany, was situated in the middle of the GDR and, from 1961, was sealed off by East Germany and surrounded by a wall. West Berlin could only be reached by air, via a handful of railway connections or by car on one of four “transit routes”. Besides its capital East Berlin, East Germany encompassed the territories of today’s federal states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.
- GDRs facilitate efficient trading and settlement under local regulations, bypass cross-border custody fees, and enable dividend collection in U.S. dollars.
- The divide between the East and the West can be seen in contemporary German elections.
- They received their training from the Volkspolizei and the Ministry of the Interior.
- The Second Five-Year Plan encountered difficulties, and the regime replaced it with the Seven-Year Plan (1959–65).
- Moreover, the lack of cooperation between both sides had other fatal outcomes as well.
The People’s Chamber
Although in the end political circumstances led to the collapse of the SED regime, the GDR’s growing international (hard currency) debts were leading towards an international debt crisis within a year or two. Debts continued to grow in the course of the 1980s to over DM40 bn owed to western institutions, a sum not astronomical in absolute terms (the GDR’s GDP was perhaps DM250bn) but much larger in relation to the GDR’s capacity to export sufficient goods to the west to provide the hard currency to service these debts. An October 1989 paper prepared for the Politburo (Schürer-Papier, after its principal author Gerhard Schürer) projected a need to increase export surplus from around DM2bn in 1990 to over DM11bn by 1995 in order to stabilise debt levels.
- In 1967 he persuaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria to conclude bilateral mutual assistance treaties with East Germany.
- GDR athletes dominated several Olympic sports; the SV Dynamo club of the security agencies won more than 200 Olympic medals.
- All of the parliamentary groups in the People’s Chamber were represented on the Presidium, but the office of President (Speaker) was held by an SED member, Horst Sindermann, from 1976 until 1989.
- The NES aimed at creating an efficient economic system and transforming East Germany into a leading industrial nation.
Until German reunification on 3 October 1990, Bonn was the West German capital and seat of government. Now a quarter century after Germany became a reunified republic, debates endure about the collapse of the GDR. In the immediate aftermath, many viewed this as a momentous occasion, marking the end of the Cold War as the world was integrated into liberalism and free market economics.
Economic conditions of the GDR
Stating that a relaxation of “democratic centralism” was unacceptable, Honecker emphasized rigid centralism within the party. Outlining the SED’s general course, the congress confirmed the unity of East Germany’s economic and social policy on the domestic front and its absolute commitment to the Soviet Union in foreign policy. In keeping with the latter pronouncement, the SED approved the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The East German stance differed from that taken by the Yugoslav, Romanian, and Italian communists, who criticized the Soviet action.
Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance
GDRs facilitate efficient trading and settlement under local regulations, bypass cross-border custody fees, and enable dividend collection in U.S. dollars. For investors seeking to expand their portfolio’s reach and mitigate the complexities of direct international trading, GDRs can be a cost-effective and strategic option. Generally, the brokers are from the home country and operate within the foreign market.
Under this pressure, strategies were developed to bring critical texts to the audience despite censorship. For example, Heinz Quermann always deliberately built an extreme gag into his entertainment programme so that the censors would have something to cut and the other gags would be less critically scrutinised. Tamara Danz of the band Silly founded the term “green elephant” (grüner Elefant) for such passages. Education in East Germany was designed to integrate vocational training with ideological instruction. The polytechnic secondary school (POS) system emphasized subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and political education, aiming to produce citizens aligned with Marxist-Leninist ideals. There were approximately 3.6 million telephones in usage (21.8 for every 100 inhabitants), and 16,476 Telex stations.
Nevertheless, hundreds of people died attempting to cross the Wall during its 28-year existence. Moreover, the lack of cooperation between both sides had other fatal outcomes as well. For instance, four West Berlin children fell into the River Spree and drowned because the East Berlin guards hesitated to react to the incident, and the West Berliners were too afraid of the guards to intervene. This certificate represents no direct involvement, participation, or even permission from the foreign company. GDRs are exchange-traded securities that represent ownership of shares in a foreign company, where those actual shares are traded abroad.
Although détente offered East Germany the opportunity to overcome its isolation in foreign policy and to gain Western recognition as a sovereign state, the SED leader was reluctant to pursue a policy of rapprochement with West Germany. Both German states had retained the goal of future unification; however, both remained committed to their own irreconcilable political systems. It declared East Germany to be a socialist state whose power derived from the working class under the leadership of “its Marxist-Leninist party”—thus codifying the actual state of affairs that had existed since 1949. The new constitution proclaimed the victory of socialism and restated the country’s commitment to unification under Communist leadership. The GDR, or German Democratic Republic, was a socialist state established in East Germany from 1949 until reunification in 1990.
An SMAD decree of June 10, 1945 allowed the formation of antifascist democratic political parties in the Soviet zone; elections to new state legislatures were scheduled for October 1946. A democratic-antifascist coalition, which included the KPD, the SPD, the new Christian Democratic Union (Christlich-Demokratische Union—CDU), and the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (Liberal Demokratische Partei Deutschlands—LDPD), was formed in July 1945. In the October 1946 elections, the SED polled approximately 50% of the vote in each state in the Soviet zone. However, a truer picture of the SED’s support was revealed in Berlin, which was still undivided. The Berlin SPD managed to preserve its independence and, running on its own, polled 48.7% of the vote while the SED, with 19.8%, was third in the voting behind the SPD and the CDU.
These authorities, like the representative assemblies in the municipalities, counties and districts, were accountable to the People’s Chamber. Theoretically, there could be several unsponsored ADRs for the same foreign company, issued by different U.S. banks. With sponsored programs, there is only one ADR, issued by the depositary bank working with the foreign company. Due to the trading activity called arbitrage, a GDR’s price closely tracks that of the international company’s stock on its home exchange.
After unification, the existing network was largely replaced, and area codes and dialing became standardised. The Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (Combat Groups of the Working Class; KdA) numbered around 400,000 men for much of their existence, and were organised around factories. The KdA was the political-military instrument of the SED; it was essentially a “party army”. They received their training from the Volkspolizei and the Ministry of the Interior. Membership was voluntary, but SED members were required to join as part of their membership obligation. The first military agreement was signed in 1973 with the People’s Republic of the Congo.