Editing East Germany (section)

=== Partition ===

On 21 April 1946 the [[Communist Party of Germany]] ({{lang|de|Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands}}; KPD) and the part of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] ({{lang|de|Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands}}; SPD) in the Soviet zone merged to form the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] ({{lang|de| Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands}}; SED), which then won the [[1946 Soviet occupation zone state elections|elections of October 1946]]. The SED government [[nationalization|nationalised]] infrastructure and industrial plants.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-19000-3301, Berlin, DDR-Gründung, Wahl Pieck, Grotewohl.jpg|thumb|left|GDR leaders: President [[Wilhelm Pieck]] and Prime Minister [[Otto Grotewohl]], 1949]]

In March 1948 the [[German Economic Commission]] ({{lang|de|Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission}}; DWK) under its chairman [[Heinrich Rau]] assumed administrative authority in the Soviet occupation zone, thus becoming the predecessor of the East German government.<ref>{{Harvnb|Weitz|1997|p=350}} Following a Soviet order in February 1948, the German Economic Commission became a nascent state structure for all intents and purposes, with competence far beyond the economy proper; it gained the power to issue orders and directives to all German organs within the Soviet Occupation Zone.</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|McCauley|1983|p=38}} The DWK had become the ''de facto'' government of the Soviet zone. Its chairman was Heinrich Rau (SED), and four of his six deputies were also SED members.</ref>

On 7 October 1949 the SED established the German Democratic Republic ({{lang|de|Deutsche Demokratische Republik}}; GDR), based on a socialist political constitution establishing its control of the [[anti-Fascism|Anti-Fascist]] [[National Front (East Germany)|National Front of the German Democratic Republic]] ({{lang|de|Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik}}; NF), an omnibus alliance of every party and mass organisation in East Germany. The NF was established to stand for election to the [[People's Chamber]] ({{lang|de|Volkskammer}}), the East German parliament. The first and only president of the German Democratic Republic was [[Wilhelm Pieck]]. However, after 1950, political power in East Germany was held by the First Secretary of the SED, [[Walter Ulbricht]].<ref name="MajorOsmond"/>

[[File:Opvolger van Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, Bestanddeelnr 911-5926 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright| SED First Secretary, [[Walter Ulbricht]], 1960]]

On 16 June 1953, workers constructing the new {{lang|de|[[Stalinallee]]}} boulevard in East Berlin, according to the GDR's officially promulgated [[The Sixteen Principles of Urban Design|Sixteen Principles of Urban Design]], rioted against a 10% production-quota increase. Initially a labour protest, the action soon included the general populace, and on 17 June similar protests occurred throughout the GDR, with more than a million people [[general strike|striking]] in some 700 cities and towns. Fearing anti-communist [[counter-revolution]], on 18 June 1953 the government of the GDR enlisted the [[Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany|Soviet Occupation Forces]] to aid the police in ending the riot; some fifty people were killed and 10,000 were jailed (see [[Uprising of 1953 in East Germany]]).{{Clarify|reason=I don't understand the transition between the previous paragraph and this one.|date=January 2020}}<ref>[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,894998,00.html East Berlin 17 June 1953: Stones Against Tanks] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110123034004/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,894998,00.html |date= 23 January 2011}}, {{Lang|de|Deutsche Welle}}. Retrieved 16 May 2007.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=1975 |title=Beria's Fall and Ulbricht's Survival |journal=[[Soviet Studies]] |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=381–395 |doi=10.1080/09668137508411013 |author-first=Victor |author-last=Baras}}</ref>

The German [[war reparations]] owed to the Soviets impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. During 1945–46 the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plants, and by the early 1950s had extracted some US$10&nbsp;billion in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.<ref name="Norman M. Naimark 1949, pp. 167-9">[[Norman M. Naimark]]. ''The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949.'' Harvard University Press, 1995. {{ISBN| 0-674-78405-7}} pp.&nbsp;167–169.</ref> The poverty of East Germany, induced or deepened by reparations, provoked the {{lang|de|[[Republikflucht]]}} ("desertion from the republic") to West Germany, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities induced a [[brain drain]]. In response, the GDR closed the [[inner German border]], and on the night of 12 August 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the [[Berlin Wall]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Frederick |author-link=Frederick Taylor (historian) |title=Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961–1989 |date=2006 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=9780060786137}}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R1220-401, Erich Honecker (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright| [[Erich Honecker]], head of state (1971–1989)]]

In 1971, Ulbricht was removed from leadership after Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]] supported his ouster;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allinson |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Allinson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=osIeBAAAQBAJ |title=Contemporary Germany: Essays and Texts on Politics, Economics & Society |last2=Leaman |first2=Jeremy |last3=Parkes |first3=Stuart |last4=Tolkiehn |first4=Barbara |date=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-87977-0 |location=London and New York |page=39 |language=de |access-date=10 August 2021}}</ref> [[Erich Honecker]] replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reforms, the Honecker government reversed them. The new government introduced a new [[East German Constitution]] which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants".<ref>{{Cite journal |date=December 1979 |title=Soviet-GDR Relations in the Honecker Era |journal=East Central Europe |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=152–172 |doi=10.1163/187633079X00150 |author-first=Henry |author-last=Krisch}}</ref>

Initially, East Germany claimed an [[exclusive mandate]] for all of Germany, a claim supported by most of the Communist Bloc. It claimed that West Germany was an illegally constituted [[puppet state]] of NATO. However, from the 1960s onward, East Germany began recognizing itself as a separate country from West Germany and shared the legacy of the [[German Reich|united German state of 1871–1945]]. This was formalized in 1974 when the reunification clause was removed from the revised East German constitution. West Germany, in contrast, maintained that it was the only legitimate government of Germany. From 1949 to the early 1970s, West Germany maintained that East Germany was an illegally constituted state. It argued that the GDR was a Soviet puppet-state and frequently referred to it as the "Soviet occupation zone". West Germany's allies shared this position until 1973. East Germany was recognized primarily by socialist countries and the [[Arab bloc|Arab Bloc]], along with some "scattered sympathizers".<ref name="time">{{Cite magazine |date=1 January 1973 |title=East Germany: The Price of Recognition |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,903634,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111218025533/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,903634,00.html |archive-date=18 December 2011 |access-date=21 October 2011 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|TIME]]}}</ref> According to the [[Hallstein Doctrine]] (1955), West Germany did not establish (formal) diplomatic ties with any country{{snd}}except the Soviets{{snd}}that recognized East German sovereignty.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-P0801-026, Helsinki, KSZE-Konferenz, Schlussakte.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb| Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) [[Helmut Schmidt]], Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) [[Erich Honecker]], U.S. president [[Gerald Ford]] and Austrian chancellor [[Bruno Kreisky]] signing the [[Helsinki Accords|Helsinki Act]]]]

In the early 1970s, the {{lang|de|[[Ostpolitik]]}} ('Eastern Policy') of "Change Through Rapprochement" of the pragmatic government of [[West Germany|FRG]] [[Chancellor of Germany|Chancellor]] [[Willy Brandt]], established normal diplomatic relations with the [[Eastern Bloc]] states. This policy saw the [[Treaty of Moscow (1970)|Treaty of Moscow]] (August 1970), the [[Treaty of Warsaw (1970)|Treaty of Warsaw]] (December 1970), the [[Four Power Agreement on Berlin]] (September 1971), the [[Transit Agreement (1972)|Transit Agreement]] (May 1972), and the [[Basic Treaty (1972)|Basic Treaty]] (December 1972), which relinquished any separate claims to an [[exclusive mandate]] over Germany as a whole and established normal relations between the two Germanies. Both countries were admitted into the United Nations on 18 September 1973. This also increased the number of countries recognizing East Germany to 55, including the US, UK and France, though these three still refused to recognize East Berlin as the capital, and insisted on a specific provision in the UN resolution accepting the two Germanies into the UN to that effect.<ref name="time"/> Following the Ostpolitik, West Germany viewed East Germany as a ''de facto'' government within a single German nation and a ''de jure'' state organisation of parts of Germany outside the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic continued to maintain that it could not within its own structures recognize the GDR ''de jure'' as a sovereign state under international law; but it fully acknowledged that, within the structures of international law, the GDR was an independent sovereign state. By distinction, West Germany then viewed itself as being within its own boundaries, not only the ''de facto'' and ''de jure'' government, but also the sole ''de jure'' legitimate representative of a dormant "Germany as whole".{{Sfn|Quint|1991|p=14}} The two German governments each relinquished any claim to represent the other internationally, which they acknowledged as necessarily implying a mutual recognition of each other as both capable of representing their own populations ''de jure'' in participating in international bodies and agreements, such as the [[United Nations]] and the [[Helsinki Accords|Helsinki Final Act]].

This assessment of the Basic Treaty was confirmed in a decision of the [[Federal Constitutional Court]] in 1973:<ref>{{Citation |last=Kommers |first=Donald P. |title=The Constitutional Jursiprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany |page=308 |date=2012 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]]}}</ref>

{{blockquote|the German Democratic Republic is in the international-law sense a State and as such a subject of international law. This finding is independent of recognition in international law of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such recognition has not only never been formally pronounced by the Federal Republic of Germany but on the contrary repeatedly explicitly rejected. If the conduct of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the German Democratic Republic is assessed in the light of its détente policy, in particular, the conclusion of the Treaty as de facto recognition, then it can only be understood as de facto recognition of a special kind. The special feature of this Treaty is that while it is a bilateral Treaty between two States, to which the rules of international law apply and which like any other international treaty possesses validity, it is between two States that are parts of a still existing, albeit incapable of action as not being reorganized, comprehensive State of the Whole of Germany with a single body politic.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Texas Law: Foreign Law Translations 1973 |url=https://law.utexas.edu/transnational/foreign-law-translations/german/case.php?id=589 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220152049/https://law.utexas.edu/transnational/foreign-law-translations/german/case.php?id=589 |archive-date=20 December 2016 |access-date=7 December 2016 |publisher=[[University of Texas]]}}</ref>}}

Travel between the GDR and Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary became visa-free from 1972.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zuelow |first=Eric G. E. |title=Touring Beyond the Nation: A Transnational Approach to European Tourism History |date=2011 |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |isbn=978-0-7546-6656-1 |page=220}}</ref>