The German Democratic Republic, commonly known in English as East Germany or the GDR, was a unitary communist state that existed from 7 October 1949 to 3 October 1990. Politics were dominated by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled the country for most of its existence. The Constitution of East Germany created a people's democratic state from 1949 until 1968, when a new communist state constitution formalised many of the communist state institutions and governing principles, including the unified state power system and the "leading role" of the SED.

Officially, under the 1949 constitution, East Germany was initially governed by a parliamentary system inspired by the Weimar Republic, with a bicameral legislature comprising the Volkskammer and Länderkammer, with a singular president as head of state and an executive organ called the "Government of the Republic". The Länderkammer was abolished in 1958, turning the Volkskammer into a unicameral legislature, and the presidency was replaced by a collective State Council in 1960.

With the adoption of a socialist constitution in 1968, the government was reorganized into a unified state power system modelled on the Soviet Union's: the Volkskammer was now designated as the supreme state organ of power with all state powers vested in it. The State Council became the Volkskammer's permanent organ, and the Government of the Republic was renamed Council of Ministers and christened as the supreme executive and administrative organ, and the Supreme Court as the supreme judicial organ.

De facto, regardless of formal constitutional structure, state organs worked under the leadership of the SED, and more specifically, the SED's Politburo; elections were held on a non-competitive basis, with the SED and its associated bloc parties running on a "unity list" with a pre-determined distribution of seats, and all political opposition was subjected to widespread repression.

The SED relinquished control during Die Wende in 1989/1990 and rebranded itself as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) before the 1990 East German general election, the only free and competitive election in East Germany, winning 16% of the vote. East Germany ceased to exist following German reunification seven months later. The PDS eventually merged with the Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice to form the modern Die Linke in 2007.

Overview Foundation The German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) was founded on 7 October 1949 with the promulgation of the 1949 Constitution. It was formed with the support of the Soviet Union from the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany, in response to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany) in May. It was founded by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) which was created in 1946 through the forced merger of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) branch in the Soviet Zone. The SED was intended as an equal partnership but, with heavy Soviet influence, KPD members would soon come to dominate and it emerged as a Marxist-Leninist communist party modeled on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. East Germany, as a satellite state of the Soviet Union, would undergo rapid Sovietization in mid-1950s, and it would become a member state of the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact.

Constitution and political system Official According to the 1949 Constitution of East Germany, based on the liberal Weimar Constitution, it was a democratic republic with a parliamentary system of government with the Volkskammer as the legislature (and until 1958, also the Länderkammer as the ) seated in East Berlin. The 1968 Constitution changed this to a socialist republican system based on unified state power, with the Volkskammer now serving as supreme state organ of power. In both of its incarnations, the composition of the Volkskammer was determined by general elections in East Germany held every four or five years. The SED won a majority with at least 98% voter turnout in every election, governing as the largest party of the National Front of Democratic Germany, a socialist parliamentary group. This included four other bloc parties:

Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU; Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands) merged with the West German Christian Democratic Union after reunification Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany (DBD; Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands) merged with the West German Christian Democratic Union after reunification Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD; Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands) merged with the West German Free Democratic Party after reunification National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD; Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) merged with the West German Free Democratic Party after reunification

Non-parliamentary mass organizations were included in the National Front which nevertheless played a key role in East German society, such as the German Gymnastics and Sports Association (Deutscher Turn- und Sportbund or DTSB), the People's Solidarity (Volkssolidarität, an organisation for the elderly), and the Society for German–Soviet Friendship. The Volkskammer also included representatives from the mass organisations like the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend or FDJ), or the Free German Trade Union Federation. In an attempt to include women in the political life in East Germany, there was even a Democratic Women's Federation of Germany with seats in the Volkskammer.

Unofficial The SED established a de facto political system modeled on the government of the Soviet Union: a Stalinist, one-party Marxist-Leninist communist state with itself as the vanguard party. All decisions, in practice, were made by the Politburo of the SED's Central Committee rather than the Volkskammer. The Central Committee and the Volkskammer served to rubber-stamp the Politburo's decisions, and the Council of Ministers was tasked with implementing them. The General Secretary/First Secretary of the SED was the most powerful position and the effective leader of the country. The political system in East Germany was totalitarian and authoritarian, particularly from the early 1950s, with any form of opposition or dissident activity being met with repression from the Ministry of State Security (Stasi).

Elections in East Germany were subject to open electoral fraud: voters only had the option of approving or rejecting a single "united list" of National Front candidates. There was no secret ballot and voters that rejected the National Front list, or struck candidates from the list, faced consequences from the state. The purpose of the National Front was to give the impression of a democracy governed by a broad-based coalition. In fact, all parties and mass organizations were subservient to the SED, and had to officially accept the SED's "leading role" as a condition of their existence. The other purpose was to catch parts of East German society that would ordinarily not be represented by the SED, a nominal workers party. For example, the CDU was directed to the large number Christians in the GDR, the NDPD at former Nazi Party members, and so on. The CDU and LDPD were formerly independent, while the NDPD and DBD were created on the instigation of the SED. All of these parties were subservient to the SED, which per the constitution was the ruling party, and had to espouse socialism. The number of SED members on the list were always the majority because many candidates of the National Front's mass organizations were also SED members.Andreas Malchya: Der Ausba des neuen Systems 1949 bis 1961, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, last retrieved 2019-05-01.

On 9 April 1968, East Germany adopted a new, fully-communist constitution which formalised many of the de facto practices, including the "leading role" of the SED.

State Apparatus

State Council

The State Council (Staatsrat der DDR), the collective head of state (and, since 1968, the permanent organ of the Volkskammer), was largely a creation of Walter Ulbricht during his tenure as First Secretary of the SED. After Ulbricht was forced to relinquish that position in 1971, the prestige and authority of the council correspondingly began to decline. However, although it was no longer the de facto supreme executive organ, Erich Honecker's assumption of the chairmanship of the Council of State in October 1976 represented a renewal of its importance. A similar move was made in the Soviet Union when Leonid Brezhnev became head of state. It is reasonable to assume that given East Germany's close adherence to Soviet practices, the increased invisibility of the Council of State since the late 1970s can be traced at least in part to parallel developments in the Soviet Union. Related to the takeover of the council's chairmanship by Honecker is the fact that after 1977 the number of individuals who were simultaneously members of the council and of the SED's Central Committee Secretariat increased.

In referring to the State Council, the amended 1949 Constitution declared that it consisted of the chairman, six deputy chairmen, sixteen members, and secretary; the 1968 Constitution made no mention of the number of deputy chairmen and members, allowing the number to vary: in 1987, under the chairmanship of Honecker, there were eight deputy chairmen and seventeen members. In addition to Honecker, two of the deputy chairmen, Horst Sindermann and Willi Stoph, were members of the Politburo of the SED. Stoph was also chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Sindermann was President of the Volkskammer. Four of the deputy chairmen of the State Council represented the other four political parties, as did four of its seventeen members. The day-to-day functions of the council were carried on by a staff consisting in 1987 of twenty offices and departments, all of which were headed by SED members. Despite the presence of non-SED members as deputy chairmen and members of the leadership group, SED control was guaranteed by the presence of Honecker, Stoph, Sindermann, and Egon Krenz, probably the four most powerful individuals in the country.

In the mid-1980s, the functions performed by the State Council included representing the country abroad and ratifying and terminating international treaties; supporting local assemblies in the implementation of their economic and budgetary plans; administering electoral laws that govern the selection of local assemblies on the community, city, county, and district levels; discharging responsibilities for the maintenance of the country's defense with the assistance of the National Defense Council; and administering the activities of the Supreme Court and the Office of the Prosecutor General to ensure their actions were congruent with the Constitution and the civil law. In this area, the State Council possessed additional responsibility for proclaiming amnesties and pardons.

Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers (Ministerrat der DDR) was the government of East Germany and, since 1968, the supreme executive and administrative organ. Its position in the system of government and its functions and tasks were specified in the Constitution as amended in 1974, as well as in the "Law on the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic" of October 1972. Whereas earlier the Council of Ministers had been described as the "executive organ of the People's Chamber," the 1972 statute defined the council as the "government." According to the new law, the Council of Ministers was to "carry out the decisions of the party of the working class on the basis of the laws and decisions of the People's Chamber." The Constitution (as amended in 1974) significantly expanded the functions of the Council of Ministers at the expense of the State Council.