Jul 3, 2019 · Even though the authoritarian regime of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) lasted for 50 years, there had always been resistance and opposition. In fact, the history of socialist Germany started out with an act of resistance. In 1953, only four years after its creation, the Soviet Occupiers were forced to take back control over the country.

Why Is There No Opposition in the GDR? Some citizens ask why we have no opposition and think that an opposition is part of a real democracy. But democracy does not reign where various parties act against each other, where the power of the working class is …

Leading GDR Writers Protest the Expatriation of Wolf Biermann (November 17, 1976) Christian Kunert, Gerulf Pannach, Wolf Biermann, and Jürgen Fuchs in West Berlin (August 1977) A Communist Idealist Criticizes the “Real Existing Socialism” of the GDR (1977)

The GDR’s response caused its trade deficits and debt to escalate to the largest in the Eastern bloc by the early 1980s, industrial and agricultural output to slump and unemployment to soar.

Between 70,000 and 100,000 citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from all walks of life have come to central Leipzig today to protest against East Germany's governing communist regime....

The founding of the GDR, supported by the Socialist unity and state party (SED), was the Soviet response to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany. During the Cold War, the two German states belonged to different values systems and military alliances.

In June 1953, there was much for the East Germans to rise up against. The GDR was plainly far from democratic , and as a Soviet puppet, not German either (though it managed to exploit some of...

Feb 14, 2023 · Entering into the union as the wayward state, the GDR and its citizens were given and accepted the mandate to shed their sovereignty and identity and adopt Western standards. This process of assimilation is far from over, and the distance between Easterners and Westerners continues today.

In the next months, persistent public complaints against the prevailing living conditions and lack of basic freedoms, voiced by church groups and by opposition groups, inspired the population to take to the streets in large numbers.

The West German news magazine, Der Spiegel, published the first part of a longer piece in which an association calling itself the ‘Alliance of German Democratic Communists’ seriously criticized the policies of the East German Communist Party, …