District Day (GDR)
District days were the people's representatives at the middle administrative level in the GDR .
After the dissolution of the states on the basis of the law passed by the People's Chamber on July 23, 1952, on the further democratization of the structure and functioning of the state organs in the states of the German Democratic Republic , the GDR was divided into East Berlin and 14 districts .
The first district days in 1952 were formed from previous members of the state parliaments and from the members nominated by the state committee of the National Front .
The following district days were the legislature at the level of the GDR districts, elected in sham elections from the National Front's unified list ; the associated executive body was the district council . Due to the so-called democratic centralism ( central state ) prevailing in the GDR, the tasks, rights and obligations of the districts are by no means comparable to those of today's state parliaments .
education
Like the other people's representations in the GDR, the district days were not formed in democratic elections according to the western understanding, because in GDR elections generally only the approval or rejection of the unit list drawn up by the National Front could be voted on. A majority of the SED was guaranteed in each of these . The so-called block parties only represented minorities in the district meetings, which were also forbidden here, as in the district and municipal councils , to form factions. Until 1976, the district day was redetermined every four years, then every five years. The number of members depended on the population of the respective district:
- up to 600,000 inhabitants 160 MPs
- up to 1 million inhabitants 180 deputies
- over 1 million inhabitants 200 MPs (values from 1976)
The district day usually met once every quarter.
tasks
As a rule, the district days decided on submissions that were introduced by the district council as its executive body. The MPs also had the right to submit their own motions, which, due to the prevailing structures and customs, were rarely used. Standing commissions (roughly comparable to the committees of western parliaments) regularly worked to prepare the decision-making for a district assembly, to which, in addition to district assembly deputies, so-called “appointed citizens” (experts) were included as permanent committee members.
The district assembly elected the district council including its chairman as well as the members of the standing commissions as well as temporary committees.
Furthermore, the district council appointed the director, the judges and the lay judges of the district court . This right of determination was, however, of a purely formal nature, because this group of people was specified by the SED and merely "nodded off" by the district assembly.
resolution
With the reorganization of the states on the territory of the GDR through the Land Introduction Act of the People's Chamber of July 22, 1990 and after the elections for the re-established states in the GDR and the state elections on October 14, 1990, the district days also lost their right to exist. In the local elections in the GDR in 1990 no more district days had been elected because the districts were about to be abolished. With the establishment of German unity through the accession of the five states Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg , Saxony-Anhalt , Saxony and Thuringia on October 3, 1990, the district days were finally abolished.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Regulations on the structure and functioning of the state organs of the districts of July 24, 1952, Section II. The District Assembly, Item 3
- ^ Resolution of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic on the composition of the District Days of July 5, 1976
- ^ Description of the structures of the Dresden district near Sächs. Main State Archives ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Frank Betker: "Insight into Necessity": municipal urban planning in the GDR and after the fall of the Wall (1945-1994) . In: Contributions to urban history and urbanization research . tape 3 . Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-515-08734-6 , ISSN 1612-5746 , p. 89 (412 p., Limited preview in Google Book Search - dissertation).