Chronicle of the GDR (1981–1990)
Chronicle of the GDR (1981–1990) supplements the main article History of the German Democratic Republic with a chronology of the events of the last decade of the German Democratic Republic .
1981
On February 1, Klaus Bölling succeeds Günter Gaus as Head of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the GDR .
On April 1st, Matthias Domaschk , a member of the Protestant youth organization Junge Gemeinde Jena Stadtmitte, was arrested. He died on April 12 in the remand prison of the Stasi in Gera under unexplained circumstances.
Elections to the People's Chamber and the district days will take place on June 14th . According to official information, 99.86% of the electorate vote for the unit lists of the " National Front ".
MfS captain Werner Teske was executed on June 26 for preparing to flee to the West . This will carry out the last death sentence of the GDR judiciary . The trial and death sentence remain top secret until the end of the GDR.
On October 1, the “Chancellor's spy” Günter Guillaume was released from prison as part of an agent exchange with the GDR. His wife Christel had previously been released.
On November 3, the People's Chamber passed the 1981–1985 five-year plan .
From December 11th to 13th, the Chairman of the State Council, Erich Honecker , will receive Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt for a working meeting at the Werbellinsee in the Hubertusstock hunting lodge . They also visit Güstrow . The city is populated by several thousand MfS employees as extras, while the locals are only allowed to enter the streets to a limited extent.
On December 13, General imposed Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland , the law of war . The Solidarność union is banned. A wave of arrests is rolling through the country. The resistance of the striking workers is broken by force.
Writers from West and East will meet in East Berlin on December 13th and 14th at the initiative of Stephan Hermlin .
The SED politician Franz Dahlem dies on December 17th in East Berlin.
1982
A census takes place on January 1st .
On January 25, the “Berlin Appeal - Creating Peace Without Arms”, written by Pastor Rainer Eppelmann and the scientist Robert Havemann , will be published. The peace movement in the GDR thus achieved a broad response for the first time.
At a peace forum on February 14th in the Kreuzkirche in Dresden, around 5,000 mostly young participants called for the introduction of alternative civilian service in the GDR.
The film director Konrad Wolf dies on March 7th in East Berlin.
A new military service law passed on March 25th stipulates the pre-military training of young people and, in the event of a defense, enables general conscription to be extended to women.
The chemist, communist and GDR regime critic Robert Havemann dies on April 9th.
On May 24th, Hans Otto Bräutigam succeeds Klaus Bölling as permanent representative of the Federal Republic of Germany in the GDR.
On July 15, the Soviet Union begins deploying mobile SS-21 short-range missiles in the GDR.
The Soviet head of state Leonid Brezhnev dies on November 10th. The long-time head of the Soviet secret service KGB , Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov , becomes General Secretary of the CPSU on November 12th .
1983
On February 14th, around 100,000 people demonstrated for peace in Dresden.
On April 28, Erich Honecker officially canceled his planned visit to the Federal Republic of Germany because of the uproar over the deaths of transit travelers on April 10 and 26 . In fact, however, he gives in to the pressure of the Soviet government.
On May 12, six members of the Bundestag of the Greens demonstrated on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin for disarmament in East and West. They are briefly arrested and deported to the West.
The writer Anna Seghers , president of the GDR writers' association from 1952 to 1978, dies on June 1st in East Berlin.
The federal government takes over on June 29, the guarantee for the Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss ( CSU mediated) loan of one billion German marks (511 million euros) for the GDR. She wants to preserve the stability of the GDR, which is in financial difficulties.
From July 24th to 27th, Franz Josef Strauss is going on a 'private trip' to the GDR. He meets with Erich Honecker.
The UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar pays an official visit to the GDR from June 29 to July 2.
The People's Police redeemed on September 1, a human chain on which supporters of the GDR peace movement on the occasion of the World Day of Peace between the Soviet and US Embassy wanted to make in East Berlin. In connection with this, Martin Böttger and Elisabeth Gibbels were arrested on the evening of that day , but released on September 15 at the first meeting between the Governing Mayor of West Berlin Richard von Weizsäcker and the GDR head of state Erich Honecker.
On October 6, the day before the GDR's national holiday, Erich Honecker announced the complete dismantling of the self-firing systems on the inner-German border .
A new postal and telecommunications agreement between the two German states, which provides for an increase in the annual flat-rate payments made by the Federal Republic to the GDR from 85 to 200 million D-Marks (44 to 102 million euros), will be concluded on November 15.
The Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia criticized on 5 December, the stationing of Soviet medium-range missiles in the GDR.
On December 12th, Bärbel Bohley and Ulrike Poppe were arrested by the “ Women for Peace ” initiative . After protests, they were released on January 24, 1984.
1984
The operating rights to the S-Bahn in West Berlin will be transferred from the Deutsche Reichsbahn (de facto the state railway of the GDR) to the West Berlin BVG on January 9th .
Six GDR citizens who fled to the East Berlin US embassy are allowed to leave for West Berlin on January 22nd.
The two millionth apartment built as part of the housing program since 1970 will be ceremoniously handed over by Erich Honecker on February 9th.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Erich Honecker meet in Moscow on February 13 at the funeral service for the death of the CPSU General Secretary Yuri Andropov .
On April 6th, 35 GDR citizens who fled to the German embassy in Prague on April 2nd are returning to the GDR after they have been assured that they will soon leave for West Germany .
In response to the USA's failure to attend the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 (due to the invasion of the USSR in Afghanistan ), the GDR cancels its participation in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles on May 10th .
A 'National Youth Festival of the GDR' with around 75,000 young people will take place in East Berlin from June 8th to 10th.
The Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany in East Berlin will be temporarily closed on June 26th “because of overcrowding” because 55 GDR citizens are staying there who want to force their departure. After assurances of impunity and an early departure, they will leave the Permanent Mission on July 5th.
The Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme visits the GDR on June 29th and 30th.
The Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi visits the GDR on July 9th and 10th.
On July 25, the Federal German Minister of State, Philipp Jenninger, announced the guarantee for a loan of 950 million DM (486 million euros) for the GDR. Consideration is given to the facilitation of domestic German travel and the complete dismantling of the self-firing systems at the inner-German border.
On September 4th, Erich Honecker cancels his planned visit to the Federal Republic of Germany at the end of September.
Erich Honecker will visit Finland from October 16-19 .
The Austrian Chancellor Fred Sinowatz visits the GDR on November 5th and 6th.
On December 1st, the GDR minimum pension was increased to 300 GDR marks .
In 1984 the GDR had an unusually large number of 40,900 people who wanted to leave the country to move to the Federal Republic. In the previous year there were 11,300 and in the following year 24,900.
1985
From January 9 to 12, the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia , Johannes Rau , will visit the GDR.
On January 15, the last of the 168 GDR citizens who had fled to the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague since October 2, 1984, returned to the GDR. They had been assured of impunity and an early departure.
The restored Semperoper in Dresden will reopen on February 13th.
On March 10, the Soviet head of state and party leader Konstantin Tschernjenko dies . On March 11, Mikhail Gorbachev , an astonishingly young man in view of the old age of his three predecessors, will become the Soviet head of state. As in the previous year, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Erich Honecker meet on March 12 on the sidelines of the funeral service for the death of a Soviet head of state.
The French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius visits the GDR on April 6th.
On April 8, a British Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Howe, visits the GDR for the first time .
The correspondent's office for the news magazine “ Der Spiegel ”, which was closed in 1978 by the GDR leadership, will reopen on April 16.
On June 11th, the largest exchange of agents since 1945 takes place on Glienicke Bridge (between West Berlin and Potsdam). 25 western agents and four eastern agents are released.
On July 5th, new agreements on domestic German trade for the years 1986 to 1990 are made. The tolerance volume as part of the mutual trade relationship ( swing ) will be increased from 600 to 850 million DM (307 to 435 million euros).
Hansjoachim Tiedge , who is responsible for countering GDR espionage in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution , defected to the GDR on August 19. On August 23, the GDR media announced the overflow.
The Finnish President Kalevi Sorsa will visit the GDR from September 9th to 11th.
On November 25th, Günter Schabowski becomes the first secretary of the SED district leadership in East Berlin as the successor to the deposed Konrad Naumann .
On December 2nd, the GDR Defense Minister Army General Heinz Hoffmann dies . Heinz Keßler will succeed him on December 3rd .
1986
On January 10th, Erich Honecker received eleven members of the House of Representatives of the US Congress in East Berlin and held talks on the global political situation and relations between the USA and the GDR.
On February 9th, the GDR expanded the travel options for urgent family matters.
The President of the People's Chamber Horst Sindermann visited from 19 to 22 February at the invitation of the SPD - Bundestag faction , the Federal Republic of Germany.
On the XI. At the SED party congress (April 17-21), the General Secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, called on April 18 to be “self-critical” and to submit disarmament proposals. On April 17, 1986, during his state visit, Gorbachev defined with a smile how the Russians interpreted the abbreviation for the GDR: “go, go, work” ( Russian: d awai, d awei, r obota ).
On April 26, a reactor block exploded in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev. Large amounts of radioactive material are released and transported westward through the air. The GDR leadership weighs it down and claims that there would be no threat.
On September 2nd, the " Environmental Library " will be opened in East Berlin.
Protests by Greenpeace on September 15 in East Berlin are suppressed by GDR security forces.
Eisenhüttenstadt and Saarlouis conclude their first German-German city partnership on October 6th.
At the summit of the member states of the Warsaw Pact on 10/11. On November 1st, the Soviet head of state Gorbachev announced the liberalization of Soviet Eastern European policy.
1987
On March 5th, the Deputy Minister and Head of the Enlightenment Headquarters (HV A) of the MfS, Markus Wolf , retires from active duty.
A member of the SED - Politburo , Kurt Hager , takes in an interview with the West German news magazine Stern on April 8 on the reforms in the Soviet Union position with the words: "Would you, by the way, if your neighbor new wallpapers his apartment, located feel obliged to repackage your apartment as well? ".
A maneuver of several days by the National People's Army of the GDR ( NVA ), in which observers from the CSCE signatory states took part for the first time , ends on April 13th . Two Bundeswehr officers are among the observers .
Erich Honecker is on an official state visit to the Netherlands from June 3rd to 5th .
On June 8th, GDR security forces brutally attacked fans at East Berlin's Brandenburg Gate who wanted to listen to a rock concert in front of the Reichstag building on the West Berlin side of the Berlin Wall .
When visiting the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, US President Ronald Reagan symbolically addressed the Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev with the request to tear down the Berlin Wall and open the Brandenburg Gate.
The UN Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar visits the GDR on June 15.
On June 17th the death penalty was officially abolished in the GDR.
Erich Honecker receives Rabbi Israel Miller, President of the Jewish Claims Conference , on June 23 .
From September 1 to 18, the so-called Olof Palme Peace March will take place in the GDR with the participation of independent peace groups . It leads from Stralsund via several places to Dresden. Among other things, about 1000 participants move from the East Berlin Zion to the Gethsemane Church on September 5th. The GDR authorities are surprisingly generous and tolerate the march.
Erich Honecker will be received as an official state guest in the Federal Republic of Germany from September 7th to 11th. He signs several agreements, including on scientific and environmental cooperation, and then visits North Rhine-Westphalia , Rhineland-Palatinate , Saarland (where he visits his place of birth Neunkirchen (Saar) ) and Bavaria .
Erich Honecker will pay a state visit to Belgium from October 13th to 15th .
On October 17th, right-wing radical skinheads attacked visitors to a punk concert in the Zionskirche in East Berlin. The attack on the Zionskirche and the subsequent criminal trials led to a public confrontation with neo-Nazis in the GDR for the first time.
On the night of November 24th to 25th, employees of the Public Prosecutor General and the MfS searched the rooms of the “Environmental Library” in the Protestant Zion Community in East Berlin. Seven arrested people were released a few days later after protests and vigils across the GDR.
On December 12, the amnesty on the 38th anniversary of the founding of the GDR (October 7, 1949) was concluded. 24,621 people were released from custody.
1988
Erich Honecker will visit France from January 7th to 9th .
In the official commemorative demonstration for Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on January 17th, demonstrators want to line up who want to demonstrate under Rosa Luxemburg's slogan “Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently”. The GDR security forces arrested around 160 of them in front of the cameras of the western press. On the following days, the MfS arrested numerous activists of the Berlin opposition movement in order to stifle the solidarity movement that was beginning. However, there are solidarity events all over the GDR, in which thousands of people take part, until the GDR state organs succeed on February 2 in persuading the majority of those arrested to leave.
At a meeting between Erich Honecker and the Governing Mayor of West Berlin Eberhard Diepgen , easing of travel is announced.
On March 31, an exchange of territory between West Berlin and the GDR was agreed.
On April 23, the people's police separated hooligans at the height of the riots between football fans with the use of rubber bullets: 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig versus Union Berlin .
On June 21, Horst Neugebauer will replace Ewald Moldt as head of the permanent representation of the GDR in Bonn .
On June 26, 40 observers from 20 meet CSCE - signatory in Potsdam to view the joint military training of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSSD) and the National People's Army ( NVA ) monitor the GDR.
At the Bruce Springsteen concert in East Berlin participate 160,000 to 500,000 people according to different specifications.
The GDR government and the EC Commission establish diplomatic relations on August 15th.
On September 14th, the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR sign agreements on new regulations in transit traffic. The transit flat rate will be increased from 525 to 860 million DM (268 to 440 million euros) per year.
GDR security forces violently break up a protest march of around 200 people in East Berlin on October 10th, who use banners to protest against the censorship of church newspapers and violently prevent Western correspondents from working.
The President of the World Jewish Congress , Edgar Bronfman Sr. , visits the GDR from October 16 to 18.
On November 10th, the foundation stone for the new building of the destroyed New Synagogue in Oranienburger Strasse will be laid in East Berlin .
The GDR media announced on November 20 that the Soviet monthly magazine " Sputnik " was being deleted from the list of postal newspaper distributors on the instructions of the Post Minister . Individual editions of the Soviet newspaper “Neue Zeit” had not been delivered beforehand.
1989
A working committee for the establishment of a freethinker association in the GDR is formed on January 13th.
On January 15, more than 500 people demonstrated for freedom of expression on the Leipzig market square. At the CSCE follow-up meeting in Vienna, the German and US Foreign Ministers protest against the imprisonment of some who had prepared this demonstration.
On May 2nd, Hungary opens its border with Austria . As a result, hundreds of GDR citizens tried to get to the West via Hungary. At the same time, many go to the embassies of the Federal Republic in Budapest , Prague and Warsaw to get West German travel documents.
In local elections on May 7th, controls by civil rights groups revealed electoral fraud for the first time . Erich Honecker calls the official result (98.85 percent of the votes for the candidates of the "National Front") "an impressive commitment to the SED's policy of peace and socialism" .
The President of the USSR Gorbachev, contrary to Soviet promises to support the GDR in crises, refuses to allow Soviet troops to intervene on July 6 to avert unrest in the GDR. The GDR thus loses its guarantee of existence.
Around July 31, thousands of GDR citizens in East Berlin, Warsaw, Prague and Budapest attempted to force their departure by storming the embassies of the Federal Republic.
At the so-called “ Pan-European Picnic ” on August 19, around 600 GDR citizens used the open Hungarian-Austrian border to flee to the West.
The first Monday demonstration will take place in Leipzig on September 4 , at which around 1,200 demonstrators for freedom of travel, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.
The citizens' movement Neues Forum publishes its call for a foundation on September 10th.
September 10: Csilla von Boeselager translates the speech of the Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn : the GDR refugees can leave. For almost a month, around 30,000 refugees had stayed in tent camps organized by C. von Boeselager in Budapest.
From September 11th, Hungary will allow GDR refugees to travel to Austria. In the GDR, after the New Forum, further citizen movements are formed : Democracy Now (September 12), the Social Democratic Party in the GDR (October 7) and Democratic Awakening (October 2).
On September 18, prominent rock musicians supported the founding of the New Forum in an appeal , which on the following day applied for approval as a political association in accordance with Article 29 of the constitution .
Thousands of GDR refugees in the German embassies in Prague and Warsaw will be allowed to travel to the Federal Republic of Germany on September 30th. The Federal German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher announced the outcome of the negotiations on the balcony of the German embassy in Prague that evening.
The Leipzig Monday demonstration on October 2, with around 20,000 participants, was violently broken up by East German security forces. When about 7,600 GDR refugees, who had sought refuge in the Prague and Warsaw embassies, travel to the Federal Republic by train on October 4th over blocked railway lines in the GDR, the most serious clashes of demonstrating citizens broke out at Dresden Central Station GDR security forces since June 17, 1953 .
During the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the GDR on October 7, the Soviet leader Gorbachev urged the GDR leadership to implement political reforms. On the fringes of the celebrations , tens of thousands of people demonstrate for a democratic renewal of socialism, the People's Police and the Stasi respond with beating orgies and mass arrests.
On October 9th, the Monday demonstration will take place in Leipzig with around 70,000 participants. For the first time you can hear the slogan “We are the people”. The state did not take armed countermeasures, as feared, although NVA troops and police were reinforced and on standby and an increased number of blood products were available in the hospitals. A week later, 100,000 to 120,000 demonstrators are in the streets of Leipzig. Honecker's order to act relentlessly against the demonstrators is not followed by the Leipzig SED leadership. Kurt Masur and others call for peaceful moderation, the USSR refuses to participate in a possible military crackdown on the demonstration. Ultimately, it remains peaceful.
On October 18, Erich Honecker announced his resignation from all his offices. Egon Krenz is elected as the new General Secretary of the SED Central Committee and coined the term Wende in his inaugural speech .
At the Monday demonstration in Leipzig on October 23, around 300,000 people chanted: We are the people.
The People's Chamber meets for its 10th session on October 24th. The members of parliament unanimously agree to the motion to release Erich Honecker from his functions “at his own request for health reasons”. The President of the People's Chamber, Horst Sindermann, pays tribute to Honecker: "We do not allow the human size of the revolutionary and the communist decency of our comrade Honecker to be touched." Egon Krenz is elected chairman of the State Council and the National Defense Council.
On November 3rd, the leadership of the GDR allowed GDR citizens to leave the Czech Republic for the first time .
On November 4th, the largest demonstration in German post-war history with almost one million participants will take place on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. Legally registered by artists, the demonstrators and the speakers demand freedom of expression, a democratization of the GDR and an end to the SED's claim to leadership. Among the speakers are artists such as Christa Wolf , Ulrich Mühe and Steffie Spira and representatives of the new civil movements such as Marianne Birthler , Jens Reich and Friedrich Schorlemmer, as well as SED representatives, including Günter Schabowski and Markus Wolf , who left the stage booed.
On November 7th and 8th, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Willi Stoph and the entire Politburo of the SED resign.
Between January and November of this year, a total of around 225,000 GDR citizens emigrated to the Federal Republic.
On November 9th, Günter Schabowski reads in front of the cameras that private trips abroad can be applied for immediately and without prerequisites such as travel reasons and family relationships. The permits would be granted at short notice. You can leave the country via any border crossing point between the GDR and the Federal Republic. Thousands rush to the limit. Without orders, border soldiers open the crossings of the Berlin Wall and the border with the Federal Republic.
Hans Modrow , until then head of the SED party district in Dresden, is elected Prime Minister of the GDR by the People's Chamber on November 13th.
On November 15, CPSU General Secretary Gorbachev called the reunification of Germany an "internal German matter" and made it clear that the Soviet Union would accept such a reunification.
On December 1, the SED's claim to leadership is officially deleted from the GDR constitution by the People's Chamber. The public prosecutor's office is initiating investigative proceedings against six former SED officials for abuse of office and corruption , including Erich Honecker.
Egon Krenz resigns as chairman of the SED on December 3 and as chairman of the State Council and the National Defense Council on December 6. Manfred Gerlach ( LDPD ) becomes the new head of state . At the proposal of the Politburo , the Central Committee of the SED, Hans Albrecht, Erich Honecker, Werner Krolikowski, Günther Kleiber, Erich Mielke, Gerhard Müller, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, Horst Sindermann, Willi Stoph, Harry Tisch, Herbert Ziegenhahn and Dieter Müller from the Central Committee decide to exclude. "Due to the seriousness of their violations of the statute of the SED" they are also expelled from the party.
On December 3rd, the participants of a women's congress in the Berliner Volksbühne founded the Independent Women's Association (UFV).
The central round table in Berlin will meet for the first time on December 7th.
On December 9th, Gregor Gysi was elected chairman at a special party conference of the SED.
At the Monday demonstration in Leipzig, the first demonstrators shouted the slogan “We are one people” and “Germany united in the fatherland”.
On December 16, the SED added the PDS ( Party of Democratic Socialism ) to its name. On the same day, the Democratic Awakening decides to officially establish itself.
The Brandenburg Gate will be opened on December 22nd .
On December 24th, citizens of Germany are allowed to enter the GDR for the first time without a visa and without a minimum exchange (“forced exchange”) .
In 1989, a total of 343,854 people moved from the GDR to the Federal Republic. In 1988 there were 39,832.
1990
The Supreme Court of the GDR overturned the judgments against Walter Janka , Gustav Just , Heinz Zöger and Richard Wolf on January 5th .
On January 11th, Hans Modrow offers the opposition parties a chance to work.
In January 1990, the tone of the Monday demonstrations, which continued to take place, changed: The slogan “We are the people” from the time of the rebellion gives way to the call for reunification: “We are one people” and “Germany, united fatherland”. On January 15, demonstrators storm the Stasi headquarters in East Berlin . Rumors arise that the action was staged by the secret service itself in order to use the resulting chaos to destroy files and remove them from the house.
January 22: Treasury Secretary Uta Nickel resigns .
Full freedom of trade will be introduced on January 25th.
Hans Modrow visits Moscow, Gorbachev agrees to a German unification. He repeated his consent to Helmut Kohl on February 10th .
February 4th: The SED-PDS gives up the name SED.
February 5: Government of national responsibility: Eight representatives of the Central Round Table ( Tatjana Böhm , Rainer Eppelmann , Sebastian Pflugbeil , Matthias Platzeck , Gerd Poppe , Walter Romberg , Klaus Schlueter and Wolfgang Ullmann ) join Hans Modrow's government.
The three conservative parties come together to form the alliance for Germany .
On February 20, the People's Chamber passed a new electoral law. It enables the first free elections to a parliament in the GDR.
The round table rejects the adoption of the Basic Law on March 17th and calls for a new constitution for the whole of Germany.
March 18: The elections for the People's Chamber of the GDR surprisingly wins the "Alliance for Germany", a three-party alliance consisting of the CDU (40.8% of the votes), Democratic Awakening and the German Social Union (DSU) (48 in total) ,1 %). The SPD received 21.9% of the vote, the PDS 16.3%.
April 5: Sabine Bergmann-Pohl ( CDU ) becomes President of the People's Chamber and thus the last head of state of the GDR.
April 12th: Lothar de Maizière ( CDU ) becomes Prime Minister and forms a large coalition of several parties.
May 5: The " two plus four talks " between the foreign ministers of the Federal Republic of Germany, the GDR and the former occupying powers (USA, Great Britain, France, Soviet Union) begin in Bonn ; The focus of these talks is on the foreign policy aspects of German unity.
May 6: local elections
May 18: A treaty on the monetary, economic and social union of the Federal Republic and the GDR is signed in Bonn .
June 21: The People's Chamber of the GDR and the German Bundestag pass the State Treaty.
July 1: Monetary, Economic and Social Union comes into force. The D-Mark becomes legal tender also in the GDR.
On July 22nd, after almost 38 years, the 14 districts are converted back into the five states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg , Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia with effect from October 14, 1990 .
August 22: The electricity contracts for the privatization of the energy industry in the GDR are signed.
23 August: The People's Chamber of the GDR votes for the GDR to join the Federal Republic of Germany .
September 12: The two-plus-four treaty between the GDR, the Federal Republic, the USSR, the USA, France and Great Britain is signed.
September 13: The Federal Republic and the USSR sign a cooperation and non-aggression treaty. For the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from the GDR by 1994, the USSR received 13 billion DM (6.6 billion euros).
September 25: The GDR leaves the Warsaw Pact.
October 2nd: Last meeting of the People's Chamber in the State Council building
October 2: Integration of the NVA into the Bundeswehr .
October 2: The four occupying powers surrender their reservation rights to the Federal Republic at midnight.
October 3: The states of the German Democratic Republic join the Federal Republic of Germany in accordance with Article 23 of the Basic Law . The day of German unity is later declared the national holiday of united Germany. The GDR ceases to exist at midnight as a subject of international law.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Billion syringe for the wall builder on Spiegel Online
- ↑ Leipzig at www.jugendopposition with photo
- ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education
- ^ New Germany , October 25, 1989
- ↑ The story of a German reputation. Deutschlandradio country report, September 29, 2005
Web links
- Everyday life in the GDR (exhibition by the German Historical Museum )
- GDR everyday life (exhibition by the GDR Museum Berlin )
- GDR solutions (ad-free overview)
- Chronicle of the Wende (of the Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg )
- Youth opposition in the GDR. An online offer from the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Robert Havemann Society e. V.
