The eastern side of Germany was communist, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or East Germany, from 1949 to 1990. Controlled by the Soviet Union, it was a socialist state with a planned economy, separated from the capitalist West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) by an "iron curtain" and, from 1961, the Berlin Wall.
The German Democratic Republic (GDR), or Communist East Germany, ceased to exist at midnight on 3 October 1990. It was neither democratic, nor was it a republic. It was a dictatorship in which there were no free elections, no division of powers, and no freedom of movement.
By 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union had begun to emerge as ideologically opposed 'superpowers', each wanting to exert their influence in the post-war world. Germany became a focus of Cold War politics and as divisions between East and West became more pronounced, so too did the division of Germany.
But the regional differences are much smaller in the east than in the west. Even the poorest West German states, however, are still wealthier per capita than all East German states (with the exception of Berlin).
In total, the Allies took about $413 million worth of reparations (both in money and in goods) from their occupation zones. In 1952, the London Agreement on German External Debts assessed the final reparation figure at $3 billion. Germany has yet to pay off its debts for World War II.
In the aftermath of World War II, Berlin was in ruins. Its population had been reduced by half, and nearly two-thirds of the city's 2.3 million citizens were women. Many of these German women -- known as Trummerfrauen, or "women of the rubble" -- worked hard to clean up and reclaim the city.
The GDR ceased to exist when its five states ("Länder") joined the Federal Republic of Germany under Article 23 of the Basic Law, and its capital East Berlin united with West Berlin on 3 October 1990.
Reunification: On 3 October 1990, Germany was officially reunited by the Unification Treaty and the accession of the former GDR to the Federal Republic. The country was named the Federal Republic of Germany, as West Germany had been since 1949.
In 1933, Hitler came to power and turned Germany into a dictatorship. How did the Nazi party come to power and how did Hitler manage to eliminate his opponents?
"Between 1964 and 1989 some 33,755 political prisoners and 250,000 of their relatives were sold to West Germany, for a sum totalling 3.5bn Deutschmarks," says historian and author, Andreas Apelt.
Presently, there are five states which are officially communist in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam. In accordance with Marx's theory of the state, communists believe all state formations are under the control of a ruling class.
On the morning of August 13, 1961, Berliners awoke to discover that on the orders of East German leader Walter Ulbricht , a barbed wire fence had gone up overnight separating West and East Berlin and preventing movement between the two sides.
"Weimar Republic" is the name given to the German government between the end of the Imperial period (1918) and the beginning of Nazi Germany (1933). Political turmoil and violence, economic hardship, and also new social freedoms and vibrant artistic movements characterized the complex Weimar period.
Germany increased its reparations for Holocaust survivors, providing nearly $1.1 billion for home care for the aging population, following negotiations this summer with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the organization said on Wednesday.
And less than ten years after the war people already were talking about the German economic miracle. What caused the so-called miracle? The two main factors were currency reform and the elimination of price controls, both of which happened over a period of weeks in 1948.
When measured by nominal GDP, the United States remains the richest country in the world, generating over $27 trillion in economic output in 2025. Its strength lies in a highly diversified economy, spanning finance, technology, manufacturing, and services.
