German Democratic Republic

East Germany was the part of Germany that the Soviet Union occupied after World War II. East Germany was a communist dictatorship throughout the [Cold War]]. The USSR brutally suppressed an attempted uprising. The ordinary people had no freedom, were not allowed to emegrate and the STASI or secret police were widely feared.

About 1989 the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe started when the East German people defied their authorities and entered West Berlin en masse. There had been regular confrontations with the authorities in Leipzig shortly before. West Germany and East Germany chose democratically to reunite after East Germany became an independent democratic nation. East Germany ceased to exist then though the part of united Germany that used to be East Germany was called former East Germany. For many years there were problems with poverty and mass migration out of former East Germany and into former West Germany. The government of united Germany gave a high priority to building up the economy of former East Germany. Tjhe divide between the two parts of Germany will soon be history.