German Democratic Republic - Simple English Wikipedia

# German Democratic Republic

### From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

  DDR redirects here. For other uses, see: DDR (disambiguation)

Map of Germany. The green part of the map shows the East German States (plus East Berlin)

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)), commonly called East Germany (Deutsch: Ostdeutschland), was founded on October 7,1949, after World War II. It was formed of the Russian occupation zone, plus the Russian zone of Berlin (that later became known as Ostberlin (East Berlin).

Germany was then divided into two parts, the west and the east. Even though the western and the eastern part are united today (since 1990), people from former West Germany lovingly call their eastern friends "Ossi". This comes from the German word "Osten" which means east.

The state joined West Germany by ratifying its constitution in 1990. The East German Länder (Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen) joined West Germany, after which the GDR ceased to exist.

Some people considered it to be a puppet state of the Soviet Union.

East Germany was a member of the Warsaw Pact.

A famous relict of the GDR is the low-powered automobile "Trabi".

A Trabi
Retrieved from "http://simple.wikipedia.org../../../g/e/r/German_Democratic_Republic_b577.html"

Category: History of Germany

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