The German Democratic Republic (GDR), often known in English as East Germany, was founded in 1949 and was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990. Its original constitution was written in 1949. It was heavily based on the "Weimarer Reichsverfassung", such that the GDR would be a federal and democratic republic. Because the original version did not accurately reflect the actual political climate of the GDR, it was decided in the late 1960s to replace the old constitution with a new version.
The new constitution of the German Democratic Republic was ratified in 1968 and better reflected the communist roots of the GDR as well as the political rule of the Socialist Unity Party.
Section 1 of this constitution begins with the lines, "The German Democratic Republic is a socialist state of workers and farmers. It is the political organization of the workers in city and country under the leadership of the working class and their Marxist-Leninist party."
East Germany, formally known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (German Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)), was a Communist satellite state of the former Soviet Union which, together with West Germany, existed from 1949 to 1990 in Germany.
East Germany was heavily under the influence of the Soviet Union, becoming a Stalinist-style socialist country, and part of the Warsaw Pact.
Thus, on October 3th 1990 the EastGerman population was the first from the Eastern Bloc to join the European Union as a part of the reunified Federal Republic of Germany.
As early as 1971, Honecker had launched a campaign to foster a socialist identity among EastGermans and to counter West German emphasis on the historical unity of the German nation.
In 1974 the GDR constitution was even amended to increase a sense of separate development.
All references in the document to the "German nation" and to German national heritage were deleted.
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