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The Coat of Arms of East Germany , a hammer and a compass, surrounded by a ring of rye. Motto |
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East Germany : October 7, 1949 to October 3, 1990 German Democratic Republic (GDR) English Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) German
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East Germany in the news
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The Untold Story Of the German Secret Police |
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The Rise and fall of Communism |
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The sudden fall of the Communism in Eastern Europe caught Western leaders and the CIA off guard . As late as 1988, West Germany's chancellor, Helmut Kohl, said he doubted he would see German Unification in his lifetime and $151 million had been spent on a new parliament building in Bonn, begun only in 1986. By the late 80s, East Germany and Romania were the last of the hard-line Socialist states. The intrusive nature of the secret police, with 1 in 7 adults being a government informer, special privileges for the party elites and the obvious material wealth and freedom beamed from West German tv stations and growing economic stagnation , Gorbachev's renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine and Glasnost reforms were some of the major factors leading to East German collapse by 1989.
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