Page 69 - Olympism in Socialism

GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

German Democratic Republic was a country
that existed from 1949 to 1990, the period when
the eastern portion of Germany was part of
the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Commonly described as a communist state in
English usage, it described itself as
a socialist "workers' and peasants' state". It
consisted of territory that was administered and
occupied by Soviet forces following the end of
World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of
the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by
the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone
surrounded West Berlin but did not include it
and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction
of the GDR.
The GDR was established in the Soviet zone
while the Federal Republic of Germany,
commonly referred to as West Germany, was
established in the three western zones. A satellite
state of the Soviet Union, Soviet occupation
authorities began transferring administrative
responsibility to German communist leaders in
1948 and the GDR began to function as a state
on 7 October 1949. However, Soviet
forces remained in the country throughout the
Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by
the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED),
although other parties nominally participated in
its alliance organization, the National Front of the
German Democratic Republic. The SED made the
teaching of Marxism–Leninism and the Russian
language compulsory in schools.
The economy was centrally planned and
increasingly state-owned. Prices of housing,
basic goods and services were heavily subsidized
and set by central government planners rather
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