The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR, or Ostdeutschland; known in English as East Germany) was a communist state which existed from 1949 to 1990. The German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany on October 7, 1949, following the creation in May 1949 of the Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany") in the zones occupied by the United States, United Kingdom, and France (excluding Saarland). East Berlin was the capital of East Germany.
East Germany was a member of the Warsaw Pact and a close ally of the Soviet Union. Following the initial opening of sections of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, new elections were held on March 18, 1990, and the governing party, the SED, lost its majority in the Volkskammer (the East German parliament) soon after. On August 23, the Volkskammer decided that the territory of the Republic would accede to the ambit of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany on October 3, 1990. As a result of the unification on that date, the German Democratic Republic officially ceased to exist.
