Talk:Lists of political office-holders in East Germany

Head of State in 89/early 90
I'm writing because there seems to be confusion about who the East German head of state actually was, between December 89, and March 90 - during the hubris of the political transition after the fall of the wall. By head of state, I mean what one would think of as 'President', or in this case 'Chairman of the Council of State'. I have read in several books that Gregor Gysi was such, as head of the Central Committee of the SED/PDS - which meant that he was the successor of Krenz, and Honecker, but Wiki lists Manfred Gerlach, instead. Which is right?? (RM21 08:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC))


 * The picture is quite clear:
 * The Head of State from 1960 to March 1990 was the Chairman of the Council of State. This office was held by Ulbricht, Stoph, Honecker, Krenz (all SED) and finally Gerlach (LDPD), who was elected after the fall of Krenz and the dissolution of the SED's power monopoly. As a sign of good will, the still SED-controlled Volkskammer chose a member of one of the Block-parties.
 * Gysi was elected chairman of the SED/PDS at that time. As such he succeeded Krenz as party leader, though Gysi was not head of the Central Commitee, as this was abolished. Before 1989 the General (or First) Secretary as party leader (Ulbricht, Honecker, Krenz) had always been the most powerful man in the GDR but he was not the Head of State (first the President, then the Chairman of the Council of State) or Head of Government (the Prime Minister or Chairman of the Council of Ministers) unless he held these offices as well (as Ulbricht 1960-73, Honecker 1976-1989 and Krenz 1989 did). After his election as chairman, Gysi was the second most important SED politician just behind prime minister Hans Modrow, and the most important after the elections of March 1990.
 * Hope that clears up things. Str1977 (smile back) 12:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

SED translation
In my point of view is the translation of Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) with "Socialist Unity Party of Germany" misleading - the German name has its origin in the forced union between the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and the SPD (Social Democratic Party) in East Germany - a better translation would be: United Socialist Party of Germany

Citius Altius Fortius 20:58, 04 Jul 2005 (CEST)


 * That is indeed one possible and actually the originally intended meaning. However, the current translation conveys it as well, is closer to the German and also contains various connotations. Str1977 (smile back) 12:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

All English-language sources I have ever seen refer to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Departing from this would cause confusion. 128.36.68.70 (talk) 02:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

President of East Germany
The article President of East Germany was for a long time head of the "Most Wanted articles" list. In a effort to perhaps reduced the most wanted list, someone redirected that article here. Firstly, is the redirect appropriate? If not, is there any interest in writing a standalone article? Next "President of East Germany" isn't mentioned here - but Chairman of the Council of Ministers is - which is the equivalent role? What is the best thing to do? Mention the word president somewhere here? Or fix all those links to "President" (which incidentially are all in the "List of heads of state in 19xx" series of articles. Pcb21| Pete 13:38, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know East Germany didn't actually have a position called president. Secretlondon 15:26, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Ok, I will go ahead and change the links of form Chairman of the Council of Ministers to a simple Chairman of the Councils of Ministers (or [[Chairman of the Councils of Ministers (East Germany) if disambiguation is necessary) and then redirect that page here for the time being. THanks for the help. ~

It had a post called 'Staatspräsident' and 'Präsident der DDR', although only until 1960. Bizarrely, in List of state leaders in 1990, 'President of the People's Chamber' is being linked to as President of the People's Chamber - ie President of the Volkskammer - and in List of state leaders in 1989, President of East Germany is linked to with the caption 'Chairman of the Council of State'. Somebody has got very confused. Morwen - Talk 21:41, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * No, this is correct. The post of President of the Republic was abolished after the death of the first president, Wilhelm Pieck. After that, there was a nominally collective head of state — the Staatsrat —  with its chairman the de-facto head of state. After the 1990 revolution, the Staatsrat was abolished. For the few months until German unification, the president of parliament assumed the duties of head of state. —ThorstenNY (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Reverts by Trust...

 * Der Trustisallyouneed,
 * this article is called "List of leaders of East Germany" (or alternatively, "List of leaders of the GDR") - however, there was no such thing as a "leader of the GDR" that one could simply list as one can list Kings of England or U.S. Presidents. The head of state was not the leader (hence the wrongheadedness of putting in an infobox with Pieck as first and Mrs Bergmann-Pohl as last leader, wuite apart from the Communist rule not ending on October 3), nor was the head of government. The article is called that way because of the pecularity of Communist systems such as this one here, that there are various high offices and that the nominally highest one (head of state, head of government) are not the most important ones (unless held in personal union).
 * I spend quite some time in reworking the information, excising redundant information already covered elsewhere, bring into a meaningful shape, remove false claims (e.g. contrary to the former version, the Chairman of the State Council was not the head of state, the State Council was), introduce a consistent and proper format and so on.
 * And then you come along and simply revert it all under meaningless ("Not a list of leadership, but leaders") and insulting ("stop this excessive vandalism") edit summaries.
 * The worst was "The head of parliament had no effective power, the exception was to be forced to except all laws approved by the politburo.. the head of military, while important, had no effective power outside the m", of which the first part is meaningless, the second incomprehensible (what is meant by "the exception was to be forced to except all laws approved by the politburo") and third betraying a clear lack of knowledge. Just look who these Chairmen of the National Defense Council were and you'll see. If push had come to shove, it would have been this office that would have provided the ultimate power. A look on the importance of a similar institution in China should also be instructive.
 * Str1977 (talk) 17:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Moved the page.... and did some nitpicks. --TIAYN (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, more unilateral moving on your part. I will not argue about the litle but I must revert the nitpicks. The "main articles" given are proper for the sections, the infobox cannot stay if it suggests a progression of leaders from Pieck to Bergmann-Pohl and suggests that "Communist rule ended on 3 October 1990". Str1977 (talk) 08:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Then fix the information in the infobox... but the infobox is here to stay... Thats all that i'm asking, so live with it. --TIAYN (talk) 10:17, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * But the information cannot be fixed. Communism didn't just end on December 6, and the only solution to the "leader issue" is to remove both lines. Str1977 (talk) 10:12, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The main problem with the box is that it confounds Communist dictatorship as a political system and the GDR as a state. Other communist states don't have that problem as the state either ended with the Communist system (e.g. the Soviet Union) or the state existed before and after Communism and hence the template would only refer to the period of statehood under Communist rule (say, a "leaders of Communist Poland"). In our case, we can neither omit the post-Communist period (too important) nor split it off (too short). I tried to deal with this the way I have. Str1977 (talk) 10:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)