inception east german green party
World War II ( often abbreviated to WWII or WW2 ), also known as the Second World War , was a global war that lasted from ___MASK8___ to ___MASK60___ , although related conflicts began earlier . It involved the vast majority of the world ' s nations  including all of the great powers  eventually forming two opposing military alliances : the Allies and the Axis . It was the most widespread war in history , and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries . In a state of " total war ", the major participants threw their entire economic , industrial , and scientific capabilities behind the war effort , erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources . Marked by mass deaths of civilians , including the Holocaust ( in which approximately 11 million people were killed ) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres ( in which approximately one million were killed , and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities . These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history . East Germany , formally the German Democratic Republic or GDR , was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period . From ___MASK53___ to ___MASK52___ , it administered the region of Germany that was occupied by Soviet forces at 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 ; as a result , West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR . The German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone , while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones . East Germany was 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 ___MASK53___ . Soviet forces , however , remained in the country throughout the Cold War . Until ___MASK49___ , the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party ( SED ), though other parties nominally participated in its alliance organisation , the National Front of Democratic Germany . The Green Party ( German : Grüne Partei ) in East Germany was founded in February ___MASK52___ . At the first free Volkskammer elections it stood with the Independent Women ' s Association ( Unabhängige Frauenverband ) and received 2 . 0 % of the vote . They received 8 seats but could not resolve how to allocate them . The Women ' s Association pulled out and the Green Party formed a joint parliamentary group with Bündnis 90 . The Soviet Occupation Zone (" Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii ", " Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany ") was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from ___MASK60___ on , at the end of World War II . On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic ( GDR ), which became commonly referred to as East Germany , was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone . West Berlin was a city that existed in the period between the end of the Berlin Blockade on ___MASK14___ May ___MASK53___ to German reunification on 3 October ___MASK52___ as a political enclave surrounded by East Berlin and East Germany . It was east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors . It consisted of the American , British , and French occupation sectors established in ___MASK60___ and shared economic , political , legal , and sporting systems with West Germany , but was not " de jure " part of it . It had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies . East Berlin , " de jure " occupied and administered by the Soviet Union , was the " de facto " capital of East Germany . The Berlin Wall , built in 1961 , physically divided East and West Berlin until it fell in ___MASK49___ . The Oder  Neisse line is the international border between Germany and Poland . It was drawn at the Potsdam Conference in the aftermath of the Second World War and is primarily delineated along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers in Central Europe , meeting the Baltic Sea to the north , just west of the Polish seaports of Szczecin and winoujcie ( German : " Stettin " and " Swinemünde "). All prewar German territory east of the line and within the ___MASK5___ German boundaries ( 23 . ___MASK41___ % of the former Weimar Republic ) were placed under International Law Administrative status , with most of it being made part of newly - Communist Poland . The small remainder , consisting of the territory surrounding the German city of Königsberg ( now renamed Kaliningrad , in honour of Soviet head of state Mikhail Kalinin ) in northern East Prussia , was allocated to the Soviet Union ( as Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian SFSR , today the Russian Federation ) after the war ( pending the final World War II peace treaty for Germany ). The vast majority of the native German population in these territories fled , or was killed or expelled by force . The Oder  Neisse line marked the border between the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ) and Poland from ___MASK99___ to ___MASK52___ . East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in ___MASK99___ , while West Germany , after a period of refusal , finally accepted the border ( with reservations ) in ___MASK75___ . In ___MASK52___ the newly reunified Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty recognizing it as their border . The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the Soviet Union and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ). Historians do not fully agree on the dates , but a common timeframe is the period ( the second half of the 20th century ) between ___MASK1___ , the year the Truman Doctrine ( a U . S . policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism ) was announced , and ___MASK33___ , the year the Soviet Union collapsed . The People ' s Chamber ( German : Volkskammer ) was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ). From its founding in ___MASK53___ until the first free elections on ___MASK70___ March ___MASK52___ , all members of the " Volkskammer " were elected via a list controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( SED ), called the National Front . Despite the appearance of a multi - party system , all these Bloc parties were completely subservient to the SED . In addition , seats were also allocated to various mass organizations affiliated with the SED , such as the Free German Youth . The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR " ) was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from ___MASK97___ to ___MASK33___ . A union of multiple subnational republics , its government and economy were highly centralized . The Soviet Union was a one - party federation , governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital . The Socialist Unity Party of Germany , established in April ___MASK18___ , was the governing Marxist  Leninist political party of the German Democratic Republic from the country ' s foundation in October ___MASK53___ until it was dissolved after the Peaceful Revolution in ___MASK49___ . The Potsdam Agreement was the agreement between three of the Allies of World War II , United Kingdom , United States , Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , for the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany  referring to the German Reich with its pre - war ___MASK5___ borders including the former eastern territories  and the entire European theatre of War territory . It also included Germany ' s demilitarisation , reparations and the prosecution of war criminals .