A look back: East Germany's first freely elected parliament
Matthias von Hellfeld
March 17, 2025
In March 1990, 400 East German lawmakers became the first parliamentarians to take power after a free and fair election. Their goal: Germany's reunification.
Sabine Bergmann-Pohl (m) chaired the last session of the GDR Volkskammer Image: dpa
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On March 18, 1990, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) emerged as the strongest party after the election for the East German parliament, the People's Chamber. The conservative CDU laid claim to the offices of prime minister and parliamentary president.
Until this time, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl had worked as a lung disease specialist in East Berlin. Since 1981, she'd been a member of the East German CDU and rose up the party hierarchy.
After the March election, Bergmann-Pohl became not only the president of the People's Chamber, but also head of the East German state following a constitutional amendment.
Germany's reunification central to campaign
The election campaign in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was dominated by a single theme: reunification with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
The GDR parliament convened in the Palace of the Republic, which was torn down in 2008 due to asbestos contaminationImage: Gueffroy/IMAGO
In West Germany, CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl also made this a main focus of his campaign. The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), and their leader Willy Brandt, had misinterpreted the mood and expected the process of consolidation between the two German states to take much longer.
The majority of East German parliamentarians now began working toward implementing what most citizens of the GDR expected of them. But, as Bergmann-Pohl later recalled, the parties differed widely over how to achieve this goal.
"The civil liberties campaigners from Alliance '90/The Greens wanted a reformed GDR, while the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) wanted to cement the old standards," she said. "The other parties, the CDU, SPD, the German Social Union, the Liberals and the Association of Democrats, wanted the dissolution of the GDR and reunification with the FRG."
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'Spontaneous parliament' takes on big tasks
The election outcome in the East led to a coalition between the conservative CDU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). But the tasks ahead were so big that Premier Lothar de Maiziere also incorporated the second-most powerful party, the Social Democrats, into the government.
The proceedings of the first democratically elected People's Chamber were often chaotic. Bergmann-Pohl put this down to the fact that almost two-thirds of the representatives, herself included, had no parliamentary experience.
In 1990, the People's Chamber of the GDR voted in favor of unification with West GermanyImage: picture-alliance/ZB
"It was a very spontaneous parliament, we had no solid rules of procedure like our West German counterparts," said Bergmann-Pohl. "The few rules that the representatives were able to agree on were constantly changing. Nevertheless, we were an exceptionally busy and conscientious parliament."
This was certainly necessary since, despite their inexperience, the parliamentarians had to make decisions on very weighty matters. Since the future of all Germans was on the agenda, the West German government also became involved.
Teams of advisers from the Federal Republic poured in to make sure the legal process not only complied with both German constitutions, but also took account of the wish of most GDR citizens for reunification with West Germany to happen as quickly as possible.
De Maiziere also saw this as his primary obligation. In a government declaration, he summed up the sentiments felt in the GDR:
"The people of the GDR are part of one people, a part of one German people, that should grow together again," he said.
Berlin Wall anniversary: East Germans who thrived after fall
These athletes were already standouts in the domestic scene in the GDR. But after the Berlin Wall came down and German reunification took place in October 1990, they went on to make their names on the world stage.
Image: picture-alliance/Sven Simon
The Ice Princess
Figure skater Katarina Witt actually enjoyed her biggest successes before the Berlin Wall came down. In 1988 she won Olympic gold in Calgary for the GDR, following up on gold in 1984 in Sarajevo. Since the end of her active career she's appeared on TV shows as an expert, dabbled in acting and she even started her own charity for kids in 2005.
Image: DANIEL JANIN/AFP/Getty Images
More than one giant leap
Heike Drechsler won a number of Olympic and World Championship medals before German reunification. She first won Olympic gold in 1992 in Barcelona though, in the long jump. In 2000, in Sydney, she managed to repeat her success. Although at the beginning of the 1990s her doping and Stasi past was uncovered, she still remained a popular athlete across Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/Werek
Super Franzi
In 1992, the then 14-year-old swimmer Franziska van Almsick turned plenty of heads when she broke a world record in the 50 meter freestyle. At the Barcelona Olympics, she went on to win two silver medals and a bronze, and was one of the first sports stars of the newly-unified Germany. She won the German sportswoman of the year award three times and remains a popular public figure today.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/E. Elsner
The gentleman boxer
Henry Maske (left) used to be in the GDR army, and won gold for East Germany at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. He turned professional in 1990 and won the world championship three years later in the light heavyweight category. His fights were national TV events. In 2010 he even acted in the role of German boxing icon Max Schmeling, in a box office film.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Scheidemann
East Germany's best footballer?
Matthias Sammer (right) was one of the GDR's most talented footballers at the end of the 1980s. In 1990 he moved from Dresden to Stuttgart and won the Bundesliga shortly thereafter. After a brief stint at Inter Milan, he returned to Germany to play for Borussia Dortmund where he won two Bundesliga titles and the Champions League. He was also captain of the Euro '96- winning German team.
Image: Getty Images/A. Hassenstein
A century of caps
Just like Matthias Sammer, Ulf Kirsten (right) turned his back on Dynamo Dresden in 1990, to pursue a football career in the west of unified Germany. At Leverkusen he became one of the most successful goal scorers in the history of the Bundesliga, with 182 goals in 350 games. His attacking partner at the start of his career was Andreas Thom (left), also from the GDR.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The two strongmen
The discus throwers Lars Riedel (left) and Jürgen Schult (right) dominated their sport in the years after German reunification. Schult won Olympic gold in 1988 for the GDR and also competed side-by-side with Riedel as he then won five world titles and Olympic gold in 1996. Schult still holds the world record for the longest discus throw ever, but has always refuted any accusations of doping.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
King of the road
After an Olympic gold in 1988 for East Germany, Olaf Ludwig went professional in the west in 1990. In the same year he won three stages of the Tour de France and claimed the sprinters' green jersey. In 1992 he won the last stage of the Tour on the Champs Elysees in Paris, as well as the UCI Road World Cup.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Erik and Jan
A number of road cyclists followed Ludwig's example, after training together in the GDR. The two most successful were Erik Zabel (left), who won the green jersey six times in a row at the Tour de France, and Jan Ullrich (right). Ullrich was the first German to ever win the Tour de France, back in 1997. Afterwards though, both of them were exposed as having doped during their careers.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Breloer
High flyer
Ski jumper Jens Weissflog was one of the world's best for 15 years. The slightly-built athlete from Saxony celebrated numerous successes both before and after reunification, winning gold once at the Winter Olympics in 1984 and twice in 1994 too. With his 33 World Cup victories he's easily the most successful German ski jumper ever.
These four former East German athletes were responsible for a real boom in their sport at the start of the 1990s: Frank Luck, Mark Kirchner, Sven Fischer and Ricco Gross. They formed the core of Germany's combined biathlon relay team which won gold at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics. They also won various world championships, both individually and as a group.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Record-breaking canoeist
Birgit Fischer-Schmidt took part in six summer Olympics, from 1980 in Moscow to 2004 in Athens. Amazingly, in every games she attended, the kayaker picked up at least one gold medal, making her now Germany's most successful Olympian. The Brandenburg-born athlete finally ended her career in 2012, aged 50.
Image: picture-alliance/Sven Simon
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'We are one people!'
This sentiment became the main thrust of his government program. The premier devoted himself to this cause and, in the next few months, also tried to save the positive aspects of the GDR for the new era of a reunified Germany.
De Maiziere spoke of incorporating East Germans' "sense of social justice, solidarity and tolerance" into the process of consolidation. However, his words met with little response in West, as Helmut Kohl's government was already busy organizing the reunification of Germany, and these plans left little room for input from the soon-to-be-defunct GDR.
In addition to West German advisers, de Maziere's government also received help from an unexpected quarter: Gregor Gysi, the leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to the old East German Party of Socialist Unity. The PDS was fundamentally against reunification, but Gysi nonetheless played a constructive part in forming numerous constitutional amendments.
The work of the first freely-elected People's Chamber ended on October 3, 1990, the day East and West Germany were reunited. The parliamentarians in East Berlin had fulfilled the wishes of the GDR's citizens, laying the groundwork for the call "We are one people!" to become reality.
Forty-five years after the end of World War II, which resulted in the division of Germany and Europe, Germans could once again live in a single country.
This article was originally written in German in 2010, and updated on March 14, 2025.
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