A little history

In Germany, we’ll be travelling mostly in the old GDR, or East Germany.

At the end of the Second World War, Germany was split into four militarily occupied zones: the Allies had the west and the Soviet had the east. The original aim was to work together to help reconstruct Germany, but also to ensure that it could never again become a threat to world peace. But the Cold War soon got in the way of this.

So on 7 October 1949, the Soviets formed the German Democratic Republic (GDR). And almost overnight, history was re-written, as Germans in the eastern states switched from being Nazis to Communists. The GDR existed until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

During this time, one in 90 East Germans worked unofficially for the secret police or ‘Stasi’.

The FDR, or West Germany, was created on 23 May 1949 and existed until German reunification on 3 October 1990. It comprised the Western zones held by the Allies after WWII: the US,  the UK and France under the Potsdam Agreement of 1945.

Reunification started when Hungary opened its borders and thousands (15,000 in 3 days!) fled the GDR, also travelling into Poland and the Czech Republic. ‘die Wende’ or the ‘turning point’ was marked by the Peaceful Revolution - mass demonstrations in Leipzig - leading to the removal of the Berlin Wall. Under the reunification treaty, West Germany effectively absorbed the GDR.

The Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, while the Slovak region became the Slovak Republic. Czechoslovakia was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States.

In 1948, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence. Dissatisfaction with this regime culminated in the Prague Spring in 1968 which ended in a Soviet-led invasion.

It remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution and then on 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.