1963 East German general election

General elections were held in East Germany on 20 October 1963. They were to originally be held in November 1962 but were postponed. 434 deputies to the Volkskammer were elected and 66 deputies appointed by the Magistrate of East Berlin, with all of them being candidates of the single-list National Front, dominated by the communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The seat count outside of East Berlin was expanded in this election by 34, making the Volkskammer a round 500 members large. The new seats (plus 12 seats allocated to the Peasants Mutual Aid Association in previous elections) exclusively went to the SED and the mass organizations, the bloc parties' all staying at 52 seats.

Like all East German elections before the Peaceful Revolution, this election was neither free nor fair. Voters were only presented with a closed list of candidates (pre-approved by the SED Central Committee Secretariat) put forward by the National Front. The list predetermined an outcome whereby the SED had both the largest faction in the Volkskammer and a majority of its members, as almost all of the Volkskammer members elected for one of the mass organizations were also members of the SED. While voters could reject the list, they would have to use the polling booth, the use of which was documented by Stasi informants located at every polling site, and had to cross out every name, as "Yes" and "No" boxes were removed after the 1950 election. Abstaining from voting was also seen as oppositional and punished. While legally permissible according to East German election laws, widespread election monitoring was not done out of fear for repression until the 1989 local elections.