Volkskammer

Membership

In October 1949 the Volksrat ("People's Council"), charged with drafting the Constitution of East Germany, proclaimed itself the Volkskammer and requested official recognition as a national legislature from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. This was granted by Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. The Volkskammer then convened with the Länderkammer to elect Wilhelm Pieck as the first President of East Germany and Otto Grotewohl as the first Prime Minister of East Germany.

From its founding in 1949 until the first competitive elections in March 1990, all members of the Volkskammer were elected via a single list from the National Front, a popular front/electoral alliance dominated by the SED. In addition, seats were also allocated to various organizations affiliated with the SED, such as the Free German Youth. Effectively, the SED held control over the composition of the Volkskammer. In any event, the minor parties in the National Front were largely subservient to the SED, and were required to accept the SED's "leading role" as a condition of their continued existence.

The members of the People's Chamber were elected in multi-member constituencies, with four to eight seats. To be elected, a candidate needed to receive half of the valid votes cast in their constituency. If, within a constituency, an insufficient number of candidates got the majority needed to fill all the seats, a second round was held within 90 days. If the number of candidates getting this majority exceeds the number of seats in the respective constituency, the order of the candidates on the election list decided who got to sit in the Volkskammer. Candidates who lost out on a seat because of this would become successor candidates who would fill casual vacancies which might occur during a legislative period.

Only one list of candidates appeared on a ballot paper; voters simply took the ballot paper and dropped it into the ballot box. Those who wanted to vote against the National Front list had to vote using a separate ballot box, without any secrecy. The table below shows an overview of the reported results of all parliamentary elections before 1990, with the resulting disposition of parliamentary seats.

In 1976, the Volkskammer moved into a specially constructed building on Marx-Engels-Platz (now Schloßplatz again), the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik). Prior to this, the Volkskammer met at in the Mitte district of Berlin.

Initially, voters in East Berlin could not take part in elections to the Volkskammer, in which they were represented by indirectly elected non-voting members, but in 1979 the electoral law was changed to provide for 66 directly elected deputies with full voting rights.

With the advent of the Peaceful revolution, a new electoral law was passed on 20 February 1990, reducing the Volkskammer to 400 members and establishing their competitive election using party-list proportional representation, with no electoral threshold. Seats were calculated nationally using the largest remainder method, and distributed in multi-member constituencies corresponding to the fifteen Bezirke.

After the 1990 election, the disposition of the parties was as follows:

Presidents of the People's Chamber

The president of the People's Chamber was the third-highest state post in the GDR (after the chairman of the Council of Ministers and the chairman of the State Council) and was the ex officio vice president during the existence of the office of president. As such, on two occasions, the president of the People's Chamber served as acting president for brief periods in 1949 and 1960. The last president of the People's Chamber, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, was also interim head of state during the last six months of East Germany's existence due to the State Council having been abolished.

The presidency of the People's Chamber was held by a bloc party representative for most of that body's existence to keep up the appearance that the GDR was led by a broad coalition. Only one SED member ever held the post.

Parties and organizations represented

National front parties

National front organizations

Parties and organizations in the 1990 ''Volkskammer''

Results

1949 East German Constitutional Assembly election (first)

1986 East German general election (final under the SED)

1990 East German general election (final)

Notes

References

References

1. Pötzl, Norbert F.. (2020-03-18). "Letzte DDR-Volkskammer-Wahl vor 30 Jahren: Sieg der D-Mark". Der Spiegel.
2. Naimark, Norman M. ''The Russians In Germany: a History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949.'' E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995
3. Kurt Sontheimer & Wilhelm Bleek. ''The Government and Politics of East Germany''. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1975. p. 66.
4. [https://www.bpb.de/izpb/48519/der-ausbau-des-neuen-systems-1949-bis-1961 Andreas Malchya: Der Ausba des neuen Systems 1949 bis 1961], ''Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung'', last retrieved 2022-07-28.
5. "German Democratic Republic". Inter-Parliamentary Union.
6. Sebestyen, Victor. (February 2025). ["Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire"](https://archive.org/details/revolution1989fa00sebe}}{{page needed). [[Pantheon Books]].
7. (9 September 2014). "Longman Companion to Germany since 1945". Routledge.
8. (20 February 1990). "People's Chamber Election Law".
9. [[Dieter Nohlen]] & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p779 {{ISBN. 978-3-8329-5609-7