Germany

For more than forty years, Germany was split in two. Following World War II, the territory was divided into East (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR) and West (the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG). German unification took place at the beginning of the 1990s, after the collapse of the socialist-communist regime in the GDR toward the end of the 1980s, which followed the opening and democratization of Eastern Europe.

East and West Germany were under completely different governmental and economical regimes during the second half of the twentieth century. The FRG developed as a free, capitalist-oriented state within the western pact. The GDR, on the other hand, was locked into the Eastern Bloc under the state administration of the so-called real-existing socialism (real existierender Sozialismus), which had an enormous effect on the lives of East Germans. Citizens had no proprietary rights to land and property (all land, farms, and real estate were state owned from 1949 onward), no freedom of the press and expression, and no freedom to travel. Formal and informal social controls touched on all aspects of life, including the criminal justice system.

While West Germany was oriented toward general freedom, those in the GDR lived under a number of imposed restrictions and limitations. During the communist regime, there was only one party, the Social Unionists (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED), and crime statistics became a measure of success for the nation's socioeconomic advancement and the superiority of socialist rule (Kerner 1997). The GDR was neither democratic nor sovereign, for its dependence on Moscow was total. Travel between East and West Germany was subject to considerable restrictions, particularly after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which made it almost impossible for relatives to see each other.

Unauthorized crossing of the border, known as the “Iron Curtain” (Eiserner Vorhang), into West Germany was declared “escape from the republic” (Republikflucht) and was punished under GDR criminal law by long-term imprisonment. Those who were caught attempting to flee across the border were often shot by East German border guards.

The former FRG, which comprised 249,334 square kilometers, was made up of eleven federal states: Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), Nordrhein-Westfalen (Northrhine Westphalia), Hessen (Hesse), Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Bayern (Bavaria), and Baden-Württemberg. In addition, there were three city-states (Stadtstaaten): Hamburg, Bremen, and West Berlin. The city of Berlin itself was divided into East and West (East Berlin being the capital city of the [Page 785]GDR at that time). Bonn was the administrative capital of West Germany until unification. Today Berlin is once again the governmental seat and capital of the united Germany.

The GDR incorporated five administrative regions, the “new states” of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Sachsen (Saxony), and Thüringen (Thuringia). The total area of the GDR comprised 107,677 square kilometers at the time. Both parts of Germany (East and West) comprise 357,011 square kilometers.

After World War II, West Germany's population stood at 47 million. East Germany's was 18 million. Even before the opening of the border in 1989, there had been a considerable population shift from East to West, which continued even after unification. The population in 1999 was 67 million people in the former FRG and 15 million in the former GDR.

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