History
The National Front was the successor to the Demokratischer Block which had been founded in the Soviet occupation zone. The Front itself was founded on March 30, 1950. It operated through the issuing of a generally consistent proportion of seats (divided between the Front's parties and SED-controlled mass organisations) submitted in the form of a single list of candidates during each election to the People's Chamber and based on a set quota rather than vote totals. As the Front's list was the only one submitted it "won" with virtually unanimous levels of support.
Although nominally a broad-based coalition, in practice the SED was the only one with any real power. By ensuring that Communists dominated the lists, the SED essentially predetermined the composition of the People's Chamber.
In 1950-1951, the public rejection of the validity of the list by some German politicians resulted in prison penalties for "rejecting the electoral law of the German Democratic Republic" (as in the case of LDPD leader Günther Stempel). By the mid-1950s, the more courageous members of the constituent parties had been pushed out, and the parties had all been transformed into loyal partners of the SED.
On December 5, 1989, the Front was effectively rendered impotent when the Christian Democratic Union and Liberal Democratic Party withdrew from it. On December 16 the ruling Socialist Unity Party was reformed into the Party of Democratic Socialism and distanced itself from prior SED policies. On February 20, 1990, an amendment to the Constitution of East Germany removed mention of the Front.
Read more about this topic: National Front (East Germany)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)