German Democratic Republic
1
5.5
- proper noun
:
República Democrática Alemana
- The archive studied first and most extensively preserved records of the "Stasi," the Ministry of State Security of the German Democratic Republic (the MfS of the GDR, the former East Germany).
- German Democratic Republic (GDR)
- the former German Democratic Republic
Examples
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The virtual collapse of the German Democratic Republic and the process of unification proceeded much more rapidly than had been anticipated.
Academic text (1991) -
Specifically, we compare Saxony, a state in the East that was previously part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and NRW, a state in the West, and work out the different ideas that are implicit in how inventions were (and still are) managed in the two states.
Academic text (2018) -
The consul proposed to us that we move to Berlin, in the German Democratic Republic.
Academic text (2013) -
But in the case of the exodus from the German Democratic Republic, which preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall,
Academic text (1996) -
The German Democratic Republic had been a member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).
Academic text (1991) -
When the new German Democratic Republic Parliament met in 1990, it included twenty-one pastors or theologians.
Academic text (1991) -
We have found no evidence suggesting that Segal doubted his main assertions, which he repeated after both the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union had died, as late as 1992, 1993.
Academic text (2013) -
The Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) was, in English, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or East Germany, a communist state extant from 1949 to 1990.
Academic text (2013) -
COMECON East European member states include the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam are also member states.
Academic text (1990) -
The German Democratic Republic was established in 1949 as a socialist state in East Germany.
Synonyms
24
3.5
A country in north central Europe under Soviet control from 1949 to 1990
Surface Forms
Morphology
German + democratic + republic
The compound is directly compositional: 'German' (of Germany) + 'democratic' (governed by democratic principles) + 'republic' (a state), so a learner who knows the constituents will infer it denotes a (democratic) republic associated with Germany. While historical specifics (that it was the East German socialist state and is now former) require background knowledge, the basic referent is transparently derived from the parts and matches common cross‑linguistic naming patterns for states.
Etymology
German Democratic Republic comes from the country set up in 1949 in the part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union after World War II. It used the words German, Democratic, and Republic to sound like a normal 'democratic' country, but it was the official name for 'East Germany', so today the name refers to that former country that existed from 1949 to 1990.