Map, GDR (ГДР), USSR (CCCP), 1971

Details

Original tourist map of the GDR, German Democratic Republic (ГДР, Германская Демократическая Республика, DDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik), soviet era, Russian text

Russia, Soviet-Union
Scale: 1:750.000

Main department of Geodesy and Cartography, under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Moscow 1971
GUGK 1971, Factory No. 5

72,0 x 79,0 cm

About this piece of art

In the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of 1945, the Allies (France, United Kingdom, USA, USSR) established their joint military occupation and administration of Germany via the Allied Control Council (ACC), effective until the restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ, Sowjetische Besatzungszone) comprised the five states (Länder) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. Disagreements over the policies to be followed in the occupied zones quickly led to a breakdown in cooperation between the Allied powers and the Soviets administered their zone without regard to the policies implemented in the other zones. The Soviets withdrew from the ACC in 1948; as the other three zones were increasingly unified and granted self-government, the Soviet administration instituted a separate socialist government in its zone.

The first president of the German Democratic Republic was Wilhelm Pieck. However, after 1950, political power in East Germany was held by the First Secretary of the SED, Walter Ulbricht. 

What happened in 1971

This map is from 1971. 

In this year, Walter Ulbricht was removed from leadership after Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev supported his ouster and Erich Honecker replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reforms, the Honecker government reversed them. Go back in time to what East Germany looked like with this map.

Look at the last picture for a more detailed description about this map from the printers.