sentences:  On paper, the State Council chairman was the second-highest ranking state official in East Germany, behind only the chairman of the Council of Ministers.In practice, however, the chairmanship was occupied by the leader of the SED for all but a few years of its existence.The sole exceptions were the period of transition from the leadership of Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker from 1971 to 1976 and the immediate aftermath of the SED's collapse in 1989.