BRD (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland; English: FRG/Federal Republic of Germany); (listen) is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. It has occasionally been used in the Federal Republic itself since its foundation;[1][2] it was commonly used between 1968 and 1990 by the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), resulting in a temporary strong deprecation of its use in West Germany. The East German regime had previously used the term "German Federal Republic" to refer to its western counterpart.