The German Democratic Republic (GDR; Deutsche Demokratische
Republik, DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a
socialist state created by the Soviet Union in the Soviet Zone
of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin.
East Germany existed from 7 October 1949 until 3 October 1990,
when its re-established states acceded to the adjacent Federal
Republic of Germany (West Germany), thus producing the current
form of the state of Germany. Until 1952, the GDR consisted of
the German states of Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt,
Thuringia, Saxony and the capital, East Berlin. These divisions
roughly corresponded to prewar states (Länder) and provinces
(Provinzen) in the area of Eastern Germany administered by the
Soviet Union under the terms of the postwar Potsdam Agreement.
Two small remnants of states annexed by Poland after the war
(Pomerania and Lower Silesia) remained in the GDR and were
attached to neighboring territories. In the administrative
reform of 1952, the states were