German Democratic Republic

The territory was held by the Soviet Union after the partition of Germany following World War II. It became a Communist Republic in 1949 and was a sovereign state independent of the USSR in 1955. East and West Germany were reunited in 1989-1990. In the reuinfication process in mid-1990 the borders of the five historic Länder, or states, of East Germany (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, and Thuringia) were restored, and on 3 October 1990 the states became part of a united Germany.