Excluding Prussia, what could have been some alternate, other names that would have been used to represent east Germany? (Basically if it was referred to as something else rather than just East German Democratic Republic)
Alternative names for East Germany?
- Thread starter Angel Grace
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I take it that the idea would be to establish a distinct national identity similar to Austria after WWII, correct?
I'm just gonna guess... Saxony?
In our timeline both germanies went with pretty generic names because they explicitly did not want to establish the distinct identities @Reflection is talking about and hoped for reunification under their terms. For the BRD this is very unlikely to change, but the GDR was controlled by outside influences to a much a greater degree in this regard, so you might actually get the decision to go with a more distinct name, but still likely steeped in "communisty" adjectives. Something like a peoples democratic republic of Sachsen-Anhalt might be in the cards, but the possibilities here are very broad indeed.
Volksrepublik Altpolen!
*debating with myself over whether to duck or to run for cover* 🤣
*debating with myself over whether to duck or to run for cover* 🤣
Minor nitpick, but 'East' was never part of the official name. It was just the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik).
Yeah, realistically this wouldn't happen. Both governments saw themselves as the true successor to Germany and the other as illegitimate, with propaganda often smearing each other as such (West labeling East as a Soviet puppet and a socialist dystopia, East labeling West as being the successor to the Nazis and overall decadent). In fact it wasn't until 1972 where they each officially recognized each other. Thus, they avoided trying to make a distinct identity for themselves as something other than German.
Keep in mind, Austria only did it because they literally had to after Austria was forbidden by international law from uniting with Germany again after WWII. Thus they forged their identity by emphasizing what made them different. Beforehand it wasn't uncommon for Austrians to consider themselves to be German. But in this case, both sides always had the hope of a reunification with their governments being the baseline. It just so happened that the West defeated the East in the end.
I'd second Brandenburg.
Saxony may be a contentious choice given there are two Saxonies.
Saxony may be a contentious choice given there are two Saxonies.
Even though the OP said no, but I think Prussia works too. We associate it with conservatives Junkers, but “Red Berlin” and the industrial Ruhr were Prussia too.
East Germans socialists might have wanted to resignify “Prussia”. Arguably, only “Austria” is a stronger German state label.
Prussia was purposefully dismantled and erased from the map by the allies. No one would be keen on Prussia except Germans (who did not have a voice in the matter).
Yeah, but if Soviets had the benefit of the hindsight realizing how faithful East German government was, they might have found a good idea. Butterflies would probably kill reunification.
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Not sure I agree with this. For West Germany, they certainly aspired to a united Germany right up until unification itself. For East Germany, the government originally wanted to unite all Germans under their banner but from the 60s onwards they began to drop all pretenses to being representatives of "Germany". Under Honecker they abandoned it completely. They even made a point of downplaying the words "German" and "Germany" wherever they could (using "DDR" in it's place), and treated all Westerners as foreigners. Now whether that was just out practicality (they must have known at that point that they couldn't hope to unite Germany baring the Soviets invading the west and handing it to them) or out of an actual desire to create a separate eastern identity isn't clear. Obviously the people of East Germany themselves thought otherwise.
I'm not sure about the answer to this thread title, but there's an interesting anecdote linked to it - Charles de Gaulle apparently always used to refer to East Germany as "Saxony and Prussia" in his discussions with Willy Brandt.
