What does the GDR call itself if it doesn't reunify with the FRG?

Presuming for whatever reason German Reunification doesn't happen and we end up with two (real) democractic Germanies, what does the former East Germany call itself? The other former Warsaw Pact countries just dropped the "People's" from the front of Republic but East Germany can't really do that.
 
Might they simply adopt "East Germany" as a legal name?

Though I don't see why they couldn't just drop Democratic and be the "German Republic", it would still be different from the "Federal Republic of Germany"...
 
Well if reunification doesn't happen (I remember a good TL that started out about this but never got finished), I don't see why they would need to change the name. After all it's not like it was the "People's Republic of Germany". It was the "German Democratic Republic". That would be a fine name if they did become democratic and didn't reunite.
 
Well if reunification doesn't happen (I remember a good TL that started out about this but never got finished), I don't see why they would need to change the name. After all it's not like it was the "People's Republic of Germany". It was the "German Democratic Republic". That would be a fine name if they did become democratic and didn't reunite.

Do you want me to call Jon Stewart?
 
Do you want me to call Jon Stewart?

Sure, I like his comedy :D (although I think in the earlier parts of the Bush presidency it was better - more material I guess).

But seriously why would a name change be necessary? Especially if it actually became democratic? Such a situation would be more like East Germany finally living up to it's official name and if reunification doesn't happen it would probably require that West and East Germans actually be rather cool at the prospect of reunification, hence it might require East Germans actually being attached to their country and it's separate existence and identity (just not it's communist system).

It would be sorta like having Cuba needing to change it's name just to reflect a change in it's political system if that ever happened. Cuba was the Republic of Cuba before going communist and has been the Republic of Cuba since going communist and would probably remain as the Republic of Cuba after communism (if that happens). The reason for this is a strong identity with "Cuba" and it's name which is divorced from how Cuba is run. If under any scenario East Germans don't have a strong identity with "East Germany/the German Democratic Republic" then it seems unlikely that reunification would be prevented in the first place so as to bring about the question you raised in the OP. In the other eastern European countries there names were changed when they went communist to reflect their new communist systems so of course a change was seen as being necessary, but with East Germany there isn't anything to change it back to, since the whole identity of East Germany was created in the 1950s as "the German Democratic Republic".

At most they could probably attempt to adopt the former identity of the Weimar Republic (that would have the problem of adopting/referring to the identity of a united Germany...), but I can't see the Four occupying powers being happy with a German state (with a capital in Berlin no less!) readopting the name "Deutsches Reich" . ;)
 

Redbeard

Banned
They might have consulted a numerologist and be given the name Zhermania!

That would of coulse have them be Zhermaniacs...

Regards :p

Steffen Redbeard
 
At most they could probably attempt to adopt the former identity of the Weimar Republic (that would have the problem of adopting/referring to the identity of a united Germany...), but I can't see the Four occupying powers being happy with a German state (with a capital in Berlin no less!) readopting the name "Deutsches Reich" . ;)

The rail authority of the GDR officially carried the name of "Deutsche Reichsbahn" up until 1990...
 
German Democratic Republic never struck me as overly communist.

Though unless the Social Unity party stays in power, I don't see why they wouldn't reunited with West Germany following the fall of the Soviet Union.
 
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