2. In response the creation of the FDR (West Germany), Stalin orders the creation of a Communist East German state (the GDR)
1953 – Stalin’s death prompts hundreds of thousands of workers to go on strike. The strike is crushed by the Soviet army – 125 East Germans are killed
1950 – the Stasi (East German Secret Police) is created to spy on East Germans and serve as the ‘Sword and Shield of the Socialist Unity Party’
1953 – Following a wave of strikes, the Stasi is doubled in size to increase its ability to spy on and arrest opponents of the Communist regime
1950 – Walter Ulbricht becomes the leader of East Germany. His party, the Socialist Unity Party, is the only political party allowed in Germany
1949 – Stalin orders East German factories to be disassembled and transported to the USSR, East Germans suffer from the draining of their wealth to the Soviet Union
1952 – Ulbricht closes the border between East and West Germany (although the border between East and West Berlin remains open – 182,000 people flee to the West)
1961 – Soviet Leader, Nikita Khrushchev, constructs the Berlin Wall, finally preventing East Germans from escaping to the West
1949 – 120,000 East German opponents of the Communists are thrown into concentration camps that used to be used by the Nazis during WW2. Over 1/3 of them die.