Vocabulary:

The acronym G.D.R. with or without punctuation stands for the term German Democratic Republic and is the international form of the German term Deutsche Demokratische Republik which of course had the acronym D.D.R. in German speaking countries.

East Germany, as it also became known, originated out of the former part of Germany which mainly had been occupied by Soviet forces after World War II (the former Soviet Zone) and existed from October 7th 1949 until October 3rd 1989. Since 1990, this day is called Tag der Deutschen Eineit ('day of German reunion') and is a bank holiday, even though the actual event so often thought of (the so-called 'fall of the Berlin wall') was on November 9th 1989.