Original sentence: East Germany was a member of the Warsaw Pact, and was generally regarded in the West as being a totalitarian puppet state of the Soviet Union.East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR), German Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), was a Communist state that existed from 1949 to 1990 in the former Soviet occupation zone of Germany.Following free elections in March 1990, the state was dissolved and its territory was annexed to the Federal Republic of Germany in October 1990 (German reunification).It was declared fully sovereign in 1954, but Soviet troops remained on grounds of the four-power Potsdam agreement, largely to counterbalance the American presence in West Germany during the Cold War
Edited sentence: East Germany was a member of the Warsaw Pact.East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR), German Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), was a totalitarian Communist state that existed from 1949 to 1990 in the former Soviet occupation zone of Germany.It was declared fully sovereign in 1954, but Soviet troops remained on grounds of the four-power Potsdam agreement, largely to counteract the American presence in West Germany during the Cold War.It was generally regarded as being a puppet state of the Soviet Union – following free elections, the state was dissolved and its territory was annexed by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 (German reunification)