page_title: Social Democratic Party in the GDR
section_title: In government
hierarchical_section_title: Social Democratic Party in the GDR / History / In government
caption_attribution_description: Wolfgang Thierse , Vizepräsident des Deutschen Bundestags auf einer Veranstaltung in Berlin 2008
context_page_description: The Social Democratic Party in the GDR was a reconstituted Social Democratic Party existing during the last phase of the East German state. Slightly less than a year after its creation it merged with the West German Social Democratic Party of Germany.
context_section_description: After internal debates the party members agreed to coalition talks with the winner of the election, the centre-right Alliance for Germany, consisting of the CDU, the DSU and Democratic Awakening, as well as with the Alliance of Free Democrats, an alliance of liberal parties. On 12 April, Lothar de Maizière of the CDU formed a grand coalition cabinet including six Social Democrats, among them Markus Meckel (foreign affairs), Regine Hildebrandt (social issues) and Walter Romberg (finance). The SPD initially supported de Maizière's policy of speedy reunification with West Germany, but left the cabinet on 20 August.
  Ibrahim Böhme was slated to have been a senior minister in the government.  However, during the coalition talks he had been unmasked as a longtime Stasi informer by the West German news magazine Der Spiegel. Though Böhme failed to acknowledge this, he agreed to suspend his party functions (he was later expelled from the party in 1992). On 8 April 1990, Meckel was chosen as the interim chairman, until an extraordinary meeting in Halle (Saale) on 9 June 1990 elected Wolfgang Thierse as the new party chairman. At the same time, Willy Brandt, former Chancellor of West Germany and honorary chairman of the West German SPD, was elected as honorary chairman of the East German SPD as well.
caption: Wolfgang Thierse
exif: {}