me about once the western powers demonstrated their determination to create an independent German state in the western region. The aims of Soviet policy following World War II were diametrically opposed to the west. Originally, the creation of an East German state had not been the preference of Josef Stalin because it appeared to him to be more important to have direct access to the economy of the whole Germany. But the establishment of an independent West Germany changed Soviet policy. It became more effective for Stalin's interests to establish a counter-state in Germany. Thus, East Germany was born (Reich, 1966, p. 19).
The German Democratic Republic, with a territory of 108,178 square kilometers in 1989, was right in the center of Europe. To the north its border was the Baltic Sea, to the east Poland, to the south Czechoslovakia and to the west the Federal German Republic. More than 1,300 kilometers of East Germany bordered with West Germany, and 160 kilometers bordered with West Berlin. There were roughly 20 million inhabitants of East Germany in the 1980s, with a population density of about 160 inhabitants per square kilometer. Although the GDR contained several urban centers, the bulk of the population lived in rural areas. In the 1980s, a quarter of the population lived in communities of more than 100,000 residents. The state territory of the GDR was sub-divided into 15 counties, with 24 urban centers and 192 rural districts and 9,164 communities (Marcuse, 1991, pp. 12-14).
With the founding of the GDR in 1949, Berlin, in accordance with the East German constitution, became its capital city. West Berlin, which had been 169 miles within the territory of East Germany, remained under the separate occupation powers of the Western alliances and developed into an independent political structure. West Berlin was not to become a part of West Germany, although the free trade and travel between West Berlin and West Ge...