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The article never defines GDR, but I looked it up in case you were also unfamiliar: The German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly known as East Germany, was a

The article never defines GDR, but I looked it up in case you were also unfamiliar: The German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly known as East Germany, was a socialist state in Central Europe that existed from October 7, 1949, to October 3, 1990

frantathefranta 13d ago
The German acronym (DDR) is much better known among Eastern Europeans. My parents (Czech) would almost never call it East Germany.
- spankibalt 12d ago
  East German here. I have never met East Germans who called their home country Ostdeutschland before the Wende; that was very much a West German thing, and even then not as widespread as one might think (i. e. "DDR" was the much more common name amongst them). After the Wende it became (more of) a thing for Easterners as well, especially in context with the identity: Ostdeutsche(r).
  - mobilio 12d ago
    Bulgarian here - for me DDR/GDR is well known. Also FRG.
    - paganel 12d ago
      Romanian here, the same applied here on all counts. Back in the '80s and going into the '90s we also used to name an infamous and poor Bucharest area as RFG (FRG in English), which was the capital letters of those three neighborhoods taken together as an acronym.
- holgerschurig 12d ago
  Fun thing: some people here in Germany act like there is no East Germany. For them it is "Middle Germany". As if we still had Schlesien and Pommern ... Look at radio stations. We have SWR: Süd-West Rundfunk (south west) in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. We have WDR: Westdeutscher Rundfunk (west) in Nordrhein-Westfalen. We have NDR: Norddeutscher Rundfunk (north). In Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Hamburg (not Bremen). ... and then we have Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (middle) in Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen. And no one is in the east ...
  - pestatije 12d ago
    don't forget Königsberg, next east german state after russian defeat in 2027
    - flohofwoe 12d ago
      Nobody wants that shithole back. Unless of course the Czechs want a harbour, in that case they can have it ;)
  - avhception 12d ago
    Oh wow, that never occurred to me! TIL.
  - rob74 12d ago
    The explanation for that (according to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutscher_Rundfunk#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutscher_Rundfunk#Histo...) is tradition: there was a Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk from 1924 to 1934, when the geographic designation was correct, and the post-1990 MDR just continues that name. Actually, if you look at the map of German regional public broadcasters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_(broadcaster)#/media/File:ARD_Karte.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_(broadcaster)#/media/File:...) and squint a bit, the MDR is more or less in the middle: more on the north-south axis and less on the east-west axis (with only the RBB partly more east), but still...
  - flohofwoe 12d ago
    It's the "historical" pre-WW2 name of the region. But as "Ossi" I must say the name never sat well with me and the name MDR is one of the bigger fuckups of the reunification, it's essentially revisionist bullshit
  - johannes1234321 12d ago
    It's not 100% exact. There was the ORB - Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg. Which later (2003) merged with SFB - Sender Freies Berlin to RBB - Rundfunk Berlin Brandeburg. Thus the middle serves the middle. And while Saxonia (Part of MDR) indeed goes to the east most point of Germany it's at least middle in North-South. But the most middle point (depending a little on exact definition) is in Thuringa (also part of MDR)
- holgerschurig 12d ago
  In West-Germany we used a plethora of names: * "SBZ" -> Sowjetisch besetzte Zone -> sowjet occupied zone * "Ost-Zone" * "DDR" * "Ost-Deutschland" Almost no one spelled out "DDR" with "Deutsche Demokratische Republik", since that was a lie. There was little democracy there. People that fled from east-germany early (e.g. before the wall) usually used "SBZ "or "Zone". And it was usually meant in a derogatory sense. "DDR" was more neutral, although few people in west-germany had a neutral view on the eastern regime.
  - rob74 12d ago
    The funniest thing about the GDR was that its railways were still called "Deutsche Reichsbahn" ("German Imperial Railways" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichsbahn_(East_Germany) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichsbahn_(East_Germ...). Apparently they needed to keep the name in order to be able to still operate trains in West Berlin.
- shellac 12d ago
  > The German acronym (DDR) is much better known among Eastern Europeans. And in the UK. Presumably because it was used in athletic meetings and on cars. Never seen 'GDR', we'd just use 'East Germany'.
  - nephihaha 12d ago
    I have seen GDR used in the UK. But then again not many people refer to North Korea by its official name here.
- i_am_a_peasant 12d ago
  Yeah I never heard of "GDR", and I've visited the DDR museum in Berlin. My grandfather went to work in the DDR and when I was a kid in the 90s I still had all sorts of toys and things like casette recorders from the DDR. Oh man what a blast from the past that museum was.
- flohofwoe 12d ago
  I guess its mostly known through the "Made in GDR" label (some GDR products were actually pretty good bang for the buck, and good enough for "non-socialist" markets too).
- ngc248 12d ago
  I collect stamps and DDR is what I know of. The warsaw pact countries used to produce amazing stamps.
mrweasel 12d ago
I'm always confused when someone uses GDR, because to me East Germany is DDR, so GDR must be West Germany, which is it not. West Germany didn't like using BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and almost no one ever used the English version FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) so using the English version of DDR always seems confusing. Side note: I find it amusing that countries that have a need to put "Democratic" in their official name are never democratic. DR Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Why even bother, it's not like anyone is looking at the name and go: Yup, that's a democracy.
- criemen 12d ago
  It's even funnier: Having both "democratic" and "republic" is redundant - by definition, a republic is democratic. Only non-democracies feel the need to double down on the democratic part.

frantathefranta 13d ago

The German acronym (DDR) is much better known among Eastern Europeans. My parents (Czech) would almost never call it East Germany.

spankibalt 12d ago
East German here. I have never met East Germans who called their home country Ostdeutschland before the Wende; that was very much a West German thing, and even then not as widespread as one might think (i. e. "DDR" was the much more common name amongst them). After the Wende it became (more of) a thing for Easterners as well, especially in context with the identity: Ostdeutsche(r).
- mobilio 12d ago
  Bulgarian here - for me DDR/GDR is well known. Also FRG.
  - paganel 12d ago
    Romanian here, the same applied here on all counts. Back in the '80s and going into the '90s we also used to name an infamous and poor Bucharest area as RFG (FRG in English), which was the capital letters of those three neighborhoods taken together as an acronym.
holgerschurig 12d ago
Fun thing: some people here in Germany act like there is no East Germany. For them it is "Middle Germany". As if we still had Schlesien and Pommern ... Look at radio stations. We have SWR: Süd-West Rundfunk (south west) in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. We have WDR: Westdeutscher Rundfunk (west) in Nordrhein-Westfalen. We have NDR: Norddeutscher Rundfunk (north). In Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Hamburg (not Bremen). ... and then we have Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (middle) in Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen. And no one is in the east ...
- pestatije 12d ago
  don't forget Königsberg, next east german state after russian defeat in 2027
  - flohofwoe 12d ago
    Nobody wants that shithole back. Unless of course the Czechs want a harbour, in that case they can have it ;)
- avhception 12d ago
  Oh wow, that never occurred to me! TIL.
- rob74 12d ago
  The explanation for that (according to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutscher_Rundfunk#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutscher_Rundfunk#Histo...) is tradition: there was a Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk from 1924 to 1934, when the geographic designation was correct, and the post-1990 MDR just continues that name. Actually, if you look at the map of German regional public broadcasters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_(broadcaster)#/media/File:ARD_Karte.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_(broadcaster)#/media/File:...) and squint a bit, the MDR is more or less in the middle: more on the north-south axis and less on the east-west axis (with only the RBB partly more east), but still...
- flohofwoe 12d ago
  It's the "historical" pre-WW2 name of the region. But as "Ossi" I must say the name never sat well with me and the name MDR is one of the bigger fuckups of the reunification, it's essentially revisionist bullshit
- johannes1234321 12d ago
  It's not 100% exact. There was the ORB - Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg. Which later (2003) merged with SFB - Sender Freies Berlin to RBB - Rundfunk Berlin Brandeburg. Thus the middle serves the middle. And while Saxonia (Part of MDR) indeed goes to the east most point of Germany it's at least middle in North-South. But the most middle point (depending a little on exact definition) is in Thuringa (also part of MDR)
holgerschurig 12d ago
In West-Germany we used a plethora of names: * "SBZ" -> Sowjetisch besetzte Zone -> sowjet occupied zone * "Ost-Zone" * "DDR" * "Ost-Deutschland" Almost no one spelled out "DDR" with "Deutsche Demokratische Republik", since that was a lie. There was little democracy there. People that fled from east-germany early (e.g. before the wall) usually used "SBZ "or "Zone". And it was usually meant in a derogatory sense. "DDR" was more neutral, although few people in west-germany had a neutral view on the eastern regime.
- rob74 12d ago
  The funniest thing about the GDR was that its railways were still called "Deutsche Reichsbahn" ("German Imperial Railways" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichsbahn_(East_Germany) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichsbahn_(East_Germ...). Apparently they needed to keep the name in order to be able to still operate trains in West Berlin.
shellac 12d ago
> The German acronym (DDR) is much better known among Eastern Europeans. And in the UK. Presumably because it was used in athletic meetings and on cars. Never seen 'GDR', we'd just use 'East Germany'.
- nephihaha 12d ago
  I have seen GDR used in the UK. But then again not many people refer to North Korea by its official name here.
i_am_a_peasant 12d ago
Yeah I never heard of "GDR", and I've visited the DDR museum in Berlin. My grandfather went to work in the DDR and when I was a kid in the 90s I still had all sorts of toys and things like casette recorders from the DDR. Oh man what a blast from the past that museum was.
flohofwoe 12d ago
I guess its mostly known through the "Made in GDR" label (some GDR products were actually pretty good bang for the buck, and good enough for "non-socialist" markets too).
ngc248 12d ago
I collect stamps and DDR is what I know of. The warsaw pact countries used to produce amazing stamps.

mrweasel 12d ago

I'm always confused when someone uses GDR, because to me East Germany is DDR, so GDR must be West Germany, which is it not. West Germany didn't like using BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and almost no one ever used the English version FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) so using the English version of DDR always seems confusing. Side note: I find it amusing that countries that have a need to put "Democratic" in their official name are never democratic. DR Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Why even bother, it's not like anyone is looking at the name and go: Yup, that's a democracy.

criemen 12d ago
It's even funnier: Having both "democratic" and "republic" is redundant - by definition, a republic is democratic. Only non-democracies feel the need to double down on the democratic part.