Volkskammer

The Volkskammer (German: [ˈfɔlkskamɐ], "People's Chamber") was the parliament of East Germany. Formally, it was the supreme organ of power in the state, and (in accordance with the principle of unified power) its only branch of government, with all other state organs subservient to it. In practice, however, like most communist parliaments, it was a rubber stamp body that did little more than ratify decisions already made by the SED Politburo.

The Volkskammer was initially the lower house of a bicameral representative body. The upper house was the Länderkammer (Chamber of States), but in 1952 the states of East Germany were dissolved, and the Länderkammer was abolished in 1958. Constitutionally, the Volkskammer was the highest organ of state power in the GDR, and both constitutions vested it with great lawmaking powers. All other branches of government, including the judiciary, were responsible to it. By 1960, the chamber appointed the State Council (the GDR's collective head of state), the Council of Ministers (the GDR's government), and the National Defence Council (the GDR's collective military leadership).

By the 1970s and before the Peaceful Revolution, the Volkskammer only met two to four times a year.