60th anniversary of East Germany marked

BERLIN, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Wednesday marked what would have been the 60th anniversary of East Germany, had it survived its 1989 downfall, historians said.

The communist German Democratic Republic was founded on Oct. 7, 1949 by delegates of a people's council gathered in the grand hall of the former aviation ministry in Berlin, while Germans across the Soviet-occupied zone listened on their radios, Deutsche Welle reported.

Wilhelm Pieck, who became East Germany's first president, on that day declared the birth of the first "workers and peasants state on German soil," saying, "Based on the new constitution, the German Democratic Republic has been founded unanimously by all parties and organizations present in the German people's council."

Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin said the GDR marked "the creation of a peace loving, democratic Germany alongside the peaceful Soviet Union," declaring it would help prevent new wars as well as the "enslavement of European countries by the western Imperialists," Deutsche Welle said.

The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, marking the border between the East and West Germany, signaled the end of the communist German state and the eventual reunification of Germany.